Ground penetrating radar surveys to locate 1918 Spanish flu victims in permafrost.

The "Spanish Flu" killed over 40 million people worldwide in 1918. Archival records helped us identify seven men who died of influenza in 1918 and were interred in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway, 1,300 km from the North Pole. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was used successfully, in a high-resolution field survey mode, to locate a large excavation with seven coffins, near the existing seven grave markers. The GPR indicated that the ground was disturbed to 2 m depth and was frozen below 1 m. Subsequent excavation showed that: a) the GPR located the position of the graves accurately, b) the coffins were buried less than 1 m deep, and c) that the frozen ground was 1.2 m deep where the coffins were located. The GPR assisted in planning the exhumation, safely and economically, under the high degree of containment required. Virologic and bacteriologic investigations on recovered tissues may give us an opportunity to isolate and identify the micro-organisms involved in the 1918 influenza and expand our knowledge on the pathogenesis of influenza.

Non-invasive computed tomography and three-dimensional reconstruction of the dentition of a 2,800-year-old Egyptian mummy exhibiting extensive dental disease.

A second CT scan of the mummy Djedmaatesankh, which is housed in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, has been undertaken after an interval of some 15 years. The image data set of her dentition and the associated tissues acquired from 3 mm thick x 3 mm spacing slices was transferred to an ISG Allegro work station where two-dimensional reformats and three-dimensional reconstructions were produced. This non-invasive examination provided information on dental disease that is, in a number of respects, an advance on that which previously could be obtained from mummies by the traditional methods of visual inspection after unwrapping and by two-dimensional radiography. The two- and three-dimensional images reveal that: three molars are missing and the right maxillary canine is impacted; the rest of the dentition is afflicted by severe attrition, caries and periodontal disease; and, of the 28 teeth present in the mouth, 24 exhibit exposure of their dental pulps and 18 are afflicted by periapical lesions including five that could have contributed to a large secondarily infected radicular cyst. The cyst have displaced the maxillary antrum and enlarged the maxilla on its lateral aspect and the vault of the palate on its medial aspect. Pus from the cyst may have drained through five different sinuses. In life, Djedmaatesankh's widespread dental infection probably caused her considerable pain, personal distress and malaise, and possibly resulted in her death.