The reference pollen in this study is a cattail pollen (Typha angustifolia L.) because it is a plant that can be seen all over Thailand, currently widespread throughout the world. This grass usually grows covered up tightly in areas that are overgrown and dirty place and it can produce much pollen thus conceal the murder.
The objectives of this research were to compare the adhesive efficacy of the cattail pollen on different fabrics and study palynological characteristic of cattail pollen. This study could be used to consider the part of supportive document in forensic investigation and help depicting how to use the Hirox® program in analyzing the result.
The population of cattail pollen grains used in this experiment was collected in the area of Phitsanulok province. Three types of fabrics including cotton, denim and polyester were dust with pollen grains and left undisturbed for four different periods of time (1 day, 3 days, 5 days and 7 days) before studying the adhesive capability and palynological characteristic of pollen. Scanning electron Microscope was used in characteristic study, while the pollen counting was performed on the light microscope with the help of the Hirox® software and the Hirox® microscope in RGB counting mode. All data were statistically analyzed by One-Way ANOVA, which analyzing the differentiation of the pollen quantity on different fabrics. The result revealed a statistically significant difference at the p < 0.05 level between groups of fabrics. The quantity of pollen grains adhering to the fabrics showed the highest value on the polyester, followed by the denim, whereas the cotton found lowest amount.
Keywords
Pollen, Forensic science, Biological evidence, Microscope, Typha angustifolia L.
NARESUAN UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY