Just wanted to share a fascinating article published in Popular Science about the need for a body farm in Florida to research decomp on bodies submerged in the ocean.
Be warned the article contains very graphic details that might upset some, but I learned some things I had no idea, such as the state of the victims of the 1998 SwissAir crash. :eek: And the difference between how maggots consume a body and how sea lice do the same. :eek: :eek:
I have long considered having my body donated to a body farm to aid research seeing as how burying it seems to be a waste and I’m a proponent of whole body burials at sea. As much as I abhor Florida, I could see having my remains be consumed by amphipods off the coast. Well, I couldn’t literally see it, but I can envision it now. The only other thing I think would be cooler is having my remains plasticized and displayed in some museum where schoolkids and others fascinated by the human body could marvel at mine. It’s been awhile since anyone marveled at my body.
There’s a current case that makes me wonder about bodies in water.
A headless body was recently found in the Snake River. Based on items in the pockets they have a fairly good ID.
The guy was presumed drowned in 2008. There was a lot of snow in the area this winter and the runoff is bigger than normal, so that probably set it loose.
But … even if stuck under something in the Snake and even though this is a fairly cold river, how does a mostly intact body manage to last 9 years?
Do they need to do a body farm thing in cold, fresh water, too?
And then there’s a need to test feet in shoes drifting around the BC coast.
Neither the article you linked to nor the article it links to mention that the body was intact. They say nothing about its state, in fact.
This is adressed in the article the OP linked to, and said to be unremarkable (foot gets detached from the rest of the body, and then floats because it’s inside a running shoe) and to happen in other coastal areas around the world.
It deals with the development of forensic entomology and botany in the attempt to determine time of death.
I have read it in full four or five times and various parts of it many more than that.
It is a well written and well researched book that brings a fairly esoteric subject matter down to the level of the layman without being condescending.
