Category — The Human Body

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American tobacco farmer who got cervical cancer at the age of 30. Despite her doctors’ efforts, her case of cancer was too aggressive to control; she passed away in October 1951. But this is not the end of the story.

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We are all familiar with color mixing. There are things which we agree are to be called the color blue, things which are the color green. When these colors are put together, we would all agree that they would be somewhere in the middle.

Like these photos of a blue-green iris and computer art:

But no matter how much egg nog you have, you cannot see a color which you would describe as red-green (even if you stare cross-eyed at the Christmas tree).

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The Scene of the Crime:

“What was the time of death detective?”

“When we arrived, rigor had begun to set in. I place time of death at 4 hours ago.”

This scene is typical of a CSI murder drama. The Medical Examiner steps on the scene and examines the body for signs of rigor mortis. Like clockwork, the muscles of a dead body begin to stiffen starting 3 hours after death. Full rigor comes on around 12 hours (the medical term for the body at this time is a “stiff”).

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