The fuel is burning down to my bones
But I see the truth now
I'll never be more alone
I run through the trees as fast as I can
I fall to my knees and I find a place to land
Whisper in the moonlight, stopping the life we
freeze, see into the shadows, taking over me
I'm sorry for the long absence from the show
Life has been a little crazy for all of us
We appreciate your patience while you waited for our next episode to come out
On an exciting note, me, Jenna, speaking to you now, I got a job
I'm now working for the court system here in Ontario as an exhibit clerk
Full disclaimer though, I have to go through the nitty gritty of it
This is not the presentation of the Ontario or Superior Court of Justice or the
Ministry of the Attorney General
So anything that I say is just purely my own opinion
And how I feel about stuff and it has nothing to do with our Ontario court system
That being said, I'm going to throw it over to Ashley to introduce this week and our new guest
Well hello and welcome everybody
Tiffany and she'll be discussing isotopes, which is something that one of you all wanted us to
discuss today. We wanted to talk about isotopes today because this is a new and growing area
within the field of anthropology, particularly in the area of identifying people and locations
from where they come from. And we have today Dr. Tiffany Prakasha.
Brachia.
Brachia. I'm not like the bread.
I was a professor at Vanderbilt University. So if you want, go ahead and introduce yourselves. And
what got you interested in isotopes as an area of research?
Well, again, I'm Dr. Tiffany Frachia and I'm an associate professor of the practice of anthropology
at Vanderbilt University. In addition to that, you hear that professor of the practice piece. What
that means is I'm also in my field of study actively practicing. So here in the middle Tennessee area,
I'm responsible for forensic anthropology casework across numerous counties. So I'm
actually completed a forensic case today. And so I do casework, I'm teaching courses,
and I'm actively engaged in research. And so I really like the question of how did I find my way
to isotope analysis? Because I did not start out as a young child or a teenager, even an undergraduate
student thinking, wow, I really want to do isotope analysis as a research topic, or this is something
I want to learn more about. It was not until I was working on a master's degree in biology
with still a very strong focus in anthropology that I first heard about isotope analysis
as a tool for forensic anthropologists. I heard about it at a workshop for forensic anthropologists
and they were talking about what happens when the biological profile that we create as forensic
anthropologists doesn't lead to any perspective identifications. And here in the United States,
what happens is that case goes cold very quickly. And isotope analysis can tell us a little bit more
about someone. It's important to note that this is not an outright identification tool. So we
don't get the same one-to-one comparison like we do for DNA where it tells you exactly who this person
is. Isotope analysis gives us sort of big picture categories. And the whole premise that makes it
work is that you are what you eat and you're also where you eat. So we can use chemical signatures
from our bones and from our teeth and from our hair and other tissues to tell us more about
someone's dietary history and their geographic origins. So when I first heard about this and I
heard new tool in forensic anthropology, all of these bells and whistles started going off for me
in terms of that could be something I could learn more about. And I think for a lot of graduate
students, that's the struggle is being very intimidated because you love this field. So for
us, we love anthropology. We love forensic anthropology and we want to contribute to our
field with research, but it feels like everything's already been done. And so for me to hear that there
was something new that was so obviously exciting for people that really drew me in and I wanted to
know more. I did mention I did a master's degree in biology. So that hard science piece of this is
also really appealing to me. And so it became a way that I could merge anthropological theory
with sort of a hard science. And that was really what prompted me to look into this further.
I was very fortunate to work with Dr. Donnie Stedman at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville
as my dissertation advisor. And I had talked to Dr. Stedman early on in my application process
about wanting to pursue isotope analysis as a research topic for my dissertation. And she was
very supportive from the beginning. It's important to note that isotope analysis is a destructive
analysis. And so when you're looking for a research topic, you have to think about the materials that
are available to you. And so since our skeletal collections are such a precious and finite
resource, and we also want to treat them with the utmost respect, we have to really consider
whether the data that we're getting and what we can learn from that is justified in the questions
that we're asking and that destructive analysis piece of this. So that was sort of how I wandered
into this and a few of the pieces about how I got there. I did do my dissertation research
at the UT Knoxville Forensic Anthropology Center Anthropology Research Facility, also very commonly
known as the Body Farm. So that's also something that's available for us to talk about today if
you have questions about that. But in general, this idea of figuring out who someone is using
an extra clue or extra information using diet history and also using geographic travel history
was what sort of got me there. Interesting. I do have one question. What are isotopes and isotopic
analysis? I mean, it's... Yeah, what are they? For the non-chemistry people, maybe. People who
have taken those hard sciences. Well, so we talked about what was exciting about this topic for me,
but we should also mention what was intimidating about this topic for me. A lot of people don't
enjoy chemistry. I was very excited about the hard science piece of this, but I was very intimidated
by the chemistry piece of this. And so it's important to know that using isotope analysis,
which is again, using those sort of chemical signatures that we can get from our bones and
teeth and other human tissues to tell us more about a person's lived experiences. Thinking about that
from an anthropological perspective is very different than thinking about it from the
chemistry laboratory perspective. And so not only did I receive anthropological training, but I had
to seek out opportunities to learn the chemistry piece of this. And so I attended a two-week
intensive course, which was at the time held at the University of Utah called ISOCamp. And so my
friends to this day refer to this as that time you went to nerd camp. But it was two weeks intensive
learning about all of the biology and chemistry that goes into this. So the question of what is
an isotope requires us to go back to chemistry. And so what I always ask people to do is picture
the periodic table and think about all of those letters and numbers and those little squares on
the periodic table. If we scrolled across the periodic table and we found the element carbon,
we would find the number six with the element carbon. And what that number six tells us is
that there are six protons in the nucleus of a carbon element. So having those six protons
means that it's carbon. It's going to act like carbon no matter what. But there are different
versions of carbon. And so there's different versions come to us by the number of neutrons
that are present. So what we're looking for is adding those together and we get carbon 12 when
there are six of those and we get carbon 13 when there are seven. And we also get the radiogenic
or the radioactive version of carbon, which is carbon 14, which a lot of people have heard of
for use in radiocarbon dating. So telling us how old the really old stuff is. So an isotope,
very simply put, is two versions of the same element. So it's got just a slight difference
of the contents of its nucleus. It's always going to have six protons because it's carbon,
but there is slight variety in those other components that make up that atom.
So pretty easy, right? And when we do isotope analysis, what we're actually doing is measuring
the ratio of those two different versions. So we talk a lot about stable isotope analysis.
And what this means is we're looking at the stable form. So they stay consistent over time. So they
don't break down the same way radiogenic or radioactive elements do. So that radiocarbon,
that carbon 13 or carbon 14 breaks down, has a decay that's very different from these more stable
versions. So that's where we get that stable isotope analysis piece of this. So when we're
making these measurements, we're using a mass spectrometer and we are combusting samples and
we're measuring those different forms of the elements we're interested in and then we're
reporting those as a ratio. So a few of the elements that I'm interested in isotopic analysis of
are carbon and nitrogen, oxygen and strontium. So these are the ones that I use in anthropology
pretty frequently. I say, I really like how you said, you are what you eat, you are where you eat,
those types of things. I know in my personal work with isotopes, my boss always says, it's like
eating vanilla ice cream, but do you like French vanilla or do you like regular vanilla or do you
like, like there's various kinds and sometimes you might put a scoop of French vanilla and a
scoop of regular vanilla in your bowl and you have all of that inside of you. And so I really
appreciate the like, you are what you eat situation. I say, as far as, so for a lot of our listeners,
you know, they're anthropology students or just lay people who probably like myself didn't really
enjoy my chemistry classes in school if I took them. But when you're thinking about carbon and
the variations on carbon, what do you, I guess for those, for our audience, what does that carbon
and nitrogen reflect dietarily? Is it a certain type of food or what? So, yes, so we mentioned
that there are a couple different things we can get from isotopes, one of those being sort of a
picture of someone's diet. So when we're looking at carbon isotopes, we're actually looking at what
kind of plants people are eating. So isotope analysis has this very rich history in anthropology
and it actually started in archaeology. So looking at the remains of people from the past. And so the
questions that we wanted to ask and answer were, you know, we think we're seeing certain cultural
practices reflected in the artifacts that are found with these people, but does that truly reflect
what's happening? So for example, if we're finding evidence of agriculture and we're
presuming that people were engaging in maize agriculture, so they were going, growing corn,
were they actually eating the corn or were they doing something else with the corn?
And so when we drill down quite literally to these chemical analyses of human remains,
what we would be looking at are those embodiments of cultural practices. So we're looking at
what kind of foods were they consuming? And we differentiate plants by these different categories.
And so primarily we're interested in what we call C3 plants and C4 plants. There's something else
called CAM plants that can factor into this, but that gets really complicated. So for sake of this
discussion, we'll focus on C3 versus C4. And when we're differentiating those, we can talk about the
C3 plants as being things that we think of as a more wild grain based diet. So things like
wild grasses, things that we would think would occur naturally in the environment, as opposed
to C4 plants, which are things that we associate more with agriculture and cultivation. So things
like corn, sugar cane, those are things that we see marking that difference in behavior
archaeologically. So that's really where isotopes as a tool kind of got its start with anthropology.
And we were really interested in what people were eating and what kinds of plants they were eating.
When we measure nitrogen, what we're actually asking is where are you on the food chain?
So we're looking at whether someone has a more plant-based diet or has more meat in their diet.
And what we're essentially measuring is the protein content from meat-based products.
So when you see someone higher up on the nitrogen values, you can assume that they are eating
more meat in their diet. I say, is that also true for... I know a lot of the isotope stuff that I
do for my job is trying to determine, are you a US citizen or eating a typical US diet versus
eating a non-typical US diet? And a lot of times we look at carbons and nitrogens to try to get at
that. And one thing that's always talked about at work is United States, you eat a lot of meat,
like you might not necessarily eat a lot of corn, but the meat you're eating is eating a lot of corn.
And that's not necessarily true worldwide. So like kind of thinking about cultural differences
between what different areas of the world might be eating. Can you look at that and try to get at
migration or movement of people, both, I guess, archeologically and anthropologically?
Absolutely. I think that's a fantastic question. And that's where I see the most active research
right now and a lot of aspects of isotope analysis is an attempt to address these questions about
deceased migrants who have died in a different place than they lived. So
when we think about geographic history, we're thinking about where someone's been over the
course of their lives. And so when we ask those questions, we can use diet. We can also use things
like the drinking water consumption, and we can measure that and make comparisons to drinking water
across the world. And so we use oxygen isotopes for that. And we can also use strontium as a
geolocator. When you're thinking about diet and sort of making those differentiations between people,
I think it's always useful to use what we call a multi isotope approach. And I think that
in your question was sort of embedded that idea, right? So it's not just which plants are you
eating, but it's which plants are you eating in terms of the way that you're eating. And so
combination with how much protein you're getting in your diet. And then not just what are you eating,
but what were your protein sources eating as well, right? Isotopes do sort of have that
compounding effect. And so we are absolutely able to make these sort of distinctions if a
population's behaviors are distinct enough, right? So that's always one of the questions that you
have to start with in that preliminary research is can we find enough of a split between two
different populations to say confidently, if a person has these values, they would most likely
sort into this group. And if a person has these values, they would most likely sort into this
group. And those two don't overlap or have minimal overlap. And that's ideal for sorting.
So in the example you've given, you're thinking about people who've consumed a US-based diet,
what's available to us very commercially in those resources that we associate with US agriculture
versus something that may be a more grain-based diet. That's a product of plants growing differently
in different parts of the world, right? Based on climate, based on soil types. So there are a lot
of different pieces that we have to think about, but that sorting piece of this is super useful
when you're asking the question, is this person local or not local? So does this person
isotopically look like what we would expect from someone who originated in this area,
or does this look like someone who may have been traveling from somewhere else?
So in the United States, we know that we have a crisis at our southern border where we have
people who are navigating hostile terrain and are succumbing to that in the desert,
people who are dying far away from where their journey started. And so if we don't have any
information about who that person is, a good starting point would be knowing where they came
from so that we could start advertising that biological profile to find out if there are any
missing persons in that particular area that might match the person that we've recovered and
hopefully be able to repatriate those remains to their loved ones. This isn't a problem that's
exclusive to the United States. Over the summer, I did some work in Tanzania where they're just
starting the conversation. Tanzania has two main migrant routes that pass through a desert as well.
So one to the north where people are coming from multiple countries trying to get to the
Mediterranean, and then one that travels sort of to the south for people who are trying to get to
South Africa. And people are coming from multiple countries, and it's very difficult to know where
people originated again so that those bodies can be repatriated. So it's a problem within Tanzania
regarding what do we do with these bodies? How do we honor these bodies according to their
lived customs and traditions? But also the volume, which is something that we're experiencing at the
southern US border as well. So being able to address these humanitarian needs of human
identification, we need all the tools in our tool belt, and isotopes I think is a very useful one
for that. This may be in the realm of theoretical more than practical at the moment, but can you
also do this temporally as well as geographically? I mean, I'm thinking the changes we've had in US
agriculture over the time, particularly with the development of grain, the development of corn,
the development of soybean, development of our grasses to make them more stable, climate stable,
et cetera. Would that have an impact on the isotopes? And could you theoretically at some
point be able to say, this is someone from an older population because we see this type of isotopic
signature and this one's from a newer population because we see a different isotopic signature?
I think that's a great question. And I think that would be a fantastic avenue for somebody who's
looking for a research project to sort of pursue. I think that it's got some good grounding
theoretically because I'm just thinking of other examples of ways that we've
sort of exploited chemical signatures from body tissues to tell us even more about a person.
The example I'm thinking of that gives us a little bit of a timeline temporally is lead contents
in people because we can measure lead content in populations where lead was part of the glaze
lead was part of the glaze that was put on our dinnerware or lead in our pipes,
but also leaded gasoline. And so we were breathing that. So that's something that has been used to
sort of differentiate populations where leaded gasoline was used for longer periods of time
than it was in the US. So there's definitely a sorting mechanism there. So I think that's a
reasonable precedent to say that what you're proposing would potentially be viable for sure.
Stephanie, you're muted.
Sorry, I thought I was muted or I thought I was unmuted. But to kind of along the same lines of
like research questions that might not have been answered yet because isotopes,
while not being a new field overall, because there's been plenty of isotope research as far as
soil content and other things like that and other fields of practice, but it's relatively new in
anthropology. Do you have, I guess, any advice for someone who might be listening and thinking,
might be listening and thinking, oh, I kind of like the idea of diet and migration patterns and
getting to know that lived experience of the person, any avenues of how they should go about
trying to decide maybe what schools are good for isotopic research or what are areas that the field
has kind of been wanting people to do, but it just hasn't quite happened yet. Any advice for that type
of stuff? Sure. Again, that was sort of the genesis for my dissertation project. My dissertation
focused on looking at taphonomic processes and how they potentially impact isotopes. And I did that
using hair. And so, you know, as anthropologists, we're very often thinking about bones and teeth
because that's usually what we get. But those of us who practice in more arid conditions,
so my colleagues who work in Peru, often recover thousand-year-old locks of hair.
The primary decomposer of hair is fungus. So fungus really enjoys warm, wet areas. So if you have
drier areas like crypts or tombs or even high-altitude arid climates, fungus doesn't
like it and it doesn't grow very well there, which means you get a lot of preservation of hair.
We also know at contemporary crime scenes, we recover scalp hair. I've recovered beard hair,
like a full-length beard at a crime scene before. So we have hair available to us.
One of the reasons anthropologists should care about hair in terms of human identification
is that it provides us the most recent information about a person's diet and geography.
So if we think about our teeth, you know, your teeth are the same teeth that you grew and developed
when they first came in. So our tooth enamel can decay or erode, but we don't really grow new tooth
enamel. So I always joke, don't be buying that toothpaste that tells you it's going to regrow
your enamel because it's just not true. So what's great about the static nature of our tooth enamel
is that it records our lived experiences in our childhood when those teeth are growing and
developing. And so that becomes sort of a permanent record that we have of what we were eating and
where we were eating it at the time those teeth were developing. So when we're talking about our
permanent teeth, we're usually looking at, you know, between two and eight years old, depending
upon the tooth, right? When you think about bone, our bones are alive and growing. So they respond
to our activities, which means you kind of make yourself new bones every so often, and that's a
slow but ongoing process. And so our bones are sort of that cumulative of our lived experiences
over that turnover or regrowth time period. And it really depends upon which skeletal element that
you're sampling. And of course, there are a lot of lived experiences and factors that go into that
as well, but you're looking at a greater time span, right? So anything, you know, between 10
and 30 years, depending upon which bone you're sampling. But your hair, your scalp hair grows at
about a centimeter a month, which means in a strand of hair, if you chopped it into little
one centimeter segments, however long that strand of hair is, you're going to have that many months
of lived experiences recorded. So what that affords us is the opportunity to build a lifetime
history. We can take those teeth and look at childhood, we can take the bones and look at
sort of that overall lived experience over the last however many years. And then the hair again
in those one centimeter segments gives us a monthly recap. And so we can build that lifetime
history with that information. So what I think is really cool is that, you know, we used this as a
tool in archaeology to tell us about people's lived experiences, right? There's not a way to double
check whether or not we got it right. You know, we can use that information to support that story
we're telling about the past through our archaeological work. And we have other lines of
evidence that may support that story as well, but there's not a double check. When we start applying
these theories to forensics, the stakes are different. So what that means is this technique
has to stand up to that rigor and scrutiny. And if we get it wrong, there's potentially a major
consequence. The consequence is that someone is going to go unidentified, right? So there's still
going to be a person who's unidentified, whose family or loved ones are still waiting for answers
about them. So for that reason, we really have to ask questions like, does this work the way we think
it's going to? So that was a very long drawn out way of saying, we got to make sure it works in all
of these different situations. And that was the driving force behind my dissertation was saying,
does this work the way we think it's going to? A body donation program like the one at the
University of Tennessee in Knoxville for the body farm or the anthropology research facility
is an ideal place for this because people pre-register. I was thinking about this,
pre-register. So they have thousands of people who are so excited about forensic science that
they've elected to pre-register as body donors upon death. And part of that pre-registration
process is to provide living information, anti-mortem data. And so some of the questions they ask are
about lifetime residence histories and are about, do you have any kind of special diet? And so we can
ground truth the isotopic results that we get looking at that data that was self-reported
by these people when they were alive. And so it's an ideal place to do this kind of research because
there's a way to double check yourself. And so my advice to somebody who's looking for an avenue of
research related to isotopes would be to think about how have we been using this tool and where
are the question marks that we still have? And I'll tell you, there are quite a few. There's a
lot of ways that we can look at this and say, is this tool telling us what we think it is?
One really important area, I think, is just the overall expansion of the data sets that we have
because when you talk about this person looks local or this person looks non-local,
local versus non-local can be a very broad category. It can be US or non-US, or it could be
Tennessee or New Mexico, or it could be US versus Europe. So our data and our comparisons are only
as good as the data sets that we have. So finding ways to expand those data sets, whether it is
through environmental comparisons or through questions that involve isotopic analyses of
human samples, I think there's a lot of room for us to grow the field.
I know one topic that I've been trying to wrap my own brain around of how can I get at the answer,
I guess, is you were talking about how your teeth are your childhood, your hair is the last couple
of months, depending on how long it is. But within the field of anthropology, we don't really know
how fast bone turns over because there's so many different factors that come into play of why bone
turns over to begin with, where your ribs are constantly moving, so are they turning over
faster than your legs and your arms and different things like that? But it's never really,
or at least from all the literature that I've read, there's never been a clear answer of like,
you know, people think, oh, the last five, 10 years, but is that at the mid shaft? Is that at,
you know, your epiphysis or the ends of your bones? Those like trying to really get at how bone turns
over, I think, even if you're not necessarily like interested in isotopes, I think isotopes is a
fabulous avenue to try to figure that out, because you can see, you know, if you happen to have access
to skeletal remains that you can do multiple destructive testing on, to like get at that
turnover by sampling various parts of bone, various different aspects of bone throughout the body,
and trying to get at how fast that person turned over, especially if you know their lived history.
And so I know like, that's one that I've been like, oh, I just want to know, like, because we,
like, for the research that I've done so far is like, trying to figure out, you know, is it all
one person? Or do I have coomingling in my assemblage? And when you're like, well, I'm testing
this bone versus this bone to say it's one person, but I don't really know how those bones turn over.
So is this reliable? Is this like actually getting at what I want it to get at? And I know my brain
constantly is just like, about all of it, because it's just like, there's so much that can be done
with isotopes, which is exciting. I guess you're saying, because this is kind of the part that I've
never done in any of my isotope research is I don't really go to court. So my experience with
like how the public use isotopes and, you know, do they trust it? Do they not? Those types of things
is just from tours at the lab of being like, it's so cool, you are what you need. And then like,
no one really asks more questions than that, because they're so overwhelmed with data. But
they're so overwhelmed with data. But how do you find that like, in a public forum, like court
testimony, do people view isotopes? I think that's a good question. And, you know, I get the question
pretty frequently in general, as a forensic anthropologist about, you know, what's it like
to testify? And I've never testified on a forensic case. And, you know, I've done hundreds of cases
at this point. But I think, you know, it depends on what the question is with your case, and the
contentious nature of that question, right? I think that's the most important piece. So
most of the time, as anthropologists utilizing the tool of isotopes for forensics, we're trying to
make an identification. And so once that identification is made, you know, we're not
going to use isotopes to individualize that identification. We're going to use some other
means like anti-mortem record comparison, like either, you know, x-rays of the bones or dental
records or DNA. We're going to use that as our formal means of identification. The bio profile
that the anthropologist prepares, and maybe even the isotope analysis as an additional piece of
information, is going to help with identification. So it's not going to help with the what happened
to this person piece, which is usually what winds up being the contested portion of the
anthropologist's work in court. Now, that's not to say that the technique of isotope analysis
should not stand up to the rigorous examination that we give in court. It absolutely should,
and it should be a tool that has repeatable results and that we're able to produce error rates and
things like that on. And, you know, and it's still new. So we're still working on that information,
and that's something that we have to continue demanding of those people who are utilizing the
tool for forensic purposes. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't applications for this. So
I'm thinking specifically about a case from a few years ago where neglect and abuse was alleged.
And so we know that nitrogen values can potentially be higher in individuals who are malnourished.
So measuring isotope ratios of nitrogen from hair samples, for example, is frequently used for
people who are being treated for eating disorders, who might not be able to reliably report
their own diets throughout the course of treatment. And so by measuring isotopes, nitrogen isotopes,
you can sort of track that. People essentially sort of self-digest when they're malnourished,
and so those nitrogen values get a little higher. And so in principle, you might be able to analyze
those nitrogen values and prove or disprove neglect or malnourishment. The finite data on that,
you know, is debatable. And so, you know, does that stand up to a rigorous examination in court?
Are we able to confidently say that? And so that would be an example of something
where it would be on the practitioner who's reporting those results to explain to a jury,
hey, this is what isotopes are, and go through that whole introductory lesson that we gave here
in an accessible way, you know, to a jury of people with basic education to help them
understand what isotopes are and how they could potentially tell us this information. And then
also provide us scientific evidence that shows that this is something that has been tested and
is reproducible. And again, you know, that big question, is it telling us what we think it's
telling us? So, you know, there'd have to be a lot of great care, I think, if we were going to
accuse someone of a crime using isotopes. So is it that it hasn't been used in a court of law yet
because it hasn't passed the admissibility criteria, or is it just that you yourself haven't?
I personally have never been asked to address a question like that with isotopes. And, you know,
and even in the cases where we're using this to provide leads for identification, you know,
that, again, that's not really contested. You know, one other point to make, though, is lots
of people are jumping on the isotopes bandwagon. You know, a lot of people are super excited about
this as a tool that can be used. So you have labs that have been traditionally using isotopes
archaeologically, who are now shifting to saying, oh, well, we can provide this service for forensic
questions as well. And because there is not one cookbook recipe for all the steps involved in
sample selection, sample preparation, and analytical methods, and even interpretations,
because there's not a standard way of doing that, we've got people doing it all different ways.
And so, you know, you have to be very cautious about which laboratories are providing information
for forensic purposes. Are those laboratories used to being asked to address questions
forensically and understand fully, you know, the gravity of that responsibility, and also that
responsibility toward reproducibility of results, accounting for your methodologies, and all of those
things. So, you know, this is something that I think could be a potential problem, right? Because,
you know, there are a lot of tools that have been used forensically maybe once or twice. And then,
you know, someone shows that there's not that repeatability piece of this that's so essential
for scientific rigor. And it's like that technique gets a big black eye. And then ever more,
even if it's the most useful technique, you know, in the back of the mind of the average person,
or, you know, the court system, or science in general, it's always like, but it didn't really
work, or can we really trust it? And so, that trust is such an important piece of forensic practice.
And so, that's why we have to stepwise evaluate if the tool is telling us what we think it is,
right? And so, that's why this is a wide open field for people who want to do research,
because we've got to validate all of these methods. We've got to try it this way and that way,
and see which way works the best. And then we as a field have to agree on this is how we're going to
do it. So, I mean, along those same lines, you know, the field of all of the fields of
forensic science are, we're going through the entire Academy standards boards, we're
standardizing everything down to how we put a postage stamp on an envelope. Is this something
that should be on their radar? Yes, and it is. I think that's a great question. So,
you know, in response to the now notorious 2009 NAS report, scientific working groups
were established for various fields in forensic science. Those scientific working groups have
since been converted into the Organization of Scientific Area Committees, or the OSAC,
for forensic sciences. And so, the OSAC is sort of works alongside NIST. So, the National Institute
of Standards and Technology sort of helps facilitate OSAC meetings. So, these groups,
I'm a member of the OSAC Subcommittee for Forensic Anthropology, and we are currently working on
standards for isotope analysis. So, that is something that is actively happening now.
And that's something that, you know, I would strongly encourage, regardless of whether you
want to learn more about isotope analysis, or effective reporting as a forensic practitioner,
or, you know, the do's and don'ts of DNA analysis, all of those have standards and best practices
that are either in progress or have been published. And so, that's a really fantastic way to find out
what the official sort of position on how you do these things is. And, you know, that's not to say
there aren't still a lot of holes, a lot of gaps that need to be filled in that. But certainly,
I think it's a strong response to a very valid critique of forensic science practice.
So, yeah, I'm pretty sure that one just came out about isotopes not that long ago
for like report writing and things like that that I read. And I mean, that's a great call for anyone
within the field of anthropology as a whole to always go give your comments for those standards,
because, you know, it can get published. And if your opinion wasn't given, then it's not going
to be accounted for, and trying to make the standard as whole as possible. So, we're kind
of coming up on our hour mark. I want to, you know, respect both our guest time and our listeners
time. So, kind of just want to recap and say thank you so much for coming on and explaining
what is a very broad and interesting topic in a way that I think, and I hope that our listeners,
you know, can really understand and maybe it piques some interest and gave them some questions,
which I think is always the best part about forensic science is like you listen to something
and you're like, oh, wait, I have more questions on that. And then that is the basic basis of all
research. So, just want to thank everyone for coming. If you, you know, our listeners have any
more topics that you want us to talk about, if you want more isotope, we can always, you know,
have a part two or part three or whatever if you have more specific questions. But you can also
always email us at our email that's in the link. And then I'm going to poke and call and see if
Tiffy, you'd be willing to give your email as well. We can add it to the kind of description
for this podcast to see if like anyone has any specific questions that they would like to ask
you maybe about, you know, your work in Tanzania or, you know, your work with Vanderbilt or even
the body farm, if they could reach out to you specifically. But yeah, I think that's really it.
If anyone has any last minute comments or whatever they want to make. Yeah, I don't know about you
guys, but I just was inspired to write like five different proposals. That was such an interesting
topic. I've never been a chemistry minded person. And that was like, I'm like exploding with ideas.
My partner's not going to love me when I say that I want to quit my job and go back to school. But
yeah, that was a really, really fascinating topic. And thank you so much, Dr. Tiffany Fracchia for
giving us all that. That was awesome. Thank you so much. Well, you know, thanks for listening
and we'll see you next time on the Bone Club. See y'all soon. Bye bye.