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Human corpses keep moving for over a year after death, scientist says (2019)
- andrewaylett 2y agoI found this to be fascinating -- for those who may not have read the fine article, the movement isn't autonomic, it's due to the decomposition process. But studying what happens to a corpse between death and discovery is quite challenging, and I'm impressed that they devised a suitable experiment and were able to carry it out.
- cebert 2y agoSomeone needs to do research like this, but I would have a very difficult time with the subject matter.
- yndoendo 2y agoSomeone that runs a funeral home wouldn't have an issue. They are the ones that cut up a body, that is donated to science, and ship parts around to buyers. Most institutions only want part of a body for testing and studying so a whole body is worth less than a cut up body. Now does the post-mortal movement still occur in body parts versus the whole body?
- quitit 2y agoIt’s a fair bit more common than you might assume. This article talks about 6 of such “body farms” in the USA. They are focussed on learning about decomposition in different settings, such as being wrapped in plastic, carpet, in a car’s trunk etc. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/06/10/these-six-body-farms-help-forensic-anthropologists-learn-to-solve-crimes/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/06/10/th...
- lostlogin 2y agoA MR tech colleague was scanning a cadaver one night after hours for someone’s research project (possibly on ultra short TE imaging). She finished a scan then reviewed it. They were moving and the images suffered from motion artifact. Presumably defrosting or something. She wasn’t ok with this.
- ConfusedDog 2y agoThat's funny. Traumatic for her, but funny.
- Finnucane 2y ago"Hell, we found one corpse continuing to work as a procurement mananger at a defense contractor for six months before anyone even noticed."
- hehbot 2y ago"Apparently throwing money at senators is a literal no-brainer"
- gotoeleven 2y ago[flagged]
- psunavy03 2y agoHaving served in uniform before, this made me come closer than I'd like to spitting out my coffee.
- r721 2y agoReminds me of lesser known Lem's novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Investigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Investigation
- account-5 2y agoScotland yard lieutenant... Has there ever been such a UK police rank?
- k1t 2y agoAccording to Wikipedia, no. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_ranks_of_the_United_Kingdom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_ranks_of_the_United_K... There were ranks of Lieutenant and Detective Lieutenant, but only in Scotland and only until about 1950.
- pndy 2y agoI'd guess that Lem used lieutenant rank from citizens' militia (which was back then the police force in Polish People's Republic), not knowing about rank changes in the UK - it was replaced by chief inspector as you linked. goodreads.com uses "Lt. Gregory" in book summary so it's not a translation issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_inspector#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_inspector#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant#United_Kingdom_and_Commonwealth_police_forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieutenant#United_Kingdom_and_...
- account-5 2y agoBut the rank doesn't appear to have ever been used in Scotland yard or the MET, which might have lead to why it was used incorrectly.
- fuzztester 2y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_Yard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_Yard
- 2y ago
- jppope 2y agoFinished for the day, I guess I'll just check hacker news before I go to bed... ... and now that sleep is off the table, time to research zombies on wikipedia
- sonofhans 2y agoHere, this’lll help — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serpent_and_the_Rainbow_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Serpent_and_the_Rainbow_(b...
- jppope 2y agoI actually loved that movie (though dated even when I saw it) and have been hoping someone would remake it. Bill Pullman was great though
- larusso 2y agoWell for me it’s my morning commute read. Let’s see how often during the day this comes back up.
- freddealmeida 2y agowe are never really dead
- vardump 2y agoElvis is still alive 48 light years away.
- monero-xmr 2y agoI had a near death experience when I was 10 years old. I’ve never found a valid scientific explanation for what I observed, considering I never heard of NDEs and this was pre-internet, and I had a classic NDE with a life review etc. Really can’t logically explain this
- dkga 2y agoWow. Glad you are ok! If you are comfortable with this, would you be willing to share what the NDE was like?
- monero-xmr 2y agoI was choking. I realized I was likely going to die, and I was very disappointed. My vision started to go fade even though my eyes were open. I saw vignettes of my life appear coming from the left, then playing like a video in front of my vision, then fading and going to the right, as the next vignette appeared. I was not scared so much as disappointed. The whole thing lasted somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds, at which point I snapped out of it, and grabbed some stranger's soda and poured it down my throat, which dislodged the food I was choking on.
- Buttons840 2y agoYou were choking so severely that you were beginning to black out, and then went another 30+ seconds (maybe your sense of time was altered?), before solving the problem yourself. Were there other people around that noticed you almost choked to death?
- perching_aix 2y agoConsidering how clueless we still are regarding how the brain works, and have only started to comprehensively map out the brains of the tiniest organisms, I really don't find it surprising that there's not yet a rigorous or even a reasonable approximate explanation for such a high level experience.
- igleria 2y ago
- femto 2y ago> which lies in a secret location outside of Sydney, Australia A bit of poetic license there? An aerial photo and lat/long are in this paper. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Aerial-view-of-the-Australian-Facility-for-Taphonomic-Experimental-Research-AFTER_fig2_330960284 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Aerial-view-of-the-Austr... Here it is on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/place/33%C2%B038'51.4%22S+150%C2%B039'46.8%22E/@-33.6481457,150.6612027,1339m https://www.google.com/maps/place/33%C2%B038'51.4%22S+150%C2...
- sandworm101 2y agoThere is a nuance between "secret" as used in "top secret" and secret as in "secretary". The later means more private than hidden from view. This is a secret location because the general public is not allowed to visit.
- JCharante 2y agowhy not just say private location? My house is a private place, but it's not a secret.
- sandworm101 2y agoMaybe because "private" in English can also mean non-publicly-owned, ie in private hands. This facility could easily be a publicly-owned and yet not open to the public. English is weird.
- have_faith 2y agoThen it's simply restricted.
- DonHopkins 2y agoHow about "stinky", if the goal is to discourage corpse tourism while being technically accurate and honest.
- nottorp 2y ago... except in the loa worshipping areas, where you can get a few good years of unpaid labor out of a corpse?
- Ekaros 2y agoThis type of research is necessary if we want to do forensic pathology. Location affects fauna involved. And also weather and seasons affects how it progresses. One example I read was that different insects are present at different stages. So based on their cycles you can narrow down time of death somewhat.
- raverbashing 2y agoSo let me guess, the solution is either a stake through the heart or lots and lots of garlic?
- DonHopkins 2y agoHow does making corpses taste delicious make them stop moving?
- rpastuszak 2y agoRight angles work too, unless they carry a crucifix glitch inhibitor.
- kseistrup 2y agoMy favourite sentence from the article: »I have had a case of body moving across a table due to maggot activity.« :D
- klingonAI 2y ago[dead]
- AngryData 2y agoIs anyone actually surprised that a decomposing body isn't perfectly static?
- FartyMcFarter 2y agoFor me the question is, why would it be static? A piece of fruit decomposing (on a tree or otherwise) clearly doesn't stay static, why would anything else?
- lukan 2y agoThe expectation that the majestiy of death respects the dignity of humans? (Or too many bad movies and a society that tries to banish the fought of death, instead of accepting it as part of the natural cycle. Also, corpes are usually filled up to the top with formaldehyd.)
- thesuitonym 2y agoIf you read the article it states that they were surprised by how much movement there was, not that there was movement.
- j6m8 2y agoTo those who are interested in reading more, I recommend Mary Roach's "Stiff" (and all her other work too!) highly highly highly!
- foobarian 2y agoEver since I saw body farms on CSI I wanted to sign up to donate my corpse to one of those.
- hulitu 2y ago> Human corpses keep moving for over a year after death, scientist says (2019) Some of them were even presidents. /s
- rolph 2y agoi believe this will have supplementary value : Thanatology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanatology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanatology
- kaboomshebang 2y agoIs it weird to want to see a time-lapse video of this phenomenon???
- 31carmichael 2y agoLet's see some video, or it didn't happen.