UT Knoxville has a body farm. A body farm is a research facility where human decomposition is studied. UT Knoxville cleverly names their body farm the Forensic Anthropology Center (FAC), so that it's less creepy sounding. While creepy, what they do there is fascinating stuff, and provides a lot of interesting and relevant facts that allow us to better solve crimes.
At the FAC law enforcement can request the recreation of a crime scene (like stuffing dead bodies into trunks and things) and the FAC will then test out those cases. They'll take a dead body, toss it into a field, or bury it, or stuff it in a trunk, and then they'll force some poor student/intern to monitor the stench/bugs/decay and such. The FAC even works with the FBI testing out facial recognition programs.
Personally I think that while this is probably a very foreign concept to most people, this is such a contribution to our pool of knowledge. There are certain things that, in the modern world, are slightly taboo to discuss (for instance things that happen to your body after you die). So it's nice to know that the squeamishness of some people hasn't limited the quest for knowledge.
To hear more about it in a more entertaining medium, here is a link to a video NatGeo did on Body Farms.
Also FYI If you want to contribute, you can donate your corpse. Once they're done with your dead body, they'll cremate your remains and hand you back to your family, OR they'll add your skeleton to their collection (they have 1,100).
There is actually going to be another body farm established in, I think, Michigan that is going to be dedicated to how bodies decay in cold weather, which is probably going to be fascinating, and I'm looking forward to the papers they'll be publishing as they get going.
Sources:
UT Knoxville
Awesome College Labs
The Body Farm