Dr Sue Pope, from Principal Forensic Services, agreed: "The effect will be that upgrading to the ESS system will require taking another sample, with obvious costs, " she explained.

BBC: DNA crime-fighting in UK 'lagging behind', experts say

The simple and inexpensive devices require minimal training to use, practically no sample preparation, and no electricity or additional equipment to process a sample.

UNESCO: House | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

In particular, this sensitivity makes the new chips better at searching for strands of DNA. At the moment, such searches require the number of DNA molecules in a sample to be multiplied using a trick called the polymerase chain reaction before there is a decent chance of detecting the target.

ECONOMIST: Labs on a chip

Project scientist John Grotzinger pointed out that such a search would require more sophisticated scientific equipment than even the advanced rover carries, if not a full-scale sample return mission.

MSN: Curiosity aims to unlock Mars mysteries - Technology & science - Space - Space.com | NBC News