About Me

I'm a PhD student researching the role of the archaeological dead in contemporary British society. Think of this as a scrapbook of all the interesting links, snippets of information and random bits and bobs I come across pertaining to death, dying and the dead. Enjoy?!

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    smithsonianmag: Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Eating a Child The harsh winter of 1609 in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable. A recent excavation at the historic site discovered the carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the season commonly called the “Starving Time.” But a few other newly discovered bones in particular, though, tell a far more gruesome story: the dismemberment and cannibalization of a 14-year-old English girl. Find out how researchers made this discovery at Smithsonian.com.

    smithsonianmag:

    Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Eating a Child

    The harsh winter of 1609 in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable. A recent excavation at the historic site discovered the carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the season commonly called the “Starving Time.” But a few other newly discovered bones in particular, though, tell a far more gruesome story: the dismemberment and cannibalization of a 14-year-old English girl. Find out how researchers made this discovery at Smithsonian.com.

    How To Be Immortal

    All the science, technology and therapies explored in this documentary are being used NOW. Their applications have REAL, solid consequences for the healthy extension of lifespan, including the potential side effect of delaying or postponing death. Everyone knows that death is inevitable, but what if death was not quite so certain? What if death was not the end of life? What if the ultimate illness could be ‘cured’, or at the very least, postponed?

    In this 1x59 minute documentary, we investigate the ‘wet science’ of gene therapy and stem cell research-turned-surgery; and the ‘dry science’ of nanotechnology and advancements with bionic limbs.

    (Via The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice)

    Cartographies of Life and Death: John Snow and Disease Mapping One of Britain’s great scientific pioneers is being celebrated in an exhibition featuring street lectures, artworks mapping the scents of London and a pop-up water bar. John Snow (1813-58) is widely regarded as the founder of modern epidemiology for his work tracing the origins of a cholera epidemic to a particular pump in what was then Broad Street in London’s Soho. To celebrate the bicentenary of his birth, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) turned to the Artakt team at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, whose researchers and curators have been working on the frontiers between art and science since 2001. “Snow is best known for the Broad Street map,” project coordinator Julie Hill explained, “so that seemed like a strong concept to take forward. We went to the archives of the LSHTM to look at their collection of material such as disease maps, which have seldom been put on public display before.” Read more here.

    Cartographies of Life and Death: John Snow and Disease Mapping

    One of Britain’s great scientific pioneers is being celebrated in an exhibition featuring street lectures, artworks mapping the scents of London and a pop-up water bar.

    John Snow (1813-58) is widely regarded as the founder of modern epidemiology for his work tracing the origins of a cholera epidemic to a particular pump in what was then Broad Street in London’s Soho. To celebrate the bicentenary of his birth, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) turned to the Artakt team at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, whose researchers and curators have been working on the frontiers between art and science since 2001.

    “Snow is best known for the Broad Street map,” project coordinator Julie Hill explained, “so that seemed like a strong concept to take forward. We went to the archives of the LSHTM to look at their collection of material such as disease maps, which have seldom been put on public display before.”

    Read more here.

    Mummy scans reveal heart disease plagued our ancestors BEFORE the emergence of junk food and cigarettes A macabre study of mummified corpses shows that heart attacks and strokes may have plagued the ancient world as well as the modern one - even without temptations like fast food and cigarettes. Researchers say their findings suggest heart disease may be more a natural part of ageing rather than being directly tied to modern vices like smoking, eating fatty foods and not exercising. CT scans of 137 mummies showed evidence of atherosclerosis, or hardened arteries, in one third of those examined - including those from ancient people believed to have healthy lifestyles. Read more here.

    Mummy scans reveal heart disease plagued our ancestors BEFORE the emergence of junk food and cigarettes

    A macabre study of mummified corpses shows that heart attacks and strokes may have plagued the ancient world as well as the modern one - even without temptations like fast food and cigarettes.

    Researchers say their findings suggest heart disease may be more a natural part of ageing rather than being directly tied to modern vices like smoking, eating fatty foods and not exercising.

    CT scans of 137 mummies showed evidence of atherosclerosis, or hardened arteries, in one third of those examined - including those from ancient people believed to have healthy lifestyles.

    Read more here.

    Virtual autopsy: does it spell the end of the scalpel? Scientific advances have led experts to pioneer the ‘virtopsy’, a non-invasive imaging process which can reveal details conventional methods would have missed Anyone who has spent any time in a courtroom knows how easy it is for a skilled defence lawyer to plant doubt in the mind of a jury. Even in a relatively straightforward case, such as a hit and run, jurors are frequently presented with such a confusing array of photographic and forensic evidence that it is very difficult to know what has taken place and who may be at fault. But what if there was a kind of technology that could reconstruct thecrime scene in 3D and match it to other forensic imaging data? Furthermore, what if this technology could see through skin, bone and even soft tissue to detect bullet fragments overlooked by traditional pathologists equipped only with a scalpel and the human eye? That is the promise of virtual autopsy – or “virtopsy” – a radical new approach to forensic imaging developed in Switzerland that is fast winning converts in Britain and elsewhere. Just as forensic pathologists at the University of Leicester recently used computed tomography (CT) to identify the two fatal blows to the Plantagenet king Richard III, so a team of Zurich-based radiologists and pathologists is now using similar CT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to help solve modern-day murders and crimes. Read more here.

    Virtual autopsy: does it spell the end of the scalpel?

    Scientific advances have led experts to pioneer the ‘virtopsy’, a non-invasive imaging process which can reveal details conventional methods would have missed

    Anyone who has spent any time in a courtroom knows how easy it is for a skilled defence lawyer to plant doubt in the mind of a jury. Even in a relatively straightforward case, such as a hit and run, jurors are frequently presented with such a confusing array of photographic and forensic evidence that it is very difficult to know what has taken place and who may be at fault.

    But what if there was a kind of technology that could reconstruct thecrime scene in 3D and match it to other forensic imaging data? Furthermore, what if this technology could see through skin, bone and even soft tissue to detect bullet fragments overlooked by traditional pathologists equipped only with a scalpel and the human eye?

    That is the promise of virtual autopsy – or “virtopsy” – a radical new approach to forensic imaging developed in Switzerland that is fast winning converts in Britain and elsewhere.

    Just as forensic pathologists at the University of Leicester recently used computed tomography (CT) to identify the two fatal blows to the Plantagenet king Richard III, so a team of Zurich-based radiologists and pathologists is now using similar CT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to help solve modern-day murders and crimes.

    Read more here.

    DNA Evidence Challenges King Tut’s Lineage

    In recent years, DNA analysis has shed light on the parents of Egypt’s most famous pharaoh, the boy king Tutankhamun, known to the world as King Tut. Genetic investigation identified his father as Akhenaten and his mother as Akhenaten’s sister, whose name was unknown.

    French Egyptologist Marc Gabolde offered a different interpretation of the DNA evidence. Speaking at Harvard’s Science Center, Gabolde said he’s convinced that Tut’s mother was not his father’s sister, but rather his father’s first cousin, Nefertiti.

    Nefertiti was already known to be Akhenaten’s wife and in fact the two had six daughters. Gabolde believes they also had a son, Tutankhamun, and that the apparent genetic closeness revealed in the DNA tests was not a result of a single brother-to-sister mating, but rather due to three successive generations of marriage between first cousins…

    The science of Ripper Street The BBC’s new Victorian detective series, best described as CSI:Whitechapel, has delivered complicated storylines, archaic dialogue, and lots of Victorian science and medicine. Poisoning by antimony-contaminated flour Food poisoning was a daily hazard for Victorians, and a concern for doctors and scientists. In the 1840s and ’50s chemists and doctors led campaigns against adulterated food. Investigators even found reports ofhorse meat being passed off as beef (imagine!). By 1889 – when Ripper Street is set – a series of laws had been passed regulating food and drug safety, but serious mass poisonings still took place. One of the worst was the outbreak of arsenic poisoning in Manchester in 1900 caused by contaminated beer. Mirroring the Ripper Street storyline, it took a while for the crime to be identified, as the symptoms of arsenic poisoning were mistaken at first for alcoholic neuritis. Poisoning was normally a result of accidental contamination or the deliberate use of cheap fillers and ingredients, rather than the schemes of a psychopath. Some reports of contaminated food do seem suspicious though: in 1879 Dr David Page (Medical Officer of Health for Westmoreland) reported a case where several children were poisoned by sweet lozenges bought at a fair. The contaminant was – as with Ripper Street – antimony, and although the doctor concluded “I cannot conceive in what way, doubtless accidental, the antimony may have got into the lozenges” it does make me wonder… VERDICT: So plausible it might have really happened… Abortion by pennyroyal Pennyroyal has a range of traditional herbal uses, but many Victorians would have known of its reputation as an abortifacient. By the time of Ripper Street abortion was illegal, but tablets for “women’s ailments” were widely advertised, often promising to treat “severe obstructions”. Some claimed to be made from pennyroyal, such as “Towle’s Pennyroyal & Steel Pills for females” which “quickly correct all irregularities [and] remove all obstructions” and were available by mail order from the manufacturers in Nottingham. An analysis by the medical journal The Lancet in 1899 suggested that many of these tablets probably didn’t contain much pennyroyal (or any other active ingredient) so perhaps it would make sense for a brothel keeper to make sure she had her own, unadulterated, supply. VERDICT: Definitely used for that purpose Robbery by chloroform (or ether) Ether and chloroform were familiar surgical anaesthetics by the 1880s.Robert Liston (“the fastest knife in the west-end”) performed the first surgery in Britain using ether in 1846, and James Young Simpson the first using chloroform in 1847. Both anaesthetics caused a lot of concern. Some worries were medical: were they safe? What if pain was a necessary part of the healing process? Some worries were moral and social: women under anaesthetic were a particular concern, as they might be assaulted by unscrupulous men, or might in their drugged state say or do something inappropriate. This fear inevitably led to worries about anaesthetics being used by those with criminal intent. Doctors were initially sceptical: in 1871 the Lancet reported a case where a woman was “seized by a man and a lad, who applied a wet handkerchief to her nose and mouth” before robbing her. This was apparently unusual because: the general experience of the profession is so completely opposed to all such stories that we should much like to hear of their being sifted…We have never heard of a well-authenticated case of robbery in which chloroform was used; and the common narratives to this effect are often those of people who went into bad company of their own accord, and who, having suffered consequences… have had recourse to imagination in order to conceal the truth. Sadly, “well-authenticated” cases of anesthetic-assisted crime soon began to appear; chloroform was also the alleged murder weapon in thePimlico Mystery of 1886. VERDICT: Historical fact Lobotomy by icepick Although the icepick lobotomy is brutal enough to make us wish it was a Victorian invention, lobotomy is actually a 20th century innovation – practised through the 1950s, ’60s and into the ’70s. (There are people still living who have had one). However, other forms of neurosurgery were practiced by Victorians. In the 1890s a Swiss doctor, Gottileib Burkhardt tried removing brain parts from six of his patients with schizophrenia. Earlier still, in Britain a group of surgeons and scientists had been pioneering the study of experimental neurology since 1879, and in 1886 one of their students,Victor Horsley, started removing tumours and “epileptic scars” from patients’ brains. So brain surgery was practised, and the idea that diseases (or memories) could be localised in parts of the brain would not have seemed particularly bizarre. VERDICT: Almost certainly didn’t happen, but not impossible. Intoxication by amphetamine Amphetamine, known first as phenylisopropylamine, was synthesised in 1887, but it did not become a popular drug (medical or recreational) until the 20th century – and the term “amphetamine” itself wasn’t coined until the 1920s. Cocaine would have been a better choice as it was discovered in 1855 and widely used by the 1880s. It was used to treat psychiatric disorders, particularly after a paper “On Coca” was published in 1884 by up-and-coming researcher Sigmund Freud. VERDICT: Nope. An unusual blooper for the show. Explosions using picric acid The explosive properties of picric acid were discovered in the 1830s, but it wasn’t until the 1870s that it was developed into a practical substance for blowing holes in safes or prison doors. Inventor and innovatorHermann Sprengel managed to find a way to detonate picric acid, which he patented in 1871 and publicised in 1873. The big advantage of picric acid was that it could be transported relatively safely to the detonation site. In 1885 a Frenchman Eugène Turpin patented a method using picric acid as the explosive in military shells, and a British version (Lyddite) was developed in 1888 and in use by the British army by the mid-1890s. It probably wasn’t even that difficult to get hold of picric acid in 1889, as it was also regularly used for clinical and experimental purposes – it could reveal the presence of quinine, morphine, atropine and other substances in a patient’s urine. (Perhaps your handy criminal chloroform supplier could help with this chemical too?) VERDICT: Highly possible, especially for experienced ex-military men.

    The science of Ripper Street

    The BBC’s new Victorian detective series, best described as CSI:Whitechapel, has delivered complicated storylines, archaic dialogue, and lots of Victorian science and medicine.

    Poisoning by antimony-contaminated flour

    Food poisoning was a daily hazard for Victorians, and a concern for doctors and scientists. In the 1840s and ’50s chemists and doctors led campaigns against adulterated food. Investigators even found reports ofhorse meat being passed off as beef (imagine!). By 1889 – when Ripper Street is set – a series of laws had been passed regulating food and drug safety, but serious mass poisonings still took place.

    One of the worst was the outbreak of arsenic poisoning in Manchester in 1900 caused by contaminated beer. Mirroring the Ripper Street storyline, it took a while for the crime to be identified, as the symptoms of arsenic poisoning were mistaken at first for alcoholic neuritis.

    Poisoning was normally a result of accidental contamination or the deliberate use of cheap fillers and ingredients, rather than the schemes of a psychopath. Some reports of contaminated food do seem suspicious though: in 1879 Dr David Page (Medical Officer of Health for Westmoreland) reported a case where several children were poisoned by sweet lozenges bought at a fair. The contaminant was – as with Ripper Street – antimony, and although the doctor concluded “I cannot conceive in what way, doubtless accidental, the antimony may have got into the lozenges” it does make me wonder…

    VERDICT: So plausible it might have really happened…

    Abortion by pennyroyal

    Pennyroyal has a range of traditional herbal uses, but many Victorians would have known of its reputation as an abortifacient. By the time of Ripper Street abortion was illegal, but tablets for “women’s ailments” were widely advertised, often promising to treat “severe obstructions”. Some claimed to be made from pennyroyal, such as “Towle’s Pennyroyal & Steel Pills for females” which “quickly correct all irregularities [and] remove all obstructions” and were available by mail order from the manufacturers in Nottingham.

    An analysis by the medical journal The Lancet in 1899 suggested that many of these tablets probably didn’t contain much pennyroyal (or any other active ingredient) so perhaps it would make sense for a brothel keeper to make sure she had her own, unadulterated, supply.

    VERDICT: Definitely used for that purpose

    Robbery by chloroform (or ether)

    Ether and chloroform were familiar surgical anaesthetics by the 1880s.Robert Liston (“the fastest knife in the west-end”) performed the first surgery in Britain using ether in 1846, and James Young Simpson the first using chloroform in 1847.

    Both anaesthetics caused a lot of concern. Some worries were medical: were they safe? What if pain was a necessary part of the healing process? Some worries were moral and social: women under anaesthetic were a particular concern, as they might be assaulted by unscrupulous men, or might in their drugged state say or do something inappropriate. This fear inevitably led to worries about anaesthetics being used by those with criminal intent. Doctors were initially sceptical: in 1871 the Lancet reported a case where a woman was “seized by a man and a lad, who applied a wet handkerchief to her nose and mouth” before robbing her. This was apparently unusual because:

    the general experience of the profession is so completely opposed to all such stories that we should much like to hear of their being sifted…We have never heard of a well-authenticated case of robbery in which chloroform was used; and the common narratives to this effect are often those of people who went into bad company of their own accord, and who, having suffered consequences… have had recourse to imagination in order to conceal the truth.

    Sadly, “well-authenticated” cases of anesthetic-assisted crime soon began to appear; chloroform was also the alleged murder weapon in thePimlico Mystery of 1886.

    VERDICT: Historical fact

    Lobotomy by icepick

    Although the icepick lobotomy is brutal enough to make us wish it was a Victorian invention, lobotomy is actually a 20th century innovation – practised through the 1950s, ’60s and into the ’70s. (There are people still living who have had one).

    However, other forms of neurosurgery were practiced by Victorians. In the 1890s a Swiss doctor, Gottileib Burkhardt tried removing brain parts from six of his patients with schizophrenia. Earlier still, in Britain a group of surgeons and scientists had been pioneering the study of experimental neurology since 1879, and in 1886 one of their students,Victor Horsley, started removing tumours and “epileptic scars” from patients’ brains. So brain surgery was practised, and the idea that diseases (or memories) could be localised in parts of the brain would not have seemed particularly bizarre.

    VERDICT: Almost certainly didn’t happen, but not impossible.

    Intoxication by amphetamine

    Amphetamine, known first as phenylisopropylamine, was synthesised in 1887, but it did not become a popular drug (medical or recreational) until the 20th century – and the term “amphetamine” itself wasn’t coined until the 1920s. Cocaine would have been a better choice as it was discovered in 1855 and widely used by the 1880s. It was used to treat psychiatric disorders, particularly after a paper “On Coca” was published in 1884 by up-and-coming researcher Sigmund Freud.

    VERDICT: Nope. An unusual blooper for the show.

    Explosions using picric acid

    The explosive properties of picric acid were discovered in the 1830s, but it wasn’t until the 1870s that it was developed into a practical substance for blowing holes in safes or prison doors. Inventor and innovatorHermann Sprengel managed to find a way to detonate picric acid, which he patented in 1871 and publicised in 1873.

    The big advantage of picric acid was that it could be transported relatively safely to the detonation site. In 1885 a Frenchman Eugène Turpin patented a method using picric acid as the explosive in military shells, and a British version (Lyddite) was developed in 1888 and in use by the British army by the mid-1890s.

    It probably wasn’t even that difficult to get hold of picric acid in 1889, as it was also regularly used for clinical and experimental purposes – it could reveal the presence of quinine, morphine, atropine and other substances in a patient’s urine. (Perhaps your handy criminal chloroform supplier could help with this chemical too?)

    VERDICT: Highly possible, especially for experienced ex-military men.

    ‘He’s the ideal patient’: Tjeby the 4,000-year-old Egyptian mummy gets a CT scan Using modern technology, a Virginia museum is working to unwrap the story behind one of the earliest surviving Egyptian mummies. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond partnered this week with a medical imaging center to complete a CT scan on Tjeby, its 4,000-year-old mummy. The museum conducted the test on Friday in hopes of piecing together more information about the mummy itself and better understanding the early history of the mummification process. Read more here!

    ‘He’s the ideal patient’: Tjeby the 4,000-year-old Egyptian mummy gets a CT scan

    Using modern technology, a Virginia museum is working to unwrap the story behind one of the earliest surviving Egyptian mummies.

    The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond partnered this week with a medical imaging center to complete a CT scan on Tjeby, its 4,000-year-old mummy.

    The museum conducted the test on Friday in hopes of piecing together more information about the mummy itself and better understanding the early history of the mummification process.

    Read more here!

    Canapé, 2011 - These chairs are stuffed with human fat... Palaces, 2009 - 2015 - This piece is made from resin and milk teeth! Children can donate their pearly whites to the exhibition and they will be incorporated into this amazing sculpture. Diagram of a Summer House, 2012 - Dental casts! Trophies of Empire III Moon, 2012 Femoral casts!

    A few snaps I took at The Wasted Works at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. This was an exhibition by Gina Czarnecki that explored the life-giving potential of ‘discarded’ body parts, as well as their relationship to myths, history, stem cell research and notions of what constitutes informed consent. It’s off to Coventry next and is definitely worth a peep if you’re in the vicinity!

    You can see a few more photographs on my Flickr.

    (Source: xmorbidcuriosityx)

    discoverynews:

    sagansense:

    Heart of Glass: The Art of Medical Models

    Gary Farlow can make art out of arteries. He and his team of 10 at Farlow’s Scientific Glassblowing are able to transform the body’s vasculature—and nearly all of its other parts—into an ornate borosilicate glass sculpture, from the heart’s ventricles to the brain’s circle of Willis. “We do almost every part of the body,” Farlow says. “It can take a pretty artistic mind to make some of these things.” With the help of cardiologists, the team creates custom see-through systems for science and medical training. Their anatomically correct models can be designed to simulate blood flow, teach placement of catheters and angioplasty devices, or simply test or demo new surgical gizmos. Individual arteries, veins, and capillaries are shaped and fused together, one at a time. Ground-glass joints are added at the exposed ends so a head, say, can be connected to the carotid arteries should customers want to expand their model. A full-body setup could cost $25,000, so don’t get any bright ideas about using one as a brandy decanter.

    these would look absolutely stunning in my foyer*

    *author’s note: i do not have a foyer.

    New life for the dead: Stem cells from corpses' scalps

    Death will come for us all one day, but life will not fade from our bodies all at once. After our lungs stop breathing, our hearts stop beating, our minds stop racing, our bodies cool, and long after our vital signs cease, little pockets of cells can live for days, even weeks. Now scientists have harvested such cells from the scalps and brain linings of human corpses and reprogrammed them into stem cells.

    In other words, dead people can yield living cells that can be converted into any cell or tissue in the body.

    As such, this work could help lead to novel stem cell therapies and shed light on a variety of mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, autism and bipolar disorder, which may stem from problems with development, researchers say.

    Full story here.

    Kennewick Man bones not from Columbia Valley, scientist tells tribes

    archaeologistforhire:

    archaeologicalnews:

    ELLENSBURG — In a historic first meeting of two very different worlds, Columbia Plateau tribal leaders met privately Tuesday with the scientist who led the court battle to study Kennewick Man.

    The skeleton, more than 9,500 years old, has long been at the center of a rift between tribal…

    Well this is an interesting development

    18th-Century Mummies Help Medical Researchers Study Tuberculosis In Hungary  BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — One wears a prim white bonnet. Another sticks out its tongue, hands resting over abdomen. A third clutches at its chest, mouth seemingly frozen in a scream. They are faces from the past, trapped in the appearance they bore when laid to rest nearly 300 years ago. And disturbed from their eternal sleep, these mummies may help unlock the secrets of the immune system. Resting in cardboard boxes in long rows of cabinets on the top floor of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest, the 265 mummies are helping scientists find new ways to treat tuberculosis. Buried between 1731 and 1838 in the crypt of a Dominican church in the northern Hungarian town of Vac, the naturally-preserved mummies were forgotten for decades and discovered in 1994 during the church’s renovation. They had lain in gracefully-painted pinewood coffins, some decorated with pictures of skulls. The mummification process happened thanks to the favorable microclimate inside the crypt, including low temperatures and relatively constant humidity and air pressure. Wood chips placed under the bodies in the coffins absorbed fluids, so instead of decomposing, the bodies gradually dried out – preserving them in an astonishingly lifelike state. Reflecting a wide sample of Vac residents, the mummies include three nuns, 30 priests, the wife and child of the local postmaster, surgeons, the founder of the Vac hospital and first director of the town’s school for the deaf. “What was probably the most exciting and most comprehensive study was the one about tuberculosis,” said Ildiko Pap, head of the Department of Anthropology of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. “In some of the individuals, the traces of the mutations on the bones caused by tuberculosis are evident to the naked eye.” Full story here.

    18th-Century Mummies Help Medical Researchers Study Tuberculosis In Hungary 

    BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — One wears a prim white bonnet. Another sticks out its tongue, hands resting over abdomen. A third clutches at its chest, mouth seemingly frozen in a scream. They are faces from the past, trapped in the appearance they bore when laid to rest nearly 300 years ago.

    And disturbed from their eternal sleep, these mummies may help unlock the secrets of the immune system.

    Resting in cardboard boxes in long rows of cabinets on the top floor of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest, the 265 mummies are helping scientists find new ways to treat tuberculosis.

    Buried between 1731 and 1838 in the crypt of a Dominican church in the northern Hungarian town of Vac, the naturally-preserved mummies were forgotten for decades and discovered in 1994 during the church’s renovation. They had lain in gracefully-painted pinewood coffins, some decorated with pictures of skulls.

    The mummification process happened thanks to the favorable microclimate inside the crypt, including low temperatures and relatively constant humidity and air pressure. Wood chips placed under the bodies in the coffins absorbed fluids, so instead of decomposing, the bodies gradually dried out – preserving them in an astonishingly lifelike state.

    Reflecting a wide sample of Vac residents, the mummies include three nuns, 30 priests, the wife and child of the local postmaster, surgeons, the founder of the Vac hospital and first director of the town’s school for the deaf. “What was probably the most exciting and most comprehensive study was the one about tuberculosis,” said Ildiko Pap, head of the Department of Anthropology of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. “In some of the individuals, the traces of the mutations on the bones caused by tuberculosis are evident to the naked eye.”

    Full story here.

    Project 12:31

    In 1993, a convicted murderer was executed. His body was given to science, segmented and photographed for medical research. In 2011, we used photography to put it back together. 

    (Photograph by Frank Schott)

    This is absolutely AMAZING. Seriously. Check out the website for the full story and more incredible images.