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FORENSIC reconstructions of dead people’s faces from skeletal remains are about to become much faster and more lifelike. A novel 3D graphics program not only speeds up the laborious process of recreating a face from a skull, but also allows the dead to frown or smile realistically.

Today, when the police find a skeleton or skull, they turn to forensic artists to build a model of what the dead person might have looked like. The artist makes a plaster cast of the skull and covers it with clay to mimic flesh. The thickness of the original flesh is estimated from…

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