Fast forensics

UK researchers are believed to be the first to develop and demonstrate a new scanning approach for mass fatality investigations.

The technique is said to be safer, faster and provides far superior information than its predecessors. And, unlike older methods, it is entirely mobile so it can be used at an investigation scene.

The team, from

, hopes that the Multislice Computed Tomography (MSCT) scanner will replace the two existing radiology methods, fluoroscopy and X-ray. The former is time-consuming, and yields limited information, and the latter is hazardous to health.

Fluoroscopes, which work by taking continuous real-time x-rays, can take 90 minutes to complete a full body examination, whereas the MSCT scanner takes just 20 seconds to retrieve and transmit data. And unlike x-ray units, there are no health problems because there is no radiological content in MSCT.

And while the fluoroscope and x-ray systems are used in tandem to retrieve information on tissue and bone data, MSCT provides detailed information relating to the whole body.