Oct 30, 2014
This episode features the
talk I Dig Your Bones: Adventures in
Forensic Anthropology, by Dr. Nici
Vance, a forensic scientist and State Forensic
Anthropologist for the Oregon State Police. In this talk
she talks about what happens when bones are found in the
woods, where she then has to figure out: 1) are
the bones human? 2) if so, are they male or female? 3)
how old was the person? 4) how did the person die?, and 5)
ultimately, who are they? It's like CSI, only real.
She also talks about how people in the general public can
help match up missing persons and unidentified remains by
going to the website for the National Missing and Unidentified
Persons System, aka NamUs.
Nici's slides have been synched with this recording and uploaded as an m4a format, so depending on your media player, you may be able to see the pictures of what she's describing as the audio plays along. Warning: some of the images are disturbing.
Want to come to an event? Visit www.ScienceOnTapORWA.org for more info.
As always, a final thanks to Jonathan Coulton for the use of his song Mandelbrot Set as our theme music.