Scanning the Dead

Forensics on Trial

PBS Airdate: October 17, 2012

NARRATOR:The corpse inside this body bag may be the victim of a crime. It's what police suspect but have no way to prove.

That's the job of Dr. Anders Persson and his team. They are about to perform an autopsy. But this is no ordinary cut-open-the-cadaver job. In Sweden's Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization, this man is about to be sliced up in a virtual autopsy.

It begins inside this C.T. scanner. It's like an x-ray on steroids. Regular x-rays scan just the outline of bones, but C.T. scans use a rotating x-ray.

It takes 12 images per second, creating cross-sectional slices of bone, thinner than a dime. These image slices are stacked side by side, forming a stunning picture of a body's skeleton.

Dr. Persson's team also scans the body through an M.R.I. to search for evidence of damage to organs. M.R.I.s create a map of the body's tissue, slice by slice, using powerful magnets and pulsing radio waves.

The victim is never removed from the body bag. With the click of a mouse, the covering can be made invisible to get a virtual peek inside.

WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY

Gary Glassman

PRODUCED AND DIRECTED BY

Scott Tiffany

EDITED BY

Brian Cassin

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Blanchard Road: A Murder in the Finger Lakes

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A Providence Pictures Production for NOVA

© 2012 WGBH Educational Foundation

All rights reserved

Image

(virtual autopsy)

© WGBH Educational Foundation

Anders Persson

Linköping University