BRING OUT YOUR DEAD ... ELSEWHERE

doi:10.1126/science.316.5828.1105b

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Kenny Johns respects the dead. He just doesn't want them lying about near his airport.

Last month, Provost Perry Moore of Texas State University in San Marcos was finishing plans to build a 7-hectare forensic anthropology research field lab--a "body farm" that would use decomposing human remains to aid in the investigation of outdoor crime scenes--less than a mile from the San Marcos Municipal Airport. But now the university is scouting a new location in response to concerns that circling buzzards would threaten aircraft there. Airport manager Johns notes that one buzzard alone can easily destroy a small plane's engine or shatter a larger one's windshield.

The body farm is to be the cornerstone for a new doctoral program in forensic anthropology, with up to a dozen corpses in various states of decomposition, says university spokesperson Mark Hendricks. Texas State hopes it will open by fall semester. If so, it will be the third in the nation, joining sites in Tennessee (Science, 11 August 2000, p. 855) and North Carolina. Forensic anthropologist Jerry Melbye foresees no difficulty in obtaining research material. "Many people are interested" in the university's new donation program, he says.