News Genetics

Genes could record forensic clues to time of death

How our genetic machinery winds down may one day help solve criminal cases

body in morgue

FORENSIC LENS  A new approach to determining a body’s time of death looks for patterns in genes that are active after death.

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By Erika Engelhaupt

- More than 2 years ago

Dying, it turns out, is not like flipping a switch. Genes keep working for a while after a person dies, and scientists have used that activity in the lab to pinpoint time of death to within about nine minutes.