Western Carolina U. plans 'body farm'

July 30th, 2006 in Medicine & Health /
Western Carolina U. plans 'body farm' (AP)

John Williams, director of the forensic anthropology lab at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C., examines part of a human femur bone from a cadaver named Walter, inside the lab July 24, 2006. Soon, Williams will have another place to do experiments, a well hidden location near the school´s campus where Williams and his students will be able to study how cadavers decompose in the mountainous environment of western North Carolina. It will be only the second such "body farm" in the country. (AP Photo/Alan Marler)

(AP) -- The 6.5-horsepower wood chipper sitting in the middle of John Williams' forensic anthropology lab run is no macabre joke. Yes, a wood chipper did figure in the bloody climax of the 1996 film "Fargo." And yes, the professor at Western Carolina University has run human bones through this particular Briggs & Stratton model.

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"Western Carolina U. plans 'body farm'." July 30th, 2006. http://phys.org/news73453825.html