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posted by janrinok on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the talking-dead dept.

A new forensic method measures the decay of proteins rather than core body temperature to determine the time of death:

Forensic researchers have developed a new method for establishing an exact time of death after as long as 10 days. Their somewhat macabre study in dead pigs measured the breakdown of muscle proteins over time. It is a significant step forward from the current method of measuring core body temperature; this only works up to 36 hours after death. The breakthrough was announced at the Society for Experimental Biology's annual conference in Prague.

Dr Peter Steinbacher, the lead researcher on the study, told BBC News that there was "a huge lack of reliable methods" to calculate the time of death "after the moment when the body has cooled down to environmental temperatures". "Depending on the temperature, this takes normally about 1-2 days," said Dr Steinbacher, from the University of Salzburg in Austria.

The team studied the muscle proteins of pigs, because of their close similarity to human muscles. The protein building blocks of our muscles are very large, tangled molecules that, after death, begin to break down into smaller pieces. "This happens for some of the proteins in a very specific time frame," Dr Steinbacher explained. "Even the breakdown products are present for a specific time. "So if you know which of these products are present in a sample then you know when the individual died."

The team has also analysed more than 60 human tissue samples from the forensic department of the same university. And their preliminary findings showed similar clockwork-like changes. "We now need more samples to find out whether gender, body mass index, temperature, humidity, etc play a role in the time-course of muscle break down," said Dr Steinbacher. He and his colleagues hope that within three years, this technique could help in the gathering of vital forensic evidence.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @12:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @12:24AM (#204481)

    It does not need to be so accurate that existential debate enters the conversation. 'About 202 hours ago, or April 10 at 10:30 pm." spoken by an expert is good enough along with other evidence to send a person away for murder.