In an advance toward the first portable device for detecting human bodies buried in disasters and at crime scenes, two Penn State forensic scientists report early results from a project to establish the chemical fingerprint of death. According to Dan Sykes, senior lecturer and director of analytical instructional laboratories at Penn State and the project's leader, "Acertaining a profile of the chemicals released from decomposing bodies could lead to a valuable new addition to the forensic toolkit: an electronic device that could determine the time elapsed since death quickly, accurately, and onsite." The team is presenting its research in a poster at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society at 7:00 p.m. on 16 August 2009.
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