Monday, June 02, 2008

animal instinct

The Body Farm turned up on my radar again last night when I caught a few minutes of "Nature" on our local hi-def PBS station. I plan to record the whole show when it is repeated on Thursday on channel 15-1.

The "Crime Scene Creatures" episode is about animals and plants that offer clues to forensic investigators. Footage shot at the Body Farm included some raccoons filmed with night vision cameras. Apparently when raccoons find a corpse or carcass, they make a hole in the skin, giving flies an inviting target to lay their eggs. Once the eggs hatch, the raccoons return to feast on the maggots.

A couple of you have graciously emailed me the link to a profile of Dr. Bill Bass on truTV.com. The first several chapters serve as a good introduction to beginners. I especially liked chapters 9, 10 and 11 in which the author takes a short forensic anthropology course and visits the Body Farm.

In other forensic "news," I watched "Bones" tonight as promised. It wasn't bad although I got a little distracted by the obvious green-screen shots when the main characters were supposed to be sitting on a bench on the National Mall.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Cathy said...

Have you read "Stiff" by Mary Roach? She talks about the Body Farm, but she also talks about the use of bodies at Oak ridge labs.

6/03/2008  
Blogger Evi said...

That was not one of the best Bones episodes. Seriously, go to Hulu.com and watch the Pilot, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

6/04/2008  

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