Absolutely fascinating article regarding Amelia Earhart.  Appears that there may be a way to recover DNA from objects that these searchers hope to find on Nikumaroro Island (they previously found objects which suggested there may have been someone stranded on the island, but these objects were "contaminated").

Anyway, if they find what they hope to find, the very, very old mystery could finally be solved:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=8160365&page=1