New CU-Boulder-led study finds ‘microbial clock’ may help determine time of death
An intriguing study led by the University of Colorado Boulder may provide a powerful new tool in the quiver of forensic scientists attempting to determine the time of death in cases involving human corpses: a microbial clock.
The clock is essentially the lock-step succession of bacterial changes that occur postmortem as bodies move through the decay process. And while the researchers used mice for the new study, previous studies on the human microbiome – the estimated 100 trillion or so microbes that live on and in each of us – indicate there is good reason to believe similar microbial clocks are ticking away on human corpses, said Jessica Metcalf, a CU-Boulder postdoctoral researcher and first author on the study. (more…)