For the first time, tree DNA sends a man to prison

A Washington man is going to prison for 20 months for running an illegal logging operation and it was the DNA of a bigleaf maple tree that helped put him there.

In the first federal case to use tree DNA as evidence, Justin Andrew Wilke, 39, and his team of poachers stole the "highly prized" maple trees from the Olympic National Forest and sold the wood with forged permits, according to The Washington Post. — Read the rest