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...
Prions: “Immortal Diseases” Enduring Beyond the Grave
Pathogens that stay viable in the environment for decades after the death of their host, opportunistically infecting whoever happens along, may sound like something out of a horror...
Mortality Salience: How Death Makes Life Better
Awareness of death, or “mortality salience,” has been shown in not a few instances to increase one’s sense of the value and fleeting quality of life. Not always,...
Two Types of Death
When someone says “brain death”, pretty much everyone understands. Some death is reversible, some not; brain death is the sort that isn’t, not usually. Most people are already...