Maggot Poll

During chapter three, human decay, is the main topic. Mary Roach goes to visit the University of Tennessee Medical Center. This is the only field research, in America, that focus on the decay of human bodies. Academics leave bodies to deteriorate in natural surroundings and then screen their “stages of chemical composition.” This information contributes to criminal investigations by making systematic standards to determine the time of death. Temperature, insect infestation, smell and other factors are monitored and

During this stage, which occurs 20 to 50 days after death, all the remaining flesh is removed, after this period and the body dries out. It has a cheesy smell, caused by butyric acid, and this smell attracts a new suite of corpse organisms. The surface of the body that is in contact with the ground becomes covered with mold as the body ferments (What Happens to the Body after Death 1). The body is flat and looks dried out. It eventually can leak through any soft tissues as decomposition progresses. Larval blowflies, flesh flies and houseflies, all called maggots, are abundant in this stage due to the semiliquid environment (Stages of the Human Decomposition Process 1). There is no definite event, such as bloating or purging, that separates stage three from the later, drier stages of decomposition (Stages of the Human Decomposition Process

A two-part study was recently done to show what natural habitat a Pill bug, Armadillidium vulgare, naturally prefers: wet or dry environments along with a light or dark environment. It was hypothesized that a Pill bug would prefer and wet and dark environment based on its natural habitat of soil. For the wet and dry experiment, a coffee filter and soil were placed in each chamber of a double petri dish with one being dampened before being placed in. For the light and dry experiment a light was hung above one chamber of another double-chambered petri dish while the other chamber was covered with aluminum foil, after placing soil in both chambers. An equal number of Pill bugs was placed in each chamber and a study was taken for

Forensic science has come a long way from where it was less than 100 years ago. It has only been relatively recently that the advancement of technology we use, has occurred. The Body Farm, an institute in Knoxville, Tennessee, is a place where dead corpses are left to rot and then studied on how the body decays in different circumstances. Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary Body Farm tells about the farm from Dr. Bill Bass’ point of view, from the establishment of the farm, to the impact in the world of forensic science the farm has caused. David Pitt and Alynda Wheat offers their insight into the book in their reviews. The Body Farm has been a monumental stepping stone to the advancement of modern day forensic sciences. Dr. Bill Bass, is making

The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) consists of irradiating laboratory-reared male insects before hatching, to sterilize them. The sterilized males are then released in large numbers in the infested areas. When they mate with females, no offspring are produced. With repeated releases of sterilized males, the population of the insect pest in a given area is drastically reduced. The largest SIT operations so far have been conducted in Mexico against the Mediterranean fruit fly and the screwworm. In 1981 the Medfly operation was declared a complete success, and by 1991 the screwworm eradication had yielded some 3 billion US dollars in benefits to the economy.

In this experiment, we tested three different environments, soil, sand, and a leafy mixture to see which one a pill bug would prefer the most. Originally, we believed that the pill bug would find the leafy substance to be most favorable. Five pill bugs and then a single pill bug was placed in the center so that it could select one of the substrates. The data collected at the end of the experiment opposed our original hypothesis as we discovered that the most favored environment was the soil. This finding could correlate with the dark color of the soil closely matching the color of the pill bug or the moisture in the soil.

A dead body that has been exposed to the elements such as water, air, temperature and weather, will decompose quicly and will attract much more insect activity. Colder temperatures slow decomposition, while warmer temperatures rather speed up the process of decomposition. If a body is available to insects, than the insects alone can reduce a fully fleshed body to skeletal bones withing a two week time period. Key factors to consider are: temperature, availability of oxygen, cause of death, trauma, humidity or wetness, rainfall, body size and weight, clothing, the surface where the body was resting, and the foods/objects inside the digestive tract of the

Firstly, eggs were collected from the eyes of Scomberomorus niphonius and disinfected in 1% sodium sulfite solution for 3 min, and subsequently in 3% Lysol brand disinfectant for 5 min. The disinfected eggs were then transferred to sterile vials to clone. Secondly, third stage larvae of Lucilia sericata were selected to be placed in 3.5% formalin for 5 min, 2% hydrogen peroxide solution for 3 min, and then 5% dilute hydrochloric acid solution for 5 min. After the two-step disinfection, the larvae remined vigorous. A hundred randomly selected larvae were proven to be aseptic by bacterial culture test.

Each insect has some sort of lifespan, each part in that life span shows a significant appearance change. The age of these insects progresses as intervals of time pass on. By using the known age and time interval, a forensic scientist will be able to find out when a person may have died. This will not show exactly how that person died, however it does show how long that person has been dead. Using this forensic scientists can apply this knowledge to murder cases in order to help provide clarity and maybe even a verdict in the case at

The lifecycle of a heartworms begins when a female mosquito ingest blood containing microfilariae from a heartworm infected animal. Inside the body of the mosquito, the microfilariae develops into first stage larvae (L1) and then undergoes two more process to develop into third stage larvae (L3) of which is the infective stage. Depending on the temperature, this development process can take between eight and thirty days. At this point, when the infected mosquito attaches to a cat and feeds on its blood, the third-stage larva is transferred into the mosquito bite wound. Within three days of entering the cat, the L3 molt to the L4 stage in the tissues and muscles that lay just below the skin of the cat. After about two months of migrating through the muscles and tissues, the L4 undergoes a final development into immature adult heartworms. Seventy to ninety days post infection, the immature adult heartworms then enter a peripheral vein and are carried by the cat’s blood circulation system to the caudal pulmonary arteries. This is where the majority of heartworms are cleared from the cat due to a mass immune response, but a few may continue development into adults. Once the heartworm develop into adults, they invade the heart first and then spread to other organs in the body and cause

The art of forensic entomology is used in identifying a timeline for how long a body may have been in the trunk due to the types of insects found ("Forensic Analysis of the Casey Anthony Trial - Crime Museum", 2017). This is because different insects are attracted to the various chemicals given off a body as it decays.Investigators also discovered and tested hairs found in the trunk ("Forensic Analysis of the Casey Anthony Trial - Crime Museum", 2017). Unfortunately, these hairs were only able to be used to narrow down who they may have belonged to as they contained no roots or connective tissue ("Forensic Analysis of the Casey Anthony Trial - Crime Museum", 2017). As we have learnt the hair in that state wouldn’t contain nuclear DNA to give a precise identification(Library.C, 2017).

Maintaining healthy cultures is essential in achieving the proper outcome expected for this lab. Before preparation of vials, or observation of flies, the workbenches and equipment, such as brushes, pipets, and measuring tools were wiped down with 70% ethanol ,and fly pads, as well as Co2 guns, were thoroughly disinfected with kim wipes. Hands were required to be thoroughly washed with anti-bacterial soap and completely dry, especially before preparation of food. Distilled water and other required sources were regularly changed in order to maintain

The aim of this investigation is to find a correlation between the number of maggots in the mass and the temperature of maggot mass. To find the correlation the different number of maggots in each mass was placed in (the isolated by glass beakers) polystyrene cups. The internal temperature of masses was obtained regularly every 10 minutes during 30 minutes time period under the same temperature of surroundings. The experiment was repeated several times and all results were recorded, averages were calculated and the graph showing the correlation was plotted. The result of the investigation is

In the Casey Anthony case Jeff Ashton who is a former state attorney in Orange county Florida, and also the first prosecutor in the United States to get a conviction based on DNA decided to use a new Forensic method in the Anthony case. The smell of death would be the allowed as evidence for the first time ever. In the trunk of Anthony’s car was a stained area on the carpet and an odor. Ashton stated that the smell was that of human decomposition. That piece of carpet was removed, sealed and sent to Dr. Vass, a forensic anthropologist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Voss has been studying human decomposition at the University of Tennessee’s “body farm”.

METHODS: In this experiment, the instructor provided us with 30 ebony individuals and 20 wild type individuals. In order to get an exact amount of each type, we anesthetized the flies and counted them off by gently using a fine point paint brush. Then all 50 Drosophila were put into a population cage which had a lid that had six holes for the centrifuge tubes. Two food tubes and four clean, empty tubes were added on the first day. Each food tube consisted of half a cup full of food mixed with 6-7 milliliters of water. This was the fly medium. The food should turn blue once the water is added. Each tube was labeled with a number and with the date. Every two to three days we added one more food tube until all 6 tubes contained the fly medium. After all 6 tubes were filled, the following days after we exchanged the first food tube with a new food tube. At the end of the experiment, we fed the flies with a total of 8 food tubes. Then the flies were anesthetized, again. At the end of this four week lab, the number of living ebony and wild