Death is always sad but if you look hard enough, it can be quite interesting. This list may be macabre but it is also quite fascinating!
1. Economic Burial
Promessa is a Swedish company which offers economic burials, if that’s what the family of the deceased wants. They will first immerse the body in a certain chemical in order to freeze-dry it and then attach a machine to it which pulverizes it. The end result is that the body turns to dust.
2. Eating Enzymes
There are certain enzymes in our body which kick-start the digestion process and keep it going till the waste is ready to be removed. These are the same enzymes that devour your body on the third day of your death. The bacteria attacks the dead cells and a certain gas is released which adds weight to the body.
3. Dead Cells
When the embryo is developing, a number of cells have to kill themselves. This is programmed and quite routine and happens so that the child is born with normal and not webbed feet.
4. Dead American People Are Not Environmentally Friendly
Americans that are buried in the U.S.A are not too eco-friendly. This is because about massive volumes of formaldehyde, ethanol and methanol are used to embalm the body. This fluid seeps into the soil and destroys it bit by bit. Cremations, on the other hand, release harmful noxious gases into the air which only enhances the holes in the ozone layer.
5. Devoured by Vultures
There is a certain group of people called Zoroastrians in India which place their family members’ dead bodies on the terrace. This is done so that they are eaten by vultures and so that the body is given back to nature.
6. 21 grams
An experiment was carried out by a doctor in Massachusetts in 1907 with the help of a deathbed that was specially designed for the occasion. It was found that the human body loses 21 grams almost instantly. People believe that the soul weighs 21 grams and when it leaves the body, it loses that much weight.
7. Long Hair and Nails
Even though it is not known for sure, people believe that a person’s hair and nails keep growing long after his death. This is because they are both made of keratin and dead cells and therefore, the death of the body does not affect them all that much.
8. Lack of Oxygen
The most prominent cause of death is lack of oxygen, no matter what the scenario is. However, it’s a fact that you cannot kill yourself by holding your breath. When the brain does not get enough oxygen, the muscles start competing with each other and literally spasm out of control which is what kills the person.
9. Soapy Corpse
When a corpse is buried and if the combination of the temperature and humidity in the air is just right, certain tissues in the body will transform into a substance whose texture will resemble that of soap. This happens because of the damp environment and the lack of oxygen in the air.
10. Get Buried in Outer Space
A US based company can send the remains of your loved ones into space as long as you are ready to pay them a hefty fee. A memorial service will be held and you can watch the launch.
“7. Long Hair and Nails
Even though it is not known for sure, people believe that a person’s hair and nails keep growing long after his death. This is because they are both made of keratin and dead cells and therefore, the death of the body does not affect them all that much.”
This is known for sure and is BS. Regardless, the title of this piece was “Top 10 Facts About Death Worth Knowing Before You Die”. The operative word being facts so writing”Even though it is not known for sure” officially takes it out of Fact land and puts it squarely in opinion land. Facts are known for sure.
#7 is completely false. I is a know fact that both hair and nails DO NOT grow after death. Keratin is pushed towards the surface layer of skin by cells that are growing, if the cells producing the keratin stop growing than no more keratin at the surface layer. Hair and nails appear to grow after death because the body dehydrates after death shriveling skin back.
lack of oxygen kills you because brain cells start to due within a few minutes, not because muscles “spasm out of control” Once the cells that control heart and lungs die it no longer matter if oxygen becomes available again. Since other cells of the body can mostly survive longer without oxygen than brain cells, breathing and heart functions can sometimes be restored by machines and most of the body is alive. But the loss of the brain still leaves you with no “person” and no organism that can sustain itself. The cells live on, the organism is dead.
So much wrong with this. Seven and eight have been addressed though I would add to the responses to seven that the illusion of hair and nails growing after death is bolstered by the shrinkage of the skin resulting from postmortem dehydration.
No. 3: “Enzymes” and “bacteria” are not interchangeable terms. They are not the same thing, not by a long shot. Enzymes are proteins and are cell products. They are not alive in the same sense as bacteria which are discrete, independent entities.
No. 5: Zoroastrians are not “a certain group of people” in India. Zoroastrianism (aka, Zarathustrianism) is one of the world’s oldest extant religions having been established in ancient Persia (Greater Iran) around 600 BCE. Indian Zarathustrians, called Parsis, are a minority offshoot with the greatest concentration — about a quarter million — living in Iran. However, Zarathustrianism is, by no means, confined to those regions.
No 6: The “21 grams”, “weight of the soul” is as close to pure bunk as you can get. It is based on an experiment performed in 1907 by Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill, Massachusetts. His methodology was fatally flawed. For the sake of brevity, I will note: His experiment was designed to affirm — not honestly test — a preconceived belief, and; his experimental base consisted of a statistically worthless six subjects and he achieved his desired result with only one of those. And that result has never been confirmed nor replicated by subsequent experimentation.
No. 10: You cannot contract to shoot your loved one’s remains into space. The best you can do is send a tiny “symbolic” amount of cremated remains into a short launch (which returns to Earth) for about $500, or into deep space for around $12,000.
This article gives the light in which we can observe the reality.
this is very nice one and gives in depth information. thanks for this nice article.
N° 1 : … and when the dust unfreezes again, you get a lovely soup 🙂
I love the informed comments! In reading this article I immediately noticed the blatantly false statements. I hate it when articles such as these perpetuate misinformation and contribute to the dumbing down of society by repeating myths and urban legends. Kudos to all skeptics who take it upon themselves to research these things and post comments to educate the public. I just hope the people who read this article take the time to read the comments.
Death to an Elderly People, is like to LEAVE a feast. Your stomach is FULL, and
you LEAVE the Party.
Now EVERYBODY knows that: “The RESOURCES of this earth is LIMMITTED; and
the STAGE of is Human World is so NARROW.”
If I don’t go, I will KILL the Chance of the YOUNGER Generation;
It will be a SOCIAL/ Civilization CRIME.
I am 68 years of age, I have been SICK: Physically and Mentally.
I will GLADE to LEAVE with HONOR. Of course I will deffenetly NOT committed
Suaside. Because I don’t want leave as a COWERD.
Death is a [[ SOCIALIZED ]] thing;
People HAVE to EDUCATTED to have a propper attitute.
eSig:
** Poppyisalsoaflower; Singerisnotthe song **
Thanks
Zed Zee 2011_01-13 23:14
After a decade long battle with terrorists and extremists on all levels in which many lives were lost, the cities of the world regained their dignity and grandeur.