Dead Pigs and Bronchitis

Short little update.

First of all I will explain this Maymester class I am taking. It's through Geology and counts a field course, woot. It's GIS forensics so it's map making and forensics combined. It's pretty sweet.

We are working with a group in Highlands Ranch called Necrosearch (aka the pig people). About 20 years ago they started burying dead pigs (*note* these pigs were already on they way to the slaughterhouse, however for one reason or another they were not fit for meat so they were killed humanely and donated to Necrosearch). So they have a plot of land that was donated by the Douglas and Arapahoe county law enforcement and they burry these pigs and then study the decomposition. Why pigs? Pigs are used because in Colorado you cannot bury human bodies for scientific research (you can in Tennesse however). Pig are about they same body weight, nearly hairless and decompose similar to humans. They now have about 20 pigs buried in a variety of ways (ie stabbed post-motem and wrapped in a shower curtain, etc.)

Friday we went down the the "Pig Farm" as it is called. We are helping Necrosearch map out where the pig bodies are on their land and helping them process some of their data. I got the task of using a GPS Camera and photgraphing three pigs that were placed on the surface. One was the insect pig that had a net to catch the bugs that came to the area. The second was a pig placed in a cage (so it couldn't be scavenged) and then a camera was mounted to take a time lapse of the decomposition of the body. The third was placed near a trailer and left in the open. Mounted on the trailer was a motion sensor camera that took photos so they could see what animals had scavenged the pig. The GPS camera takes a digital picture as well as the exact location of where that picture was taken. I found tons of bones around the area where scavenged pig once was. My project is going to map out where these bones are and that will give Necrosearch an idea of how animals drag away parts of the body and where bones end up.

It's a really cool class. We also used ground penetrating radar to look for pigs that were burried under where a werehouse was built. Depending of what the material is it can look pretty far down into the surface. We could see about 2 meters down.

We spent about 7 hours out in the field and we go out again tomorrow.

Also Clark Devenport, one of the Necrosearch founders, his daughter did the same exchange group I did and went to Jannali about 4 years before I did. Crazy.
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Went to the doctor today. Aparently I have Asthmatic Bronchitis. Spiffy.
I am on an albuterol inhaler. But it makes sleepy and dizzy.
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Oh and my roommate just left for two weeks to go home to LA.
DDR anyone?