The Scientist: Jessica Metcalf, a microbiologist at Colorado State University, has studied the microbial world of decomposing bodies for more than a decade. In a 2013 study, she reported that as mice decomposed in a lab setting, the microbes colonizing their corpses changed, but the changes were consistent across mice.1 “That was our first clue that these predictable changes in microbial communities exist,” she said.

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