July 19, 2010

Grave Matters

53 minutes

We could choose not to pay income tax and suffer the consequences. But we can’t avoid death. The biological functions of all organisms eventually cease. But why should this be? Find out why animals die and meet one creature that is biologically immortal.

Plus, a trip to the Body Farm where decaying bodies help science…how we might cheat the Big Sleep with drugs… why Mexican cemeteries look like villages… and a doctor’s fight against one of the world’s deadliest diseases.

Guests:

Bill Bass - Forensic Anthropologist, founder of the University of Tennessee Forensic Research Facility. Author of Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science and fiction, written under the pen name, Jefferson Bass. The latest: Bones of Betrayal: A Body Farm Novel.

Stanley Brandes - Cultural Anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley, author of Skulls to the Living, Bread to the Dead: The Day of the Dead in Mexico and Beyond

Matt Kaeberlein - Pathologist, University of Washington

Ross Donaldson - Doctor and author of The Lassa Ward

Descripción en español

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

...more

View all episodes

By Big Picture Science

4.5

912912 ratings