New publications
Austrians have developed an improved method for calculating time of death
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
Today, the time of death can only be determined if a person died no more than 36 hours ago (1.5 days), but at one of the universities in Austria, specialists have developed a new unique method that allows you to find out the time of death even after 10 days.
The new method was developed at the University of Salzburg, and a team of researchers said that thanks to their method it will be possible to determine the approximate time of death even if 240 hours have passed since the moment of death.
In the language of criminologists and forensic experts, the time of death is called the time of death, but even using all the latest technologies and developments in this area, it is not possible to determine the time of death if the body is more than one and a half days old (in about 36 hours, the human body temperature reaches the temperature of the surrounding environment).
After a series of experiments, Austrian experts noted that the new method could be used to determine the time of death in humans, despite the fact that so far all tests have been conducted on laboratory animals.
During their work, Austrian experts observed the transformation of proteins and enzymes that occurred in pig corpses. Taking into account the results of the experiments, specialists developed a technology for determining the time of death, while achieving a significant increase in the time frame.
The researchers managed to find out that some proteins (such as actinin, trypomyosin) are not subject to any transformations even 10 days after death. Scientists assume that all proteins in muscles begin to transform at certain intervals from the moment of death of the body. This discovery of the researchers may indicate that the time of death can be calculated even if death occurred quite a long time ago (but not more than 10 days ago).
Lead author of the research project Peter Steinbacher explained that certain protein breakdown products only begin to appear some time after the body has died, and by studying the time of their appearance, it will be possible to calculate the time of death. At this stage, specialists have begun to study human body tissues, and 60 samples have already been analyzed.
As it turned out, the same changes occur in the tissues of the human body and the same decay products are formed that were identified in experiments on pig corpses.
Analyzing tissue after death will be a completely new approach, Steinbacher said, but the team already sees a number of advantages.
First of all, muscle tissue is the most abundant tissue in the human body, so taking samples from this tissue is the best option for researchers.
Also, the proteins in such tissues are well studied, and the new method for calculating the time of death is quite simple and does not take much time (the analysis will take an average of 20 hours).
But before the new method can be used by forensic scientists, a number of studies need to be conducted, in particular, scientists need to identify factors that can cause inaccuracies in calculations.