, male skull (<em>right</em>))
Female skull (left), male skull (right)
Image: Photographs by Floto + Warner
Like the detectives on the CBS drama Cold Case, anthropologist Ann H. Ross of North Carolina State University spends many of her days thinking about unsolved crimes. Her most recent work has aimed at developing software that helps forensic scientists determine the sex and ancestry of modern human skulls.
Typically forensic scientists measure remains with sliding rulers called calipers. Doing so results in two-dimensional measurements. Ross’s software, called 3D-ID and developed with a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, relies on three-dimensional measurements that scientists take with a digitizer—a computer and stylus. “The stylus allows you to place the coordinates in real space, so you get a better idea of the actual biological form of whatever you’re measuring,” Ross says.
This article was originally published with the title How Skulls Speak.
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4 Comments
Add CommentIt is not clear whether a paid SUBSCRIPTION results in real paper magazines being sent to my postal address, or whether it results in online access to all of the issue contents. Or both.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy so vague?
John Barkley
sierkobar@cox.net
What the calipers cannot measure is whether the brain inside the skull is a used one or an unused one. What we need to know now is what was going on inside those skulls, since we now know that cranial infrastructure works by means of molecular biology where astrocytes, for example, cross talk with neurons by means of a "cascade" effect. The old system of measuring the cranial capacity is way downriver, since high cc in an underutilized brain was no match for low cc in a well-utilized brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe generally knew that female skulls were lower in cc than male skulls; the ballgame now is to learn more about the evolution of cranial infrastructure and how cognition developed. For more on this, see www.paleoecpica.com.
Al Sundel
Misspelled www.paleoepica.com.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAl Sundel
And here I thought I'd get the answer from watching Skeletor.
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