Medical examiner Judy Melinek says we shouldn’t expect extra autopsies to shed new light on what happened in the Michael Brown shooting in Missouri

The autopsy is playing a very big role in the case of Michael Brown. How can the public understand these findings?
The thing to keep in mind is that the investigation is still in its preliminary phase. Witness statements and details about the clothing aren’t yet public.

Sometimes the wheels of justice, particularly in criminal cases, are slow. It requires time to collect evidence. Having answers right away might satisfy your curiosity but they may not be correct. We don’t want to incarcerate or even indict people unless we’ve got the evidence.

There have been three autopsies in the Michael Brown case. Is that useful?
To most forensic pathologists, a second and third autopsy is a little absurd, especially when you’re dealing with an independent office staffed by board-certified forensic pathologists.

Can multiple autopsies be truly independent?
A second autopsy done by an attorney-hired pathologist is not independent. And it will be affected by the first, which changes the physical findings and alters the evidence. From a forensic perspective, it is only really useful if the first autopsy was not done properly. Also, to do it, the pathologist needs access to the original materials, otherwise changes caused in the body during the first autopsy can lead to mistaken conclusions. Unless you saw photos from before the body was cleaned and the wounds were cut into, you’re going to misinterpret the findings.

What kind of relationship do medical examiners usually have with the police?
It is one of mutual respect but with a certain degree of suspicion as well. I have been in circumstances where the police have told me the conclusions of their investigation and I’ve told them: “That’s not consistent with the autopsy findings.” It is not in anyone’s interest for me to lie. Everything gets reviewed and eventually becomes public, so, if there is a discrepancy, we let them know it.

What is the future of forensic pathology?
I’m worried about it, because in the US there is very little consistency in death investigation. Counties that are short on funds tend to invest less than those in areas where there is more money and more crime. It’s frustrating, because as well as affecting individuals, the inconsistency can lead to a disparity in public health recognition.

Why do people become medical examiners?
The whole point is prevention. It’s not because we’re somehow attracted to the gruesome. We do this because our ultimate goal is to give closure to the families and prevent additional deaths.

Have you taken any lessons from your work?
There are lessons about safety and staying healthy. That’s why, in many places, our records are public: so we can track what kills people and what we can do to prevent it. But my work has mainly taught me to appreciate life. Every single death is a lesson about our temporary existence.

This article will appear in print under the headline “You can’t hurry the truth”

I’M NOT wearing any clothing, but it’s not the first time I’ve shown up that way for an interview. Luckily, my interviewee doesn’t seem to notice, or mind. There’s a reason – he created me and everything around us.

I am one of the first people to experience High Fidelity, the prototype virtual world designed by Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life. He’s the humanoid avatar; I get to be a cute robot with big blue eyes. He and his 12-person team have recently raised $2.5 million to develop the world, and the fact that it’s Rosedale means it has created quite a buzz.

It’s easy to forget that Second Life, a free-roaming virtual world, was a big deal when it launched in 2003. Users could go anywhere, do anything. Reuters even had a for a while. It still boasts a million active monthly users according to Rod Humble, the former CEO of Linden Lab, which owns the game. But despite this it has never really lived up to its promise.

Jeremy Bailenson, director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, thinks he knows why: the time lag resulting from the slow rendering of graphics and the lack of naturalistic avatar tracking. Both of these have been addressed in High Fidelity, he says, having also had a sneak preview.

I had a few issues with Second Life. I often conducted interviews there, but my painstakingly created avatar would often appear half-naked, with an arm stuck awkwardly above its head or facing a wall. So when Rosedale invited me to be the first to interview him in High Fidelity, I jumped at the chance.

When I log in to prepare for the interview, I am greeted by an adorable white robot in the upper left corner of my screen and a block-filled landscape reminiscent of Minecraft. As I figure out how to control my view and explore the world a bit, the robot seems to be smiling at me, tilting his head, blinking and opening its mouth as if to speak. It dawns on me that it is mimicking my facial expressions by watching them via webcam. The robot was me. Suddenly, Rosedale’s avatar materialises.

Social presence

Unlike my robot’s simple face, Rosedale’s avatar is human (see picture, left). As we face each other, the most obvious difference between Second Life and High Fidelity is immediately apparent. Although it is still in early testing, High Fidelity already has the social presence that was lacking in Second Life.

As Rosedale speaks to me, he demonstrates tricks like building structures in the air with just a wave of his hand, and shows how the audio corresponds to the location and distance of his avatar. His avatar displays all his typical facial mannerisms as he speaks: eyebrows raising, lips flexing and cheeks raising into smiles. The hands gesture effortlessly, pointing and rolling to emphasise points.

The facial mannerisms are achieved using a 3D camera fitted with the same chip as in Microsoft’s Kinect. His hand movements are captured using a Razer Hydra games controller. Both allow him to speak to me as if he’s sitting across a table instead of in front of a computer.

The key to High Fidelity’s realism is how it minimises lag. It only takes 100 milliseconds from Rosedale doing something before I see his avatar do it, almost doubling the speed of video chat such as Skype. Bailenson was impressed. “I used the system to interact with a person in real time and it felt like he was in the room with me,” he says.

“I used the system to interact with a person in real time and it felt like he was in the room with me”

Rosedale has also teamed up with neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley at the University of California, San Francisco, to find out more about how to enhance face-to-face experiences online. At this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, they used a neural cap fitted with EEG sensors to create a model of one person’s brain after an MRI scan had provided the underlying structure. People were then able to using the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset as it showed live brain activity.

This work could feed into High Fidelity, says Rosedale. He thinks that seeing someone else’s brain activity may become a part of communication in the virtual world, with people able to see and respond to changes in someone else’s brain as they chat. He has other ideas too. For example, instead of relying on external servers he plans to let people offer their computer downtime to help power the game in exchange for in-game currency.

The experience is so close to reality that I can’t help wonder if we are teetering close to the Uncanny Valley, the creepy feeling that an artificial human elicits in a real one when their facial expressions and movements are close enough to feel real but too awkward to be engaging. “We like to say we are crossing the Uncanny Valley and getting away with it,” says Rosedale.

It might be more than a game. High Fidelity has massive potential, says Bailenson. A virtual world that has the social presence of a face-to-face interaction can transform just about every aspect of day-to-day life, from entertainment to work, socialising to relationships, he says. What comes next will be up to the users and how they use it, says Rosedale.

We’ll have to wait and see. High Fidelity isn’t scheduled for release anytime soon. “Maybe another year,” says Rosedale, flashing me another smile with his pixel-perfect teeth.

This article appeared in print under the headline “The second coming”