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A particle accelerator has joined a legal battle in Florida by showing that
the contents of a cremation urn aren’t human ashes. In the dispute over the
remains, one relative gave another an urn containing ash-like material. The
recipient was suspicious and passed the urn to physicists at the University of
Florida. By zapping the material with protons and examining the X-rays given
off, they found no phosphorus—an ingredient of bone. Says physicist Henri
van Rinsvelt: “It could be sand from a car park with a little lime rock.”