Dead people cannot tell when and how they died,but their microbes can do. A new research has suggested that bacteria, fungi, and other microbes present beneath a dead body could tell the time of death.

The new research could be beneficial for forensic science experts, and police. It could help them in better pinpointing the time of death.David Carter, a forensic scientist from Chaminade University of Honolulu, who was part of the new research, said, “When you have a case that’s being treated as a homicide, you want to collect as many different lines of physical evidence as possible”.

The research isn’t the first of its kind. About two years ago, Jessica Metcalf from the University of Colorado, Boulder, discovered some predictable patterns in cadaver microbes of decaying mice. The researcher, at that time, calculated when the rodent died. After that,Metcalf left the decaying mice to rot from three habitats: desert, prairie, and alpine forest.

Metcalf and her team also worked withthe Sam Houston State University Southeast Texas Applied Forensic Science (STAFS) Facility staff onhuman cadavers. They put two human bodies in winter and two in summers on the facility’s grounds. The motive was the experiment was to show thatmicrobial clock works in outdoor scenario, Metcalf said.

The researchers found that corpses of mouse and human had same kind ofbacteria. According to the researchers, the microbes were so predictable that they could find the time of death of a body that had been dead for many days.