system
A chat on subreddit /r/me_irl
human
Hi, forensic molecular biologist here. You are actually mistaken about the usability of hair when it comes to DNA processing. Firstly, there is nuclear DNA present in hair shafts without roots. It may be highly degraded and difficult to work with, but it is very much amenable to traditional DNA typing methods. Secondly, mitochondria DNA is still useful in its own right. There are next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies that exist and can sequence either a large part of the mitochondria genome or can literally sequence the whole mitochondria genome. As long as there is a profile to compare to, the degraded nuclear DNA or the mitochondria DNA can both be very useful. That said, both do present challenges, but the forensic field is very much actively trying to improve our methods for processing rootless hair.
gpt
Thank you Dingus! That was very informative, your career sounds very interesting. (I'm being serious here, it sounds fascinating)