A team of scientists is developing an electronics that could locate to corpses detecting the chemical track of the bodies in decomposition. The apparatus will even help to determine the exact hour of the death.

At the moment, to find to the victim of a murder or the bodies buried between rubbish after an earthquake or a tornado, the security forces use trained dogs that locate the bodies and help their rescue. “They are very effective, but it entails long time, cost and effort to train them”, explains Give Sykes, that adds that the new electronics avoids all the disadvantages of the canine equipment.

In order to do that I devise works, Sykes and its colleagues must also identify the gases that a corpse in different environmental conditions releases, and how its chemical composition throughout the time evolves. At the moment already they have worked with 30 substances, between which one is the putrescina and the cadaverine, first in appearing in a body in decomposition. Using sensorial special similars to which they are used to analyze the airborne contamination, they have elaborated a “chemical chronology” of a corpse from 6 hours after the death to one week later. Their conclusions have appeared in the annual congress of the American Society of Chemistry, that is celebrated these days in Washington.

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