Most of us can probably agree that death is an extremely sad, yet very natural thing that happens, while a few of us might be extreme optimists who view death as our next great adventure, but nearly all of us can probably agree that death is fascinating. While we understand what constitutes a person “dead”, and scientists will probably tell us that our life does in fact flash before our eyes in our final moments, we certainly don’t know things like what death feels like or what happens after we die. Now don’t get us wrong we aren’t here to answer those hard-hitting questions today, but we have come to you with some morbid facts about death and dying and frankly, we have more questions than ever now.
Heads Will Roll
Well, let’s get things going with decapitation! After you or someone else has been decapitated, you or the other person, actually remain conscious for a solid 20 seconds. And while 20 seconds may not seem like a very long time in most situations, we have a feeling that 20 seconds without a head probably feels like a lifetime.
Whoever Smelt It Dealt It
Death has a distinct aroma, and if you’ve smelt it just once you know there’s no smell quite like it. This smell happens because of two gases that are known as putrescine and cadaverine. These gases are produced when bacteria break down the amino acids known as ornithine and lysine.
Did You Hear That?
We’ve never even stopped to consider and ask ourselves about our five senses when we pass on because we just assumed everything just kinda shut down. Well, fool us once, because as it turns out, your sense of hearing is the last to go. And we aren’t sure how we feel about that.
Tall, Grande or Venti?
Trigger warning: major ick. People used to believe that the blood of well, recently expired people if you will, was some sort of health tonic and would pay executioners a few coins to drink it. Warm. Fresh from the gallows. And that would be a hard pass from us.
Forensic Files
Let’s just say hypothetically that someone was murdered and the corpse has been laying wherever for any amount of time, but nobody has an exact timeline or even an idea of when the person passed. That’s where forensic scientists come in, they study the species of insects on the body, then they can actually tell us how long it’s been since death. So yeah, forensic science is pretty awesome. And kinda gross.
Disease Control
We’ve probably all heard the term “six feet under” and we just know that the conversation has turned, well, toward death and possibly quite morbid, but where did the term come from? Well, the idea that graves needed to be 6 feet deep actually comes from a plague outbreak that occurred in the mid-1660s. The mayor of London at the time declared that this was the exact depth a grave needed to be to prevent, or rather limit, the spread of disease.