WIRED Staff

9/11 Remains: A Never-Ending Story

Workers at the World Trade Center site have found human bones that appear to be from the 9/11 attacks. Now, more searching is planned to make sure other remains haven’t been missed. Here’s an AP story on the discovery and what’s next. Last December, I wrote a story for Wired News about the efforts to […]

Workers at the World Trade Center site have found human bones that appear to be from the 9/11 attacks. Now, more searching is planned to make sure other remains haven't been missed.

Here's an AP story on the discovery and what's next.

Last December, I wrote a story for Wired News about the efforts to find DNA in 9/11 remains that refused to give It up. Here's an excerpt:

Raising hopes for the families of 9/11's unidentified victims, scientists say they're making major inroads in their efforts to successfully pull DNA out of stubborn bodily remains.

One company says it's managed to extract DNA from 83 percent of bone samples that previously turned up nothing. The Bode Technology Group, a forensic company that advised the New York City Medical Examiner's office, says it's developed perhaps the most effective strategy yet to pull DNA out of bits of bone.

Amazingly, as of last winter, investigators had come up with 115,000 DNA profiles out of the World Trade Center remains tested. (Some of those were from remains that were analyzed multiple times using different techniques.)

At the time, about 850 9/11 victims had been identified, mostly with the help of DNA.

The bad news: According to a report tonight on "NBC Nightly News," only one new victim has been identified this year.