Adventures in Body Farms

Well, my adventure has finally begun, and I got to visit the world renowned Forensic Anthropology Centre at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.  It didn't disappoint. I was lucky enough to meet with Dr Dawnie Steadman, the director of the facility.  Dr Steadman gave me an overview of the history of the facility, as well what they are doing at present and where they hope to go in the future in terms of research and development. I was shown round the facility, and had the privilege of seeing some of the current research.  There are thousands of pre-donors - people who have made the decision to leave their bodies to the FAC after they die.   As can be guessed from the number of people willing to donate their bodies, the facility is very well thought of by the public.  I spoke to a lot of locals about why I was in Knoxville, and I was impressed by the level of support they gave it, and the pride they displayed in it.  I would say they were almost as proud as of t

When a murder occurs, the bad guys don't always want to make it easy for us to find out exactly what happened.  This can sometimes include trying to hide the body - if we can't find the body then they can't be presecuted for murder, right?  Well, wrong - it is possible to try someone for murder even if no body has been discovered, but finding the body isn't just important for justice - it can help the victim's family and friends in the grieving process.    There are other circumstances when police might be trying to find human remains as well.  If someone is believed to have drowned, or after a mass casualty disaster, we need to be able to recover all the human remains. Human beings have come up with a lot of different technologies that can help with this search - ground penetrating radar, infrared photography, and aerial photographs.  One of the best ways for finding human remains however is to use a specially trained dog. News.cornell.edu Dogs