All caught up on Making a Murderer and looking for more? Then read up on a new study published last
All caught up on Making a Murderer and looking for more? Then read up on a new study published last month in Science about how microbes can help solve a murder mystery.Jessica Metcalf of University of Boulder, Colorado and her team have shown that the cadaver microbes (a “dedicated coterie of bacteria, fungi, and nematode worms” that feast on the nutrients from a corpse) - a.k.a. the necrobiome - change in such a predictable way that forensic investigators can tell how long ago that person died.According to Metcalf, your microbes are “like witnesses to your death. As you decompose, they can help investigators solve your murder.” In addition to helping investigators figure out when someone died, the victim’s microbes can also offer clues as to where they died - information that could be used to track the movements of the suspect(s).Microbes left behind from the perp - similar to fingerprints - can also help solve the crime, by determining whether someone handled a murder weapon or other objects at the scene of the crime. Read more at The Atlantic, or listen to the All Things Considered story. -- source link
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