Quantifying the asymmetries of the human face.

Asymmetries in the human face are quite common but do not get enough attention with regard to forensics and criminalistics. A face with asymmetries has a higher recognition value than a face without such morphological deviations. Therefore it is useful to determine the frequency of facial asymmetries to be able to evaluate the individual asymmetries focusing their rarity. This can be used primarily in forensic anthropology, particularly in the identification of persons. This aspect is the basis of this study. Therefore several structures in the faces of 130 volunteers (65 male, 65 female) from southern Germany were examined for asymmetries based on 3D laser scans. The study showed that asymmetries frequently occur in the eyes, the mouth and the ears. Rarer are asymmetries in the bridge of the nose and the shape of the chin. There is also considerable variation in the degree of asymmetry. Basically it can be said that small-scale structures, such as those in the eye area, have less pronounced asymmetries than large-scale structures such as the nose, mouth, chin and ear.

"Brienzi" - The blue Vivianite man of Switzerland: Time since death estimation of an adipocere body.

In 1996, a cadaver in adipocere condition was discovered in a bay of the Brienzer See in Switzerland. The torso was named "Brienzi" following the "Iceman" Ötzi. Several outer parts of the body were incrusted; the incrustation was in blue color. Further investigations showed that the bluish covering of parts of the adipocere torso were a mineral known as Vivianite. Vivianite (Fe(3)(PO(4))(2-)(H(2)O)(8)) is an iron phosphate mineral with needle lengths between 100 and 150µm. It is normally associated in a context with organic archaeological and geological materials (some hundreds to millions of years old). Hitherto, it is only described in three cases of human remains. We were able to reconstruct the following facts about 'Brienzi': The man drowned in Lake Brienz or in one of its tributaries during the 1700s. The body was subsequently covered with sedimentation and thus buried under water. An earthquake produced an underwater landslide which eventually exposed the corpse.

[Art history anthropology: a new interdisciplinary overlap using the examples of Caravaggio and Mozart]. / Kunstgeschichte und Anthropologie: eine neue Fachüberschneidung am Beispiel Caravaggio und Mozart.

The established identification of human faces on images may also be applied to paintings. This demands an extension of the known methodology: A check is performed if the depicted trait expressions may occur in nature at all or if they are an "artefact" of artistic freedom. Two cases are presented here, which illustrate an identification and an identity exclusion.

The impact of economic progress and modernization in medicine on the ossification of hand and wrist.

One of the main criteria used for age estimations of young living subjects is the developmental status of the ossification of hand bones. The impact of economic progress and modernization in medicine on ossification rates in a given population still requires further clarification. We selected 36 samples from literature for which the ossification status had been determined with the Greulich-Pyle method and analyzed specific economic data (per capita income) and demographic data (life expectancy at birth) as parameters of modernization. To describe the influence of these parameters on the rate of ossification, we performed a regression analysis and found that a relatively high level of economic progress and modernization in medicine coincides with high ossification rates, while relatively low modernization seems to delay ossification. When performing age estimations, the expert opinion should therefore pay attention to the issue of different modernization levels.