From working out a dead person’s last meal to the possible poisoning of the Buddha, a new book from David J. Gibson has some great tales about how plants help solve crimes – and are used to commit them

Humans 31 August 2022

Forensic botany can be a key witness in cases of murder or rape

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Planting Clues: How plants solve crimes
David J. Gibson (Oxford University Press)

THEY called him the Sherlock Holmes of France – and, in fact, his antics did inspire the novelist Arthur Conan Doyle.

When Edmond Locard established his forensic science lab in 1912, the world had never seen anything like it. The place wasn’t much to look at – cramped quarters on the fourth floor of the Palais de Justice in Lyon – but there Locard set about laying …