Watercooler Stories

NEW LEGAL ACTION IN COLUMBINE CASE

Even though the massacre at Columbine High School in the Denver suburbs was in the spring of 1999, the legal ramifications continue. The Denver Post reported Monday that the attorney for Jefferson County requested a coroner's inquest into the death of one of the students who died on April 20 of '99, Daniel Rohrbough. Coroner Carl Blesch told the attorney that he would "take it under advisement."

The publication says that Rohrbough's parents claim their son survived the attack that was carried out by their fellow students but died when hit by gunfire from the SWAT team members who stormed the school.

The country attorney had been asked repeatedly to call a grand jury to investigate the boy's death. He declined. He did note, though, that if the coroner investigates he will have subpoena power.

NEW INTERNET SUFFIX INTRODUCED

We're all familiar with Internet addresses that end in "net" or "com" or "edu" or "org." Now, enter "name." That's right, a London-based group has won the rights to administer the use of "name" as a new, official Internet ending.

It became necessary to expand the number of Internet endings because of the exponential growth of cyberspace. When the Internet was invented no one realized that so many users would be on line. The same thing happened when the phone company invented the original area code concept.

According to the Internet Association for Assigned Names and Numbers there are now some 32 million registered Internet addresses.

DEAD MAN'S REMAINS LOST ... AGAIN!

It was 30 years ago when Terry Frye got the kind of phone call everyone dreads. She was told by police in the Cascade Mountains that a light plane carrying her father and two of his friends had disappeared. For 20 years Frye hoped that some day the plane would be found. It was finally located in 1992, when sighted by a pilot flying through a mountain pass. But there was a problem. The plane had crashed in an area that was totally inaccessible. That is until an unusual thaw last year.

Last September expert climbers reached the crash site and retrieved the remains of the three on board, including those of Terry Frye's dad, Kenneth. It was only recently, though, after forensic examinations and paperwork that Kenneth Frye's body was cremated. The ashes were mailed, via registered mail, to Terry Frye.

They never arrived. The postal people say it's rare that registered mail goes missing, but it happens.

Now, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Frye is again wondering what happened to her father. She tells the publication it's as if her father died three times. Once when his plane went missing when his body was found and when his ashes disappeared.

DNA 'FINGERPRINT' THWARTS COUNTERFEITERS

New technology is making it possible to put a "fingerprint" into DNA so that the DNA can be used to "mark" copyrighted items. The New York Times is reporting that the use of this kind of marking could go a long way to stop counterfeiting.

Two professors, working at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the Big Apple, have patented a system for hiding information in DNA. They say they hope their invention can be used to make it impossible for even the most sophisticated counterfeiters to get away with forgeries.

The idea is the modern-day counterpart of something done during WWII. Spies would photograph a document, then reduce its size to just a dot. The dot could then be placed in an ordinary letter by using the photo-dot as the dot for a lowercase "I" without being noticed.

Additionally, DNA codes are so complex that the chances of any two being alike are nil.