the summit first. But, to this day, no one has been able to find Mallory’s camera.
“Still,” Howard says, “I’m not going to give up. This mystery is just too important to be left unsolved.”
A camera like Mallory’s
Giving a Face to the Dead
IRON CITY, MI: Three campers recently discovered a human skull in the woods near Iron City. Scientists determined that the skull was from a male adult and that it had been in the woods for 25 to 35 years. But in that 10-year time, there were reports of 134 missing men in Michigan. So to whom did the skull belong?
To answer that question, local officials called in Keith Colwin, a forensics expert with degrees in art history and computer science. He uses these areas of his education to reconstruct the faces of unidentified skulls. If a face looks enough like the person did when alive, someone may be able to make an ID.
Colwin warns that the skull found in the Michigan woods might never be identified. “Facial reconstruction isn’t as easy as they make it look on TV,” he says. “It isn’t an exact science.”
Colwin points out that a skull doesn’t give many clues as to what soft-tissue features, like a nose and a mouth, might have looked like. And it won’t give any information about hair color, facial hair, scars, or tattoos, or whether a person might have worn glasses. “The person doing the reconstruction must be experienced enough to make well-educated guesses,” Colwin says.
While some facial reconstruction experts use computer programs to rebuild faces, Colwin prefers to work with his own two hands. He uses clay to slowly build the layers of a face on the skull. “I’m not convinced the software is up to the task yet,” says Colwin. “That might change in the next year or two, thanks to new technology.”
Colwin is nearly finished rebuilding the face on the Michigan skull. When he’s done, the police will run a photo of it in newspapers. “If I’ve done my job well,” Colwin says, “someone may recognize the face as a missing family member or friend.”
Entertainment
Stay in Control
REDMOND, WA: Nintendo has a way to make sure that you don’t starve while gaming. Their one-handed controller means you’ll have one hand free to munch on popcorn and other game-time snacks. The device has motion and position sensors. If you’re playing a tennis game, you can just swing or flick the controller, and the racquet on the screen will mirror every movement you make!
Transportation
D REAM T AKES W ING
SEATTLE, WA: The Wright brothers would be floored! The new 787 Dreamliner is probably unlike anything they ever imagined. This airplane carries up to 296 passengers but uses 20 percent less fuel and produces 20 percent fewer emissions than similarly sized aircraft. Inside, the passengers say they’re more comfortable than they are on other airplanes. Wireless Internet connections provide entertainment, and added humidity in the cabin air reduces the number of headaches and cases of airsickness as well. Plus—the views! Windows on the Dreamliner are as much as 70 percent bigger than those on other planes.
Technology
READY TO BE A CYBORG?
More than 2,000 people around the world have had computer microchips implanted in their body. The chips contain information that could save their lives. Equipped with a radio transmitter about the size of a grain of rice, the chip holds a 16-digit personal ID number. In an emergency, doctors can scan the chip, get the ID number, and find out information about the patient from a computer database. This works especially well if the patient is too sick to talk and cannot tell doctors about his or her medical history. But it’s not all for medical reasons. The same technology is being used to help owners find lost pets that have the implanted chips.
“I S T HERE AN A NTEATER ON M Y H EAD ?”
ARMONK, NY: Thanks to IBM’s brand-new Multiligual Automatic Speech-to-Speech Translator (MASTOR), questions like these
“Still,” Howard says, “I’m not going to give up. This mystery is just too important to be left unsolved.”
A camera like Mallory’s
Giving a Face to the Dead
IRON CITY, MI: Three campers recently discovered a human skull in the woods near Iron City. Scientists determined that the skull was from a male adult and that it had been in the woods for 25 to 35 years. But in that 10-year time, there were reports of 134 missing men in Michigan. So to whom did the skull belong?
To answer that question, local officials called in Keith Colwin, a forensics expert with degrees in art history and computer science. He uses these areas of his education to reconstruct the faces of unidentified skulls. If a face looks enough like the person did when alive, someone may be able to make an ID.
Colwin warns that the skull found in the Michigan woods might never be identified. “Facial reconstruction isn’t as easy as they make it look on TV,” he says. “It isn’t an exact science.”
Colwin points out that a skull doesn’t give many clues as to what soft-tissue features, like a nose and a mouth, might have looked like. And it won’t give any information about hair color, facial hair, scars, or tattoos, or whether a person might have worn glasses. “The person doing the reconstruction must be experienced enough to make well-educated guesses,” Colwin says.
While some facial reconstruction experts use computer programs to rebuild faces, Colwin prefers to work with his own two hands. He uses clay to slowly build the layers of a face on the skull. “I’m not convinced the software is up to the task yet,” says Colwin. “That might change in the next year or two, thanks to new technology.”
Colwin is nearly finished rebuilding the face on the Michigan skull. When he’s done, the police will run a photo of it in newspapers. “If I’ve done my job well,” Colwin says, “someone may recognize the face as a missing family member or friend.”
Entertainment
Stay in Control
REDMOND, WA: Nintendo has a way to make sure that you don’t starve while gaming. Their one-handed controller means you’ll have one hand free to munch on popcorn and other game-time snacks. The device has motion and position sensors. If you’re playing a tennis game, you can just swing or flick the controller, and the racquet on the screen will mirror every movement you make!
Transportation
D REAM T AKES W ING
SEATTLE, WA: The Wright brothers would be floored! The new 787 Dreamliner is probably unlike anything they ever imagined. This airplane carries up to 296 passengers but uses 20 percent less fuel and produces 20 percent fewer emissions than similarly sized aircraft. Inside, the passengers say they’re more comfortable than they are on other airplanes. Wireless Internet connections provide entertainment, and added humidity in the cabin air reduces the number of headaches and cases of airsickness as well. Plus—the views! Windows on the Dreamliner are as much as 70 percent bigger than those on other planes.
Technology
READY TO BE A CYBORG?
More than 2,000 people around the world have had computer microchips implanted in their body. The chips contain information that could save their lives. Equipped with a radio transmitter about the size of a grain of rice, the chip holds a 16-digit personal ID number. In an emergency, doctors can scan the chip, get the ID number, and find out information about the patient from a computer database. This works especially well if the patient is too sick to talk and cannot tell doctors about his or her medical history. But it’s not all for medical reasons. The same technology is being used to help owners find lost pets that have the implanted chips.
“I S T HERE AN A NTEATER ON M Y H EAD ?”
ARMONK, NY: Thanks to IBM’s brand-new Multiligual Automatic Speech-to-Speech Translator (MASTOR), questions like these
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