Behind the rolling hills of George Mason University’s Science and Technology Campus in Prince William County, Va., forensic science students and professors meticulously tend to a five-acre forest. They plant flowers and maintain a cloister of beehives. Trees tower over the local wildlife, and a slatted chain-link fence keeps people from encroaching onto the natural sanctuary.
But this is no ordinary nature preserve. It’s meant to create the perfect environment for a particular research subject: dead bodies.
