'Ultimate Tutankhamun'

Those of you lucky enough to have access to Sky TV, and in particular the National Geographic Channel, might like to keep an eye out this Saturday evening (13th July, 8pm, in the UK) for a new documentary on the life and death of Egypt's most famous Pharaoh, King Tutankhamun, called 'Ultimate Tutankhamun'. The documentary is hosted by Chris Naunton, Director of the Egyptian Exploration Society. It revisits some of the long-held debates surrounding the mystery of King Tut's death, and uses modern forensic techniques (some done by yours truly!) to investigate possible scenarios that could explain the evidence found on his body. The investigation (or at least the part I was involved in), used a state of the art anatomy imaging system, the Anatomage table, to visualise the damage to his skeleton. The investigation was a joint effort between archaeologists, Egyptologists, historians, forensic pathologists and anthropologists, biomechanics experts and accident investigators, working together to examine King Tut's remains as thoroughly as possible using the latest tools. Chris has written on his blog about his experience making the documentary.
You can watch the trailer here. I've spotted myself in the lower right hand corner of the screen in this shot!

Another busman's holiday!

I am sorry that there's been a lack of activity on my blog for a while - I have been away on holiday. While away, although I tried my best to forget about work, my obsession with Forensic Anthropology haunted me. In Las Vegas, I had to try the CSI Experience.

It was extremely well designed, and a great interactive experience, which I am relieved to say we aced! I did pick up on a few tiny mistakes in their anthropology-based scene, but I let them slide!

I also couldn't help myself wondering about the sort of sharp force and blunt force trauma that could be inflicted by an aligator bite when we saw them in the Everglades. Perhaps not by one this tiny though..

School trip!

Just wanted to share a lovely experience I had recently with you... The other day, Cranfield Forensic Institute hosted a group of 12 year olds from a local public school (a private school to those abroad) for a day celebrating STEM subjects. The students were the brightest in their class, and had especially chosen to visit us because they were particularly interested in forensic science. We gave them lectures and hands-on exercises to help them learn about forensic biomechanics, forensic anthropology and even ballistics. I talked to them about the sort of questions a Forensic Anthropologist can answer when presented with unknown bones, and we discussed the differences between male and female skeletons; how to tell how old someone was when s/he died; how to distinguish human bones from animal bones; as well as looking at some skeletal diseases and signs of trauma. The children were so attentive and enthusiastic, and full of lots of really insightful questions. It gave me real pleasure to see the excitement and interest in their eyes and to be part of their learning experience. I do hope some of them become the Forensic Anthropologists of the future!

Another bone puzzle

Thank you for the response to my 'What is this bone?' post a few weeks ago. The answer, kindly provided by Paulo Viscardi, Jake and Ben, was that it was the tarsometatarsus from a large wading bird. I have another conundrum for you, sent to me from Ohio. I can tell it's a vertebra, but I'm not sure of the species (humans are more my thing!). It certainly is beautiful!

 

Top Blogs

Well, colour me chuffed! I've just found out that my humble blog has been voted one of the Top 25 Forensic Science Blogs of 2012! You can read the write-up and the other blogs here. I'm amazed that people are actually reading my blog at all, so I am very pleased. Thanking you very kindly very much so.

What is this bone?

As some of you may know, I have a What is this bone? service on the Cranfield Centre for Forensic Anthropology Research webpage.  Occasionally, people from far flung places send me pictures of bones that their dog has dug up, or they've found on a walk, and I attempt to identify them. When I set up the service, I naively thought that it would be people from the UK responding, but of course, the internet gets everywhere! I have had enquiries from Newfoundland, the Everglades, and now, Australia. I have been sent a video of a bone found in an Australian attic, and I'm appealing to my zoo-archaeologist friends for help with identifying it!

Alien Investigations

Some of you may have watched 'Alien Investigations' on Channel 4 this week. I gather from the Twitter #alieninvestigations comments that it got a bit of a mixed response, ranging from 'wow - this is very scary - do aliens walk among us?' to 'wow, this is scary - some people believe in aliens', and other, less printable comments.

Now, I don't want to alienate ('scuse the pun) any of my readers, but my position on extra-terrestrial life is pretty clear. While I think it is extremely unlikely that in the whole universe of billions of galaxies and solar systems and stars there are no other planets in the 'Goldilocks' zone capable of sustaining life (probably bacterial or single-celled, but I guess there is the potential for something more complex), I am pretty sure that no 'little green men' (or similar) have ever reached our planet.

When presented with pictures of the Cusco remains and asked for my opinion, my task was relatively easy. As an anthropologist with a research interest in artificially deformed skulls, I have seen more than my fair share of skulls of this shape (and others - they can be super flattened and brachiocephalic), and could instantly recognise it as the skull (and torso) of a human child who had undergone the relatively common cultural practice of artificial cranial deformation. As I mentioned in my previous post (ET..phone home), there is a plausible, rational explanation for the unusual appearance of human skulls such as the one found at Cusco. This great blog (Bones Don't Lie) goes into lots more detail about the techniques used and its cultural background. So, for me, science triumphs again.

It was great to see how my 'science bit' fitted into the rest of the programme, and how much debate and controversy it stimulated on Facebook and Twitter for example. I'm grateful to the film-makers for allowing me take part in such a controversial and gripping programme!