I'm reading Mary Roach's book, Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. A few fun facts:
Our flatulence comes from bacterial waste products in our digestive tract. The dead can fart.
People prefer to say beef to cow, pork to pig. We have a hard time with dead animals and people.
Proctology made surgery a credible field. It was once a field of trial and error, black magic. Then in 1687, a French king had an anal fistula. The rest is history.
Dogs can be trained to find a dead body dumped in a lake from decomposition gasses leaking to the surface.
Anatomy students are given cadavers with their heads and hands wrapped. Those are the most emotionally charged body parts.
Embalming fluids make the penis bigger. Without the fluid, bacteria will bloat one’s testicals to the size of softballs.
Composting and tissue digestion are the next hot things in funeral services.
Behind UT Knoxville, there’s an open space where forensic researchers watch bodies decomposing in a wide variety of ways.
Necrophilia is illegal in only 16 states.
The Taliban forbids human body dissection, so students sometimes commit criminal acts to study the body on their own. A lot of the world used to forbid dissection.
Maggots feeding on fat sound like Rice Krispies.
In Sweeden, cremation is very popular due in part to a policy where after 25 years your grave is reopened and dug deeper so that they can bury someone on top of you.
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Some tips for surviving plane crashes:
If thrown from the plan, try to land in the water or on land feet first.
You reach terminal velocity 120 mph in 500 feet.
Many people die from being trampled or stuck in a plane. During a crash, get down low below the smoke.
Best to sit near an emergency exit.
Aisle seat passengers often get knocked unconscious.
Though it would save lives, airlines find it cost-prohibited to add emergency exits, shoulder straps, air bags, sprinkler systems, etc... because a lost life is only worth $2.7 million lost revenue.
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