Liam Grealy
Forensics
Mr. Ippolito
Current event 18
March 8th 2018
Brown, Patricia Leigh. “They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/arts/design/new-york-academy-of-art-arizona-border.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection.
This article discusses forensic reconstruction particularly the face with scientific accuracy. This is done by rebuilding the muscles and soft tissue layer by layer, using strips of clay. The purpose of doing this is to help in cases where decomposition has rendered a face unrecognisable. This is a major issue with migrants near the southern US border. Although the number of people attempting to enter has decreased the number of people who die near the border has increased. It is especially difficult to reconstruct these bodys due to the fact of vultures and other scavengers who leave bodys just as shells in a matter of days. However reconstruction is done by looking at the skull. The skull shows what the face should look like; for example The thickness of the lips, the shape and placement of the eyes, nose and chin, the earlobes, even the curve of the eyebrows are all revealed in the skull. This practice has also been implemented with mummies from egypt to get a better look at pharos.
The main purpose is to ensure that these people in search of better lives don't lose their identities in the process. The process of recreating faces can be helpful in both history for putting faces to the infamous people of history and to give closure. It can be used domestically with decade old homicides and abroad with soldier identification. I think it would be interesting to study history and not only see paintings of people but have a realistic mold of what they actually looked like. The fact that this new technology saves people from falling through the cracks of time is very interesting and there should further advances in forensics which allow people even after death to be noticed and give closure to their families.
I would have liked to see the author add a personal case of how this was used. The article was rather generic and didn’t give the reader much satisfaction and didn’t discuss how this method has lead to people being identified or how it gave closure to families. The article seemed to talk about the same thing a lot when I wished it gave better description and engaged the reader more. Although the topic was interesting the way the author presented the results was a little boring and left the reader wanting more detail.
3 comments:
Zixi Chen
Mr. Ippolito
Forensics
Current event 19
16 March 2018
Brown, Patricia Leigh. “They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/arts/design/new-york-academy-of-art-arizona-border.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection.
Liam Grealy’s review on the New York Times article named “They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.” written by Patricia Leigh Brown is very interesting to read. There are many good things about this review. First of all, Liam’s introduction is very straightforward. He did not use any opening statements, but dived right into the content of this article. This made the review much easier to read. Also, Liam gave a very detailed description and explanation of the procedure taken by the students to reconstruct faces using skulls. He also gave good examples about the ways the features of people’s faces are related to the skull. Moreover, Liam shared a lot of his thoughts on the applications of this method of reconstructing faces. Liam thinks that this method can be used to show more accurate and detailed pictures of the appearance of people who died ages ago. This is a very interesting idea and it shows that Liam is thinking about this method carefully.
Even though this review is very interesting, there are some areas for possible improvement. First of all, Liam did not use any quotes from the original article. Even though he carefully paraphrased a lot of material, it would give the readers more direct feelings and establish more credibility for himself by using some quotes. Furthermore, it would be very nice if Liam could construct some careful transitional sentences between paragraphs.
By reading this review, I was surprised by how the forensic scientists were able to rebuild someone’s face by layering the soft tissue and muscle with clay. It is amazing how closely the skull is related to the appearance of face, but the ability to reconstruct such an important human feature using only the bones is astonishing. If this method is developed more and can reconstruct faces with more accuracy, then it would be easier to identify the identity of unrecognizable victims such as those who lost their lives in a fire.
Olivia Lewis
Mr. Ippolito
Forensics
Current event 19
3/16/18
Brown, Patricia Leigh. “They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/arts/design/new-york-academy-of-art-arizona-border.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection.
Liam Grealy’s review of the article “They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.” was very well thought out and informative. Liam included many details from the article and was able to give a very good summary of it. He also did a good job of explaining the forensic process that was used to reconstruct the faces. Finally, I think that Liam also did a good job of imputing his own thoughts into this review of the article.
While this review was very good, I think that if small adjustments were made it could have been better. For example, I think that if Liam had used quotes from the article than the reader would have been able to understand the article that was reviewed better. I also think that Liam could have made his review more organized and easy to understand.
After reading this review I found it very interesting, as facial reconstruction is not something that we have discussed in detail in class. I think that this forensic procedure can be improved upon and continue to be an asset to the forensic community.
Comment on Liam Grealy’s Current Event “They Died Near The Border: Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.”
Brown, Patricia Leigh. “They Died Near the Border. Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back.”The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Mar. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/arts/design/new-york-academy-of-art-arizona-border.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FForensic%2BScience&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection
Liam wrote a great review of “They Died Near The Border: Art Students Hope to Bring Them Back” by Patricia Brown. Liam gave a very detailed description and explanation of the procedure used by the students to reconstruct faces using skulls. Liam’s opinion that facial reconstruction technology could create more detailed faces raised a good point. Lastly, Liam’s summary was thorough and clear.
Liam’s report was weak because Liam did not use quotes that supported his argument. Liam’s report could have been less choppy.
I learned about the new technologies used to recreate disconfigured faces in forensic accidents from this report. I am impressed that art can be so important when solving forensic cases.
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