Short Science, January 13, 2013

A state-of-the-art computer-assisted autopsy system that is increasingly being used in European hospitals may eventually mean there is no such thing as a "perfect murder". The "virtopsy" is now being used at selected forensic medical institutes in Europe, after University of Zurich scientists pioneered the method. Instead of reaching for the scalpel and making the Y-shaped incision in the chest in a traditional autopsy, pathologists can now examine the corpse in 3-D via computer screens. Virtopsies combine the images from high-powered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT) and surface scans of bodies. Combined, the devices are referred to as a "virtobot". Scientists said relatives of the dead were much keener on the non-invasive method. The Guardian

After an exhaustive national report on cancer found the US is making only slow progress against the disease, one of the country's best known and most and iconoclastic scientists weighed in on "the war against cancer". James Watson, co-discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, lit into targets large and small. On government officials who oversee cancer research, he wrote in a paper published last week in Open Biology: "We now have no general of influence, much less power … leading our country's 'War on Cancer'." Reuters