forensic detectives should dust the glass in doors and windows of houses recently burgled and check for nose-prints. thieves notoriously press their nasty little noses to the glass to see if anyone is around and if the place is likely to have any goodies worth stealing.

if fingerprints are unique to humans, I imagine that likewise are noses pretty much individual in size, shape, hairiness, skin texture, scarring and spottiness.

gradually the filth, I mean the police will build up a database of noseprints. please no mention of nasal genetic material, pleeese.
-- po, May 30 2003

(??) The Ohio State Fair, and Noseprints. http://defiance.osu.edu/4h/2003jan.pdf
[Amos Kito, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Using Latent Ear Prints http://news.bbc.co....sci/tech/246713.stm
Can't find anyone who is trying to use latent nose prints to identify criminals. I suspect this is because noses have much less variation than ears, and you'd be better off trying to analyse the traces of DNA. [DrCurry, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Nose Print http://www.oznet.ks...u/pr_eyas/beef3.gif
Saw a bunch in an exhibition once, but there don't seem to be many out there on the Internet. [DrCurry, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]

Police need noses http://www.mapinc.o...s/v00/n152/a02.html
[po, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Proboscis Monkey http://www.geocitie...ines/5257/gdc5.html
The one with the nose, guv. He done it! [DrBob, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

(?) He was caught with a nose. http://216.239.33.1...nose&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Trying to ditch it in the river. [thumbwax]

this guy has just had his conviction overturned and released from jail http://www.guardian...763,1129494,00.html [thumbwax, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

this guy has just had his conviction overturned and released from jail http://www.guardian...763,1129494,00.html
[po, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004]

What happens if fiendish master criminals start wearing false noses ...
-- Aristotle, May 30 2003


thats always going to be a problem but then they would stand out somewhat in a police lineup.
-- po, May 30 2003


You can start your database with the Ohio State Fair [link]. It states that in order to enter a steer in the fair, members must submit a noseprint.
-- Amos Kito, May 30 2003


Criminal identification actually started with ear prints*, of all things, the forensic scientists of the day having recognized that no two pairs of ears are the same. Once they discovered fingerprints had a similar quality, those gradually became more accepted.

* This may be a myth: the various web sites conflict.
-- DrCurry, May 30 2003


Just got back from the local constabulary. They looked at me a bit funny, but acquiesced in the end. I immediately put them in the post to you [po], so...

...some day your prints will come.
-- phoenix, May 30 2003


HA!

Ok, and add to that, this idea is hilarious. Burglars with pressed noses to glass, like children on the outside of a candy shop.
-- k_sra, May 30 2003


Nose prints are also used with gorillas. The field workers inks the gorilla's nose and then presses a sheet of paper to the 300lb one's snoozle.

The subsequent pattern of the field worker's bruises and broken bones inflicted by the enraged gorilla is then used to identify the beast ...
-- Aristotle, May 30 2003


have you a link to that, Aristotle? that is so funny.

I do hope you are not talking about UnaBubba <g>
-- po, May 30 2003


I've had my nose abraded smooth to near-nothingness for exactly this reason. Next, I shall contract several more nose-jobs and possibly a chin implant. I want to be scary like Michael. <G>
-- X2Entendre, May 30 2003


I thought this was going to be a rant about Michael Jackson's plastic surgeon(s).
-- Cedar Park, Jun 01 2003


Careful.
You never know, he just may be a halfbaker.

No, not the surgeon.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 02 2003


They do use nose-prints to identify gorillas but I believe that is a photographic process. As people have said they do physical ink and paper nose prints for cows but domestic cattle are not wild.

Google had a photo of a gorillas nose labelled as a nose-print (since disappeared) and there are also some sketchings from a site that has vanished.
-- Aristotle, Jun 02 2003


I thought they already did this. It seems on tv shows about cops, the cheif always says something like, "let's give the Ustard case to detective Biggs. He's got a real nose for these things."

Actually that sounds like more than just a noseprint.
-- dijontoothpaste, Jun 02 2003


<Yet another tiresome misunderstanding> I thought this was going to be about a facility for improving your street cred by surgically altering your nose. Rather than making it smaller or straighter, as is usual, you could have it enlarged, sharpened, or flattened, or have the end made bulbous and pockmarked. Hair transplants would be extra.

(+) anyway.
-- egbert, Jun 04 2003


what are you saying? your nose has heaps of street cred dear. oh!
-- po, Jun 05 2003


What are you saying? That I already have a criminal's nose??
-- egbert, Jun 06 2003


no, did I say that?
-- po, Jun 08 2003


I seem to remember a story that i heard a number of years back, about how the police caught an eavesdropper by using his earprint, so i guess the nose print would probably work
-- demo_nova, Jul 22 2003


But if the burglars are wearing their ski masks, bandannas, nylon stockings, or ex- president masks correctly, there won't be any nose prints for the police to work with in the first place!
-- ye_river_xiv, Aug 25 2006


True, but you'd have a good excuse for interrogating a few ex-presidents.
-- pertinax, Aug 27 2006


Or for learning to surf on Government time...
-- ye_river_xiv, Jun 10 2008



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