LAS VEGAS — The macabre curiosity that prompted Rebecca Leonard to scoop squashed frogs from roadways as a youngster had always baffled and disgusted her friends.
"They always thought I was weird, you know," she said. "They didn't want to talk about it. I was always trying to justify it to them."
Today, she doesn't have to; they're brimming with questions.
For the most part, she can credit CBS' surprising hit series "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," a slick TV show set in Las Vegas that transformed the grisly minutiae of forensics into a who-done-it drama starring handsome scientists and cutting-edge technology.
Like thousands of others once considered "police nerds," the 32-year-old Leonard, a forensic science intern with the Sheriff's Department crime lab in Marin County, has become an instant celebrity of sorts.
"All of a sudden, it's really cool, what I do. It's like this glamorous thing," she said. "All my friends are asking all these questions: 'What was the crime scene like? Did you analyze the DNA?' "
Crime scene investigators and police forensic experts have emerged from the proverbial basement lab in recent years, propelled by the show, Sept. 11 recovery identification efforts and their own proficiency at solving older crimes through new technology.
Colleges are rushing to cash in, and forensic-science education is hotter than any other crime-related field.
More than 1,500 forensic-identification scientists from throughout the nation and 27 countries took time at the start of a recent Las Vegas convention to indulge in their newfound celebrity.
Anthony Zuiker, creator of "CSI" and its fall spinoff set in Miami, peppered his convention keynote speech with references to Hollywood producers and actors. He even previewed his acceptance speech should the show, which consistently tops Nielsen TV ratings, win any of the six Emmys for which it is nominated.
His words were well received by the distinctly non-Hollywood crowd -- a mix of former beat cops in dark business suits, the pale and sometimes disheveled back-room scientists and about 100 students like Leonard.
Those assembled said the best thing about Zuiker's show and Patricia Cornwell's crime novels -- including "The Last Precinct" and "Body of Evidence" -- is the opportunity it gives them to talk shop without feeling like death-obsessed mad scientists.
