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Throughout the school year, one of the ways Chaminade Forensic Sciences students learn about decomposition is by studying pig carcasses. The program has been bringing carcasses to a field on campus since 2013, allowing students to meticulously gather data on how the pigs decompose.

The resulting database, says Forensic Sciences Director David Carter, created such a wealth of information that it allowed for almost flawless predictions of how pigs would decompose in the tropics based on the time of the year, taking temperature, humidity and other factors into account.

Carter developed a formula based on that very data, a significant development for the field that he presented at the International Caparica Conference in Translational Forensics in Lisbon this month.

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Carter says it’s important to note that pig carcasses aren’t human bodies—so the formula isn’t transferrable. But his “little pig equation” does offer hope that a similar human-focused calculation could someday be within reach of forensic scientists, explaining decomposition in different climates.

“Humans have so many variables,” Carter said. “But if we do the same thing for humans, we can probably figure out how long people have been dead a lot better than we do now.”

Carter’s database findings are already providing a new avenue of research for universities or other institutions with so-called “body farms,” where human decomposition in the elements is studied.

Carter cautioned that developing such a formula would require partnerships with law enforcement, medical examiners and years worth of data. He added several universities have already sought him out to talk about the pig decomposition study, including one in Australia that’s establishing a body farm.

Carter’s pig carcass research, with co-authors, was published in the journal Forensic Science International last year and was based on 10 decomposition studies conducted on Chaminade’s campus.

Joined by some colleagues, Carter is also hoping to present on separate research findings next year at the 77th annual Conference of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Baltimore. That presentation is set to focus on investigations with the Honolulu Medical Examiner’s Office.

Carter is an expert consultant for the office and is often brought onto cases to help determine whether findings during forensic investigations or autopsies are consistent with natural processes of death.

The presentation developed for the Baltimore conference, he said, incorporates data from 250 cases that offer insight into how authorities could use previous death investigations to inform future ones.

For example, he said, the database he is developing could allow a forensic investigator to more readily determine if a particular mark on a body is consistent—or not—with a natural death.

“You have essentially a reference database. In forensic science, you would refer to it as your knowns—like a database of fingerprints,” he said. “People underestimate the power of ruling stuff out.”

To read more about Carter’s research, click here.