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Month: August 2017

figure of Labrador instrument from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/231197.pdf
Corpse Gas Part II: Enter the Soil Gas Cadavermeter

Corpse Gas Part II: Enter the Soil Gas Cadavermeter

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CORPSE GAS 101 At the dawn of the 21st century, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation promoted research into quantitative methods of measuring corpse gasses as an adjunct or possible replacement for cadaver dogs. They funded a joint project with the University of Tennessee body farm and a soil gas group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A body farm is just what it sounds like: it’s a plot of land where researchers plant corpses in order to study the…

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Corpse Gas Part I: Cadaver Dogs and Other Human Remains Detection Methods

Corpse Gas Part I: Cadaver Dogs and Other Human Remains Detection Methods

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Beginning in 2010, I had the opportunity to help in the search for Susan Powell, a mother of two toddlers from West Valley City, Utah. Susan is a missing person. She was last seen on the evening of December 7, 2009. Her husband, the now-deceased Josh Powell, remains the sole “person of interest” in her disappearance. The details of her case made headlines internationally so I won’t repeat them here. There are three good “true crimes” books out on the…

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One of the 1919 total eclipse photographic plates from Dyson, Eddington and Davidson, 1920
Einstein’s Eclipse

Einstein’s Eclipse

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The photo above is a positive image of one of the photographic plates taken in Sobral, Brazil, during the 1919 total eclipse of the sun. The data from this and other images taken at the time were used by Dyson, Eddington and Davidson (1920) in the first independent confirmation of the gravitational deflection of light as predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. CONFIRMING EINSTEIN’S GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY In 1915, Einstein published his theory of general relativity. In 1916,…

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The Mysterious Case of the Missing Volcanic Bombs

The Mysterious Case of the Missing Volcanic Bombs

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Ever watch those nature shows of volcanoes erupting where gobs of red molten lava are thrown high into the air? All that airborne lava has to come back down. When those gobs and splatters of lava fall back to earth, they tend to look like somewhat flattened blobs of bread dough. Geologists call them volcanic bombs. Today’s installment of gnarly science is about a volcanic eruption where the expected volcanic bombs went missing. Before we go looking for the missing…

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