20 Things You Didn't Know About Death

Non-music discussion. Discuss things that are on your mind or things that don't have anything to do with music. Lets try to keep it clean people, there are little children present.

Moderators: MrSpall, bassjones, sevesd93, zenmandan

Post Reply
sharkmansix
Too Much Free Time
Too Much Free Time
Posts: 2064
Joined: Fri Feb 27, 2004 3:07 pm
Location: Fort Lame, IN.
Contact:

20 Things You Didn't Know About Death

Post by sharkmansix »

1- The practice of burying the dead may date back 350,000 years, as evidenced by a 45-foot-deep pit in Atapuerca, Spain, filled with the fossils of 27 hominids of the species Homo heidelbergensis, a possible ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans.

2- Never say die: There are at least 200 euphemisms for death, including "to be in Abraham's bosom," "just add maggots," and "sleep with the Tribbles" (a Star Trek favorite).

3- No American has died of old age since 1951.

4- That was the year the government eliminated that classification on death certificates.

5- The trigger of death, in all cases, is lack of oxygen. Its decline may prompt muscle spasms, or the "agonal phase," from the Greek word agon, or contest.

6- Within three days of death, the enzymes that once digested your dinner begin to eat you. Ruptured cells become food for living bacteria in the gut, which release enough noxious gas to bloat the body and force the eyes to bulge outward.

7- So much for recycling: Burials in America deposit 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid—formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol—into the soil each year. Cremation pumps dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air.

8- Alternatively . . . A Swedish company, Promessa, will freeze-dry your body in liquid nitrogen, pulverize it with high-frequency vibrations, and seal the resulting powder in a cornstarch coffin. They claim this "ecological burial" will decompose in 6 to 12 months.

9- Zoroastrians in India leave out the bodies of the dead to be consumed by vultures.

10- The vultures are now dying off after eating cattle carcasses dosed with diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory used to relieve fever in livestock.

11- Queen Victoria insisted on being buried with the bathrobe of her long-dead husband, Prince Albert, and a plaster cast of his hand.

12- If this doesn't work, we're trying in vitro! In Madagascar, families dig up the bones of dead relatives and parade them around the village in a ceremony called famadihana. The remains are then wrapped in a new shroud and reburied. The old shroud is given to a newly married, childless couple to cover the connubial bed.

13- During a railway expansion in Egypt in the 19th century, construction companies unearthed so many mummies that they used them as fuel for locomotives.

14- Well, yeah, there's a slight chance this could backfire: English philosopher Francis Bacon, a founder of the scientific method, died in 1626 of pneumonia after stuffing a chicken with snow to see if cold would preserve it.

15- For organs to form during embryonic development, some cells must commit suicide. Without such programmed cell death, we would all be born with webbed feet, like ducks.

16- Waiting to exhale: In 1907 a Massachusetts doctor conducted an experiment with a specially designed deathbed and reported that the human body lost 21 grams upon dying. This has been widely held as fact ever since. It's not.

17- Buried alive: In 19th-century Europe there was so much anecdotal evidence that living people were mistakenly declared dead that cadavers were laid out in "hospitals for the dead" while attendants awaited signs of putrefaction.

18- Eighty percent of people in the United States die in a hospital.

19- If you can't make it here . . . More people commit suicide in New York City than are murdered.

20- It is estimated that 100 billion people have died since humans began.


Eh, I still wanna be cremated. :D

From:
http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-06/d ... ingsdeath/
The_Dude
Hillgrass Bluebilly FTW
Hillgrass Bluebilly FTW
Posts: 4052
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:53 pm
Location: 46825
Contact:

Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Death

Post by The_Dude »

16- Waiting to exhale: In 1907 a Massachusetts doctor conducted an experiment with a specially designed deathbed and reported that the human body lost 21 grams upon dying. This has been widely held as fact ever since. It's not.
It makes for a pretty decent movie, though.

Image
fragile_funk
Careful with the Funk
Careful with the Funk
Posts: 315
Joined: Wed Aug 06, 2003 11:37 pm
Location: Fort Wayne
Contact:

Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Death

Post by fragile_funk »

sharkmansix wrote:
9- Zoroastrians in India leave out the bodies of the dead to be consumed by vultures.
I would really like to be eaten by wild animals when I die. Not so much when I am still alive, though...
[url]http://www.myspace.com/zephaniahband[/url]
[url]http://www.myspace.com/hammerstrikestudio[/url]
Oliver's Army
Too Much Free Time
Too Much Free Time
Posts: 3228
Joined: Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:14 pm

Post by Oliver's Army »

Image
=^-..-^=
FEED ME!
FEED ME!
Posts: 971
Joined: Sat Feb 22, 2003 11:22 am
Location: Rockin' the CatBox

Post by =^-..-^= »

Before the funeral, the mortician uses glue to clamp your jaw shut to offset the effect of gravity and no muscular control.


A swimming pool in your back yard is more likely to kill your child than having a gun in the house.
"Yesterday Mr. Hall wrote that the printer's proof-reader was improving my punctuation for me, & I telegraphed orders to have him shot without giving him time to pray." -Mark Twain

"There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist."
Ayn Rand

". . .and the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, axe, and saw."
DELETED

Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Death

Post by DELETED »

DELETED
Massage...Bored
I Beat Up Kittens
I Beat Up Kittens
Posts: 1339
Joined: Wed Jan 14, 2004 9:42 pm
Location: Fort Pain, IN
Contact:

Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Death

Post by Massage...Bored »

Arkface wrote:
sharkmansix wrote:9- Zoroastrians in India leave out the bodies of the dead to be consumed by vultures.
Tibetans do that too. It's called "sky burial" or something badassed like that.

That's the one for me.

I'd like my body to be devoured by sharks when I go, though. I am into marine life after all.
Garr
Too Much Free Time
Too Much Free Time
Posts: 4805
Joined: Tue Dec 10, 2002 2:22 pm
Location: Fort Wayne
Contact:

Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Death

Post by Garr »

sharkmansix wrote:16- Waiting to exhale: In 1907 a Massachusetts doctor conducted an experiment with a specially designed deathbed and reported that the human body lost 21 grams upon dying. This has been widely held as fact ever since. It's not.
I actually read about this study. The guy was working in a convalescent (sp?) home and would spend most of his time trying to get old, dying people to consent to his experiment. If I remember correctly, he was able to try this on something like 18 people and was not able to reproduce his 21 gram result nor has anyone else been able to since then. He was trying to find the weight of the human soul. What a friggen kook!
There are 10 types of people in the world.

Those who understand binary. . .

. . .and those who don't.

[url]http://www.garrmusic.com[/url]

Check out these sites:

[url=http://www.OhSoHumorous.com]OhSoHumorous.com[/url]
[url=http://www.TopDailyMemes.com]TopDailyMemes.com[/url]
[url=http://www.RandomDailyMemes.com]RandomDailyMemes.com[/url]
[url=http://www.BestDailyMemes.com]BestDailyMemes.com[/url]
[url=http://www.FortWayneMusic.om]FortWayneMusic.om[/url]
[url=http://www.Kwalis.com]Kwalis.com[/url]
[url=http://www.SoHumorous.com]SoHumorous.com[/url]
[url=http://www.FailUniversity.com]FailUniversity.com[/url]
[url=http://www.FaceFullOf.com]FaceFullOf.com[/url]
[url=http://www.NuZuDu.com]NuZuDu.com[/url]
[url=http://www.FireFlyGoods.com]FireFlyGoods.com[/url]
[url=http://www.ThePeopleBlog.com]ThePeopleBlog.com[/url]
[url=http://www.StealMyMemes.com]StealMyMemes.com[/url]
[url=http://www.DontStealMyMemes.com]DontStealMyMemes.com[/url]

More to come...
Morphine Child
SuperStar
SuperStar
Posts: 460
Joined: Mon Nov 10, 2003 12:27 am

Post by Morphine Child »

I'm hoping to be assassinated. Because I think that would be a good headline. If I'm not assassinated, I'm thinking creamation, or being frozen and preserved for resurrection.
"My friend says he wants to die. He's in a band, they sound like Pearl Jam, the clothes are all black and the music is crap."

Steven Wilson

NoteScribe: Premier [url=http://www.notescribe.net]Note Software[/url]
Shrugie
Regular
Regular
Posts: 169
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2004 4:51 am
Location: Fort Wayne
Contact:

Re: 20 Things You Didn't Know About Death

Post by Shrugie »

sharkmansix wrote:Eh, I still wanna be cremated. :D
Just don't have your ashes spread because they'll probably just build a Wal-Mart on top of you anyways. :roll:
Most of it seemed to make some sort of sense at the time.
this dude
I Been Around
I Been Around
Posts: 88
Joined: Sun Jan 16, 2005 5:25 pm
Contact:

Post by this dude »

In the 30's, my grandfather worked at a funeral home helping with all the lovely things they do with dead people prior to viewings/funerals. Turns out, the brain of the recently deceased still carries quite a bit of residual electrical energy.

They had recieved a guy earlier in the day before grandpa had arrived at work, and hadn't really prepped him too much. As grandpa was rounding up everything to embalm the guy, the guy sits STRAIGHT UP with a giant belch from the air in his stomach, the quarters flying off his eyes onto the floor. :shock:

Grandpa tenders his resignation same day.
Post Reply