DNA may have finally been used to identify a specific individual from a set of identical twins; a task that has been impossible to do in criminal investigations since the 1980s.

In several cases, identical twins can walk free from a crime because prosecutors are unable to single out the one who did it knowing that DNA tests cannot distinguish small differences.

In a new study published in the Plos One journal, researches realized that identical twins may start out from the same egg, but each later develop his own mutations.

By comparing the whole genomes, these mutations can reveal who in a pair is tied to a given DNA sample.

The New York Times newspaper reported that a team of Eurofins Scientific in Brussels tested this technique, and was actually able to distinguish the DNA of two identical twins.