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National Geographic Secrets of the Body Farm HD 1080 WEB H264 4000

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    [Narrator] You're watching National Geographic
    Channel Presents.
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    There's a place so ghastly and grotesque
    that most people recoil in horror,
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    but these acres, filled with decaying
    human flesh actually save lives.
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    This is a training ground
    for forensic specialists,
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    solving murders one corpse at a time,
    unlocking the secrets of the body farm.
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    [dog barking]
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    >>It's pretty dark out here.
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    [Narrator] A skeleton
    uncovered in Memphis.
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    >>Maybe we can find a grease spot where
    the actual body is decomposed.
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    [Narrator] A family,
    murdered in Mississippi,
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    a body stashed
    in a Las Vegas locker.
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    Real crimes, with real consquences.
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    >>We got a rib, we got a right scapula.
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    [Narrator] What's the connection
    between these grisly discoveries?
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    Real CSI. Scientists, turned
    crime scene investigators,
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    dramatized on a hit TV series,
    but what do they really do?
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    >>Did the skull look small to you too?
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    >>Ready? [unclear]
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    [Narrator] And where do
    they learn their trade?
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    Welcome to ground zero in
    the field of forensic anthropology,
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    a unique outdoor classroom,
    where the subject is death,
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    and more than half the CSI units working
    in the US today have been trained.
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    Founded by Dr. Bill Bass of the University
    of Tennessee more than 25 years ago,
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    research conducted within these
    few wooded acres in Knoxville
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    has redefined the frontiers
    of forensic science.
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    [Dr. Bill Bass] The anthropology
    research facility,
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    what most people call the 'body farm,'
    is a research facility that I set up
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    to begin to look at the decay and
    the rates of decay in human bodies.
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    Like many anthropologists,
    Bass started out studying ancient bones.
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    His expertise eventually led to his helping
    the police with modern day murder victims.
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    [Bass] You know, we kill our friends
    and neighbors many different means,
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    and a lot of people are shot
    or bludgeoned or stabbed.
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    My orientation was what happens when
    a body decays and how long does it take?
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    [Narrator] He learned to read
    bones for signs of trauma,
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    knife marks in ribs,
    unusual fractures in skulls.
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    Drawing on unclaimed bodies
    from county morgues,
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    he built an extensive
    collection of skeletons,
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    but early in his career, Bass realized that
    bones weren't the only source of clues.
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    Decomposing flesh had
    secrets to reveal as well.
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    [Bass] I got a call one afternoon, it was
    between Christmas and New Years--
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    it was cold-- from the Williamson County
    Sherriff's office,
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    telling me that they had a grave that had
    been disturbed, would I come and help?
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    So I get over there. This is a family
    cemetery, back of a home.
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    [Narrator] Someone had broken
    into the earth, near a headstone.
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    Just beneath the surface, a headless male
    corpse. The remains looked fairly fresh.
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    Police needed to know how fresh.
    Had a new body been added to an old grave?
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    Dr. Bass agreed the body was in good shape,
    pink flesh still clung to the bones.
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    [Bass] I looked at it, I said you have
    a 24 to 28 year old white male
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    who's been dead about a year.
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    [Narrator] But something didn't add up.
    Bass kept digging,
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    ultimately identifying the body
    as Colonel William Shy,
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    a rebel officer killed in the Civil War,
    buried in an air-tight cast iron coffin,
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    the corpse had been
    incredibly well-preserved.
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    Bass' original assessment had
    been off by more than a century.
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    [Bass] People wonder why
    I started a body farm.
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    It's because of a couple of
    experiences like that,
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    that make you realize that, you know, you
    really don't know much about decay rates,
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    and we need to do
    something about that.
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    [Narrator] By now, more than
    four hundred human corpses
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    have decomposed
    at the body farm,
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    every phase documented
    under a wide range of conditions.
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    Some critics say letting corpses
    decay here is irreverent,
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    but the scientists insist the dead
    are held in the highest respect.
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    >>It's important to remember
    that the anthropology department,
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    the forensics center doesn't
    own these bodies.
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    They're a gift to us to study
    decomposition, but if the day comes
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    and families ever decide that they
    want them, they belong to them.
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    >>I always try and take a minute
    and say thank you,
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    because without them,
    we wouldn't be able to do
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    any of this research and
    this place would not exist.
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    [Narrator] There's no doubt that the
    work done here is incredibly valuable,
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    resulting in the convictions of
    countless violent criminals
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    who may have
    otherwise walked free.
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    And those bodies,
    so generously donated,
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    are put to good use in earnest
    efforts to protect the living.
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    [Bass] We've looked at decaying bodies
    in various scenarios:
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    clothing, no clothing, sun, shade,
    buried, not buried, water, trunks of cars.
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    We've been able to establish
    a sequence of events
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    that occurs under
    all of these conditions.
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    >>You can see all through here, where it's
    all decayed, and we've got some more bugs.
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    >>Forensic anthropology and
    forensic entomology
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    really take off from right here
    where we're walking.
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    I mean this is, in a sense, ground zero
    where this particular research takes place.
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    >>It's interesting, because they say okay
    [fades out]
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    [Narrator] Dr. Murray Marks is one of the
    thousands who have studied at the facility.
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    Now he's on the faculty,
    guiding the research
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    of a new generation of scientists.
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    [Marks] When I see remains like this,
    I'm always reminded that this
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    is such a unique laboratory,
    because where else can we study
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    this whole process
    of decomposition?
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    We're there to speak for the victim,
    for the people that don't have a voice.
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    By doing that, we get
    ever closer to the truth,
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    and ever closer to making
    someone pay for their crime.
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    [Narrator] The body farm's
    many successes has
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    spread the facility's
    influence far and wide.
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    A new program called
    the National Forensic Academy
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    allows police and lab technicians from
    throughout the United States
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    to hone their skills amid a
    cornucopia of fresh bodies,
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    decomposing corpses,
    and overgrown skeletons.
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    >>If at any time you have a problem,
    I strongly recommend
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    you turn around
    and take a deep breath. Okay?
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    It is not a pleasant thing.
    It is something that you have to face
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    at some point in your careers.
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    [Narrator] In a wooded corner of the
    facility, the scientists have scattered
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    a mixture of human bones,
    animal bones, bullet casings,
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    and other
    simulated evidence.
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    Stained by time, soil, and weather,
    and hidden by leaves,
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    the scattered bones
    are difficult to find,
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    just as they would be
    at an actual crime scene.
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    Sorting through human remains can be an
    unsettling task, even for professionals.
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    >>Sometimes that whiff is just too much.
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    [Narrator] Next: how to find
    a murder victim when the body
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    is already buried six feet under.
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    National Geographic Channel
    Presents will be right back.
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    Now, back to National Geographic
    Channel Presents.
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    The secrets of the body farm aren't
    reserved solely for human students.
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    Most cadaver dogs are trained
    to find corpses
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    with synthetic samples
    that smell like decay.
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    Here, dogs are able to practice on
    multiple human bodies,
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    in varying states of decomposition.
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    [Dog Trainer] What you got?
    You find something?
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    [Narrator] They're taught to lie down
    or bark when they find human remains.
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    [Dog Trainer] Oh, good girl.
    What you got? Show me.
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    Good girl. Ready?
    Want to find some more?
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    [Narrator] Finding corpses on
    the surface is just a warm-up.
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    [Dog Trainer] Out here.
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    [Narrator] The dogs move on to a series of
    concrete slabs for the graduate course.
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    Under the yellow arrows, a researcher has
    buried corpses and other debris.
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    [dog barks]
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    [Dog Trainer] Very good!
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    [Narrator] Success is rewarded
    immediately, to reinforce
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    every dog's complete
    attention to the task.
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    Jane Survey is in the early stages of
    training her dog to indicate a discovery.
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    [Jane Survey] While there's such
    overwhelming scents,
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    we want them to concentrate and
    indicate on every one they find.
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    What can happen, especially in early
    stages of training in something like this,
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    is that they would go from one source,
    to another source,
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    to another source
    without indicating.
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    This is a great opportunity because
    it tells them every single one,
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    indicate immediately,
    then go on to the next.
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    [to dog] You did very good,
    you're a smart dog!
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    Find it.
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    [dog barks]
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    If you saw her head--
    Flora, show me.
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    [dog barks]
    No, you show me. Yes, good dog!
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    When she got over here,
    her breathing changes,
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    and if you watch them
    very closely you can tell that.
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    It's almost like they inhale
    and then they stop breathing,
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    because they're
    processing the scent.
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    Good dog!
    Are you the smartest girl?
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    [Narrator] Even the best cadaver dogs can
    have a difficult time locating some corpses.
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    The body farm is the perfect lab for
    developing new technologies
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    that can help locate
    human remains.
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    [Bass] We have a problem in the United
    States of the husband and wife,
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    one of them gets mad,
    kills the other one,
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    they take them out in the
    backyard and bury them.
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    Then they pour a concrete slab
    over them and it's hard to find.
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    [Narrator] This is an experimental
    ground-penetrating radar system, GPRX.
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    On loan from the US government,
    it's one of only two units
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    of this GPR model in the world.
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    It's been developed to locate dinosaur
    bones, find unexploded artillery shells,
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    and reveal hidden bodies.
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    The system is about the size
    and weight of a weedwhacker,
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    but it's packed with
    powerful electronics.
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    Beneath these concrete paths at the
    anthropology research facility,
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    lie seven human bodies.
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    Michelle Miller buried the bodies at
    depths ranging from one foot to six feet.
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    What would a body look like at each depth?
    Could the radar see through cement?
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    And would a body under cement
    look different from a body under dirt?
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    [Miller] I want to see the difference
    between cement and actual-- just the clay.
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    The head of one individual
    is right here,
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    and the head of the other
    individual is right there,
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    and hopefully I'll be able to see the
    definite difference of the GPR
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    shooting through the
    cement versus the non cement.
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    [Narrator] Miller didn't stop there,
    she added other variables.
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    Could the system distinguish between
    a fresh corpse and a bare skeleton?
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    Or between a body and rubble?
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    [Miller] I want to see if it could
    really differentiate, you know,
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    between a definite
    individual and not.
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    What I did is I buried one
    individual on this side of the pad.
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    On the other side of the pad,
    I actually made a mock-up.
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    I used plastic buckets, metal buckets,
    two-by-fours, and metal tubing,
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    and actually built a body.
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    [Bass] What we're trying to do is to
    match a situation like you're getting
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    in terrorist attacks now, where you get
    not only the people being blown up,
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    but you get all of the building or
    the surroundings filled in with them.
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    Can you distinguish a body under
    all of that, what you may call 'noise,'
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    if you want to say that,
    or something is confusing the picture.
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    [Narrator] The system's field display
    shows little detail,
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    just a series of swirls and squiggles,
    representing different densities.
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    Miller wants to know if those
    patterns can be read as bodies.
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    Back at the lab, the data is downloaded
    into a more sophisticated computer
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    to enhance the display.
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    The display shows a cross-section
    cutaway of the earth.
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    A red band across the top
    shows the concrete,
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    dense, but transparent
    as a windowpane to the GPRX.
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    Beneath that, disturbed soil,
    which yields uniform signals of green.
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    Then, two feet down,
    the signals go crazy,
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    matching the size and shape
    of the body hidden there.
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    Once a body's been found,
    the detective work truly begins.
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    The one piece of evidence everyone wants?
    Time since death.
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    [Bass] The police don't
    ask you 'who is that?'
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    They ask you 'how long
    have they been there?'
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    Now I didn't have any
    experience with maggots,
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    so I looked in the literature, and
    there was very little in the literature.
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    So I decided this was an area
    that we needed to do research on.
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    We need to find out what happens
    in the decay stages of human individuals.
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    [Narrator] In the 1980s, Bass and
    a graduate student began
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    charting the order and the
    timing of insect activity in corpses.
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    Most numerous
    were blow flies.
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    Iridescent flies that could
    sniff out a body within seconds.
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    Each female blow fly laid eggs
    by the hundreds,
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    usually in natural body
    openings or bloody wounds.
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    In summertime, the eggs could
    hatch in just two hours,
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    the resulting larvae, maggots
    soon formed a writhing, flesh-eating mass.
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    The maggots were nourished to maturity
    by the proteins and lipids in the flesh.
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    Some two weeks later, they formed
    pupa casings, or cocoons.
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    A few days later, a new generation
    of adult flies emerged
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    from those pupa casings,
    and the cycle began anew.
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    Other insects joined the
    post-mortem food chain.
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    Yellow jackets fed on blow fly eggs,
    and beetles nibbled cartilage off bones.
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    But the key players were
    blow flies and their maggots.
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    [Neil Haskel] Then we can go to the
    proper charts [fades out]
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    [Narrator] The studies provided crucial
    data to scientists like Neil Haskel,
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    a forensic entomologist, who teaches
    at St. Joseph's College in Indiana.
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    He also testifies in murder trials.
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    Coming up: a brutal and mysterious
    murder of a young family.
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    Could insect activity
    crack the case?
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    Find out when Secrets
    of the Body Farm continues.
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    You're watching National Geographic
    Channel Presents.
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    The expert testimony of forensic
    entomologist Neil Haskel,
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    trained at the body farm,
    proved crucial as a grisly case
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    unfolded in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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    People renting storage space in a
    mini warehouse had noticed a nasty smell.
Title:
National Geographic Secrets of the Body Farm HD 1080 WEB H264 4000
Video Language:
English
Duration:
45:53

English subtitles

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