But where does this mixed market leave the provision of forensic science in England and Wales?
Lincolnshire Police claims it is leading the way in using forensic science to tackle crimes.
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Dean Ames is head of the Forensic Science Service's drugs unit, which analyses drug seizures in London.
The committee proceeded to briefings on forensic science, encouraging earlier guilty pleas and the Faster, Fairer Justice Bill.
Lana, who just finished a five-year forensic science degree, had been backpacking around the world when the tsunami hit.
The findings were also outlined at the sixth European Academy of Forensic Science conference in The Hague this week.
Poor working conditions, rudimentary surveillance and communications equipment, inadequate forensic science laboratories and outdated weaponry are making matters worse.
This has brought the deficiencies of forensic science's other techniques into sharper relief.
The firm, which is the largest forensic science service provider in the UK, has the statutory function of Government Chemist.
But a great variety of topics are peculiar to forensic science, and it is here that methodological standards start to slip.
On the same day, LGC Forensics in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and the Forensic Science Service in Birmingham, received similar devices in the post.
The Home Office's Forensic Science Service did more tests and came to the same conclusion: the double murderer was still at large.
But House picked up the case in 2007 to see if advances in forensic science might help him get the case going again.
Mr Fisher hopes this will prompt research into the branches of forensic science that are not currently based on a wider body of scientific literature.
The Home Office says it has faith in police standards, and police labs are still expected to meet the standards set by the Forensic Science Regulator.
It was not until 1999 that the Forensic Science Service (FSS) developed technology to enable its scientists to find a full DNA profile of Marion's killer.
But Ray Palmer, of the Forensic Science Service, insisted his own re-examination of the fibres "bolsters the initial findings", that fibres linked Hall to the scene.
Forensic science has a lot of romantic literature behind it, with many fictional detectives stalking the pages of whodunnits magnifying glass in hand and nicotine-source in mouth.
Roger Koppl is a professor of Economics and Finance at Fairleigh Dickinson University's Silberman College of Business and a Director of the Institute for Forensic Science Administration.
But, even in an era of sophisticated forensic science, definitive evidence can be elusive: in one case, the Serbs burned hundreds of corpses in a lead smelter.
Scotland is unaffected by the announcement, as the Scottish Police Services Authority is responsible, while Nothern Ireland has its own agency, Forensic Science Northern Ireland.
Samples are tested and stored by the Forensic Science Service.
Details appear in the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics.
An expert from the government's Forensic Science Unit told the inquest there was 15 cubic metres of polurethane foam in the shed providing plenty of fuel for the flames.
Over the years advances in forensic science such as fingerprint, ballistics, and especially DNA testing have allowed for many cases to be solved just by re-examining the old evidence.
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He does not contest that he sent the letters to three forensic science laboratories, a computer company, an accountancy firm, the DVLA and a residential address, but denies intending to cause injury.
The House of Commons science and technology committee is conducting an inquiry into the impact of closing the Forensic Science Service (FSS) which analysed crime scene evidence in England and Wales.
Forensic Scientists at the University of Sussex have published research findings in Forensic Science International describing a new method for finding fingerprints at the scene of a crime.
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The head is indubitably Cromwell's: though the provenance is a little cloudy in the early 18th century, it beggars belief that a fraudster of that era would be able to fool forensic science many years later.
Dean Ames, a drugs specialist at LGC Forensics, a private forensic science company, says that the street-level cocaine he analyses has fallen from between 30% to 60% purity in 2007 to between 10% and 35% now.
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