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Science Fair
Erica Estep had her first visit with Dr. Bill Bass on Tuesday. Here’s what she posted on Facebook: “I was expecting a man who deals with death so much to be creepy, but he was fascinating, funny and I enjoyed the time we spent at his home. He talked with me about the Casey Anthony trial and why the science being introduced is reliable.”
Now that Erica is a Bass fan, she should come to the next “Dinner with the Bone Doctor” at Echo Bistro & Wine Bar on August 8th.
Power Is in Your Hands
Do you want your logo on a robot? A friend emailed me that question because her son’s robotics team needs sponsors for their trip to St. Louis. The Hardin Valley RoHawktics didn’t win the overall competition at the Smoky Mountain Regional FIRST Robotics Competition on Saturday but they did win the Rookie All Star Award and the Highest Rookie Seed Award after experiencing some difficulty on Friday. Their entry is named Hawktimus Prime.
At the end of the month, the RoHawktics get to compete at the FIRST Championship at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. FIRST means For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. The organization was founded by the Segway guy, Dean Kamen. He was in Knoxville to watch the competition on Friday.
My friend is looking for suggestions for potential sponsors. The team needs to quickly raise at least $6,000 for the trip, which includes robot parts, travel expenses and the sizable registration fee. The last time my friend and her son asked me to be a sponsor, I happily said yes. Of course it didn’t cost me anything to be the young man’s Confirmation sponsor.
The Ideal Brain Tonic
It was difficult to take a picture of the image that was only on our screen for a split second during a commercial in the AFC Championship game. Now that my wife and I have captured a slightly blurry photo of Coca-Cola’s secret formula, it’s only a matter of time before we can have our son, the chemical-engineering major, whip us up some homemade soda that’s just as good as the real thing.
Sublimation
What do you do with dry ice? If you were my son, you would make awesome soap bubbles with it. We got some in the mail when my mother sent us a gift package of Omaha Steaks.
A home freezer can’t get cold enough to keep the carbon dioxide frozen, so the only choice is to let it go gaseous. Frank Jr. dropped the dry ice into a cup of water. He soaked a paper towel in soapy water and then placed it over the cup to create a film. As the dry ice warmed, it made bubbles that looked like they were filled with fog.
Masonic Temple
St. Albert the Great was known as the “teacher of everything there is to know.” A DVD called “The Star of Bethlehem” was screened at St. Albert the Great Parish last night. The film is a lecture by Rick Larson, who uses a scientific approach to explain the star and to determine the dates of Christ’s birth and death.
I wasn’t able to attend the screening at St. Albert. As good luck would have it, the film was shown on EWTN earlier in the evening. I caught the end and then found the rest of it on YouTube. My son used his Wii console to navigate YouTube so we could both watch it on our wide-screen television. The Wii only let us watch it in increments.
According to Larson’s research, the day of the cross was April 3, 33 A.D. Larson found celestial events to place the Annunciation in September of 3 B.C. and the birth of Jesus in June of 2 B.C. He says the Magi saw the star stop over Bethlehem on December 25, 2 B.C.
Immediately following the “The Star of Bethlehem,” EWTN showed “A Star Shall Rise,” a 1952 episode of the TV series “Family Theatre.” I was drawn in by the familiar voice of Balthazar. It was a voice I recognized from countless episodes of “Ironside” and “Perry Mason” that my mother watched when I was young. The man with the beard was Raymond Burr.
Smell Test
Adam Longo visited the Body Farm in 2006 when he worked for WATE in Knoxville. I wrote a blog post about it at the time. He was able to repurpose parts of that report yesterday for his new employer, News 13 in Central Florida.
Longo is covering the Casey Anthony case. Casey is accused of murdering her daughter Caylee. Her lawyers traveled to Knoxville to take depositions from Body Farm researchers. Prosecutors and scientists believe that air samples collected from the truck of Casey’s car are consistent with the gases emitted during human decomposition. One of the names on the report is Dr. Arpad Vass, who developed an electronic sniffer to help find missing corpses.
Adam’s wife, Melissa DiPane, also worked at WATE. She is now at WOFL in Orlando. Four years ago, I served hot dogs alongside Melissa and several other news anchors. I’ll be back at Market Square this Friday serving hot dogs for United Way.
Intravenous League
The blood you are about to see is real. The stains have been changed to protect the innocent. Welcome to the “Harvard of Hellish Violence,” where law enforcement professionals get hands-on training at simulated crime scenes, including digging up real corpses at the world-famous Body Farm.
The influence of Patricia Cornwell is evident as soon as you arrive at the National Forensic Academy in Oak Ridge. The Hummers she donated are parked right outside. Once inside, there’s a photo which identifies her as “founding advisor, benefactor, challenger.” She has given them the proceeds from a Knoxville book signing in 2002. A few years ago she helped them simulate a private plane crash. I want to make a return visit to the NFA to see the collection of books and papers Cornwell is donating next. It includes her research on the Jack the Ripper case. They give her stuff too. Cornwell requested NFA hats for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as she headed to the pitch meeting for a Kay Scarpetta movie.
The NFA is a ten-week program for active law enforcement personnel. Nathan Lefebvre and Robert Geiger hosted the small group I had assembled for a tour. We learned about the history and mission of the Academy and got to poke around in their photography room and fingerprint laboratory. As they spoke, I wondered if that thing behind them was what I thought it was. Yes, it was a bloody baseball bat, which reminded me of a scene in “The Untouchables.”
The National Forensic Academy uses actual human blood to teach about spatter patterns. Medic Regional Blood Center gives them pints that have passed their expiration date. The blood can be cast off an assortment of weapons, many of which were confiscated from criminals.
A “staircase to nowhere” is used to drop blood from various heights. Students can place boards at different angles to see the way the droplets run down the paper as they dry. My son volunteered to drop blood from several points on the staircase.
The same room has racks of drywall, simulating the walls of a house. Robert hammered spikes into the walls to represent bullet holes. To show the trajectories, he put laser pointers in the holes and sprayed their beams with canned fog.
Former Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith was instrumental in the founding of the Academy. After the debacle of the O.J. Simpson criminal trial, there was a need for standardized training for crime scene investigators. Nathan told us that some officers work hard to get assigned to crime scenes. Others get demoted to that position. It varies depending on how that police department views forensics.
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