Lying in the open, a human body can take months to return to earth, says forensic anthropologist Daniel Wescott. First, the skin "slips" and blisters. It turns blacks and greys and greens. It bloats.

HILLHURST, Tenn. (WSMV/CNN/CNN Newsource/WKRC) - A woman discovered human remains behind a McDonald's on Friday. According to ...

Research at body farms—research facilities dedicated to studying what happens to human bodies after death—supplies law enforcement with valuable information about the process of decomposition ...

The decomposition of a human can be affected by many different factors, like moisture, temperature, and insects, not to mention the diverse aspects of the body itself.

Body Mass Index (BMI) Impacts Soil Chemical and Microbial Response to Human Decomposition. mSphere, 2022; DOI: 10.1128/msphere.00325-22 ...

UC Santa Cruz anthropologist Alison Galloway is one of the nation’s foremost experts in the natural decomposition of human remains. She speaks Tuesday at the Rio Theatre. — Contributed photo.

Since 1980, the University of Tennessee's Forensic Anthropology Center has plumbed the depths of the most macabre of sciences: the decomposition of human bodies. Known colloquially as the Body ...

But at human decomposition facilities, sometimes known as "body farms," students and researchers see rotting corpses every day. They watch as scavengers and bacteria feast on them.