In 1918, the Russian tsar Nicholas II was deposed, and he and his family were reportedly executed and buried in a shallow grave. During this chaotic time, rumors abounded that the youngest daughter, Anastasia, had escaped. In 1920, a woman in Germany claimed to be Anastasia. In 1979, remains were recovered for the tsar, his wife (the Tsarina Alexandra), and three of their children, but not Anastasia. How would you evaluate the claim of the woman in Germany?

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Hi, everyone. Welcome back. Let's look at our next question. It says, and forensic science, mitochondrial DNA can be useful because, well, let's look through our answer choices. But we'll start by noticing that choice D is all of the above. So we'll keep in mind that all of the answers could be correct. Let's start with choice. A, the extraction and amplification of mitochondrial DNA are easy. Well, this is correct compared to extracting and amplifying nuclear DNA. It is easier to do so for mitochondrial DNA, which is an advantage in forensic science as it makes that process cheaper and quicker. Now, I'm going to mark this as correct. I'll put a little dot by choice A but I'm not going to select it as my answer since I do have that all of the above possibility. So let's look at choice B. It can be used to eliminate a candidate as the source of the mitochondrial DNA. And this is also correct. A disadvantage of mitochondrial DNA is that it's not individual specific specific in the way nuclear DNA is nuclear, nuclear DNA can be used as a DNA fingerprint, which can allow you to identify specifically an individual who left the DNA sample and rule out pretty much everyone else. Whereas mitochondrial DNA is shared among all of a person's maternal line relatives. So there are multiple people can be quite a number of people that could have been the source of a DNA sample. However, if your suspect is not maternally related to the person that left the sample, they can be eliminated. So that still is an advantage of mitochondrial DNA in identifying a suspect. Now, if I want to test, I would now pick choice D as my answer. All of the above since I've already got more than one correct answer. But in the interest of being thorough, let's look at choice C, the mitochondrial DNA is not affected by environmental factors. And yes, this is also correct unlike nuclear DNA, which can become degraded or damaged if exposed to environmental factors like uh sunlight, water. Other things, if a DNA sample has been exposed to the environment for a long time, the mitochondrial DNA is more stable and not affected by these things. So when it comes to a DNA sample that's been exposed to the environment, the mitochondrial DNA will give you an advantage. So in forensic science, mitochondrial DNA can be useful because choice D all of the above. See you in the next video.

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Key Concepts

DNA Analysis

Historical Context

Forensic Anthropology