The Last Thing You’ll Hear: What the Brain Still Listens for as Life Fades
By the time my grandmother died after a series of strokes, she’d been unresponsive for about a week. My mother wouldn’t leave Grandma’s bedside — not to eat,...
The Magical Mushroom Technology Behind the “Cocoon”
For the tricky business of breaking down biological remains, few contenders pull the weight of mushroom-based products. As we’ve recently covered in some detail, America has had its...
You’re Not Dead Until You’re Warm and Dead: Reanimating the Frozen
Science’s long-standing goal of resuscitating a frozen body has made intriguing progress recently, with frozen brain tissue successfully being restored to a functional state for the first time....
Can AI Help Us Live Longer?
OpenAI is working with a biotech startup to develop an AI model with the purpose of engineering stem cells. The goal is to effectively step back natural age...
Do Animals Understand Death?
Do animals understand death? Substantial research so far indicates that the answer is probably yes. Many species share humans’ basic neurochemical profile, which means we have certain emotional...
The Treacherous Task of Recovering Frozen Remains
It’s typical for deceased mountaineers at high altitudes to remain where they’ve fallen, making their final resting place in the snow -- transportation of mountain-climbing victims is treacherous...
Everest’s Graveyard: Permanent or Purgatory (Part I)
It’s no mean feat to recover the fallen from Everest, Earth’s highest mountain; the climb is notoriously deadly for all kinds of reasons (hurricane-level sub-zero winds; thousand-foot fatal...
Is the World Ready for Deep Space Burials?
So besides the launching of cremated remains into or out orbit as part of a final farewell (an option of such growing popularity that there are businesses built...
Is Total Death Even Real? Mathematicians Suggest It’s All an Illusion
Higher mathematics suggests that maybe there is “no death.” Could it be an illusion? Come on, now. Sounds cryptically new age-y… but there’s hard research behind it. It’s...
Picking the Brains of the Pros: Recent Research into the Field of Death Care
The field of death care is a thriving area of formal research. Structured studies explore how the public – and the pros – are affected by (and work...