Making Chemical Scents of Decomposition
Monday, August 17, 2009 - 15:07
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Rotting pig carcasses crawling with maggots are probably not the most appealing of study subjects for the average graduate student. And when Sarah Jones first faced the prospect of working with them, she didn't know how she would handle the sight, the smell, and all the vermin. But as she worked on her project--profiling the chemical signature of death in decaying pig cadavers--it became far more interesting than she had imagined, and slightly less repulsive. "The smell wasn't great, but I always had my mask on," she says. [More]