Word: skeletonic
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...forensic scientists last week sought to find a series of identifying fragments of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. The task, experts say, is a tough one, even with some of the best forensic minds in the world applying their talents. There is no doubt that certain facts about the skeleton will be established. The question is, will a complete identity emerge? Even in the most difficult cases, says Clyde Snow, an American consultant on the Mengele case, "it's amazing what a little piece of bone...
...more difficult problem. Because bone growth in humans occurs according to a more or less predictable timetable, forensic experts can usually tell the age of a skeleton of a child or young adult. But most of the skeletal changes are complete by about age 45, when the flat bones of the skull have fused...
Thus clues as to whether the skeleton from Embu belonged to Mengele, who would have been 67 when the body was buried, or to a man ten or even 15 years younger, must be gleaned from studying subtle degenerative changes in the teeth and microscopic changes in bone tissue...
Teeth provide important clues. Their alignment, the shapes of the roots, the patterns of wear and dental work are different in each individual. "It may be one tooth that puts the whole story together," says Snow, a forensic anthropologist from Norman, Okla. The rest of the skeleton can also yield information. Gunshot wounds, fractures and other major injuries often leave lifelong traces. So can diseases such as syphilis and tuberculosis and bone disorders like osteomyelitis, an infection from which Mengele is said to have suffered...
...imprecise" and "incomplete," according to Ayrton Martini, director of the Sao Paulo state police scientific department. Also, there is scant information on a pelvic fracture Mengele is said to have suffered in a wartime motorcycle accident. The injury seems to accord with hip abnormalities found on the skeleton, but unless old X rays of Mengele's pelvis turn up, it may be impossible to prove a correlation...