22 Truths About the World After Death

25 Truths About the World After Death

World After Death It is one of the only certainties in life - from the moment we’re born, we’re counting down to the moment we die. Death is an absolute for almost every living thing, but there are many things we still don’t know about. Buckle up for fifty insane facts about death and dying.

World After Death: first

Death at First Sight When someone expires - especially if they haven’t been conscious for a while - it can be hard to tell that they’re really gone. But there’s one way to check - the eyes have it. One of the first signs of death is that a person’s eyes cloud over, as the body’s functions cease and oxygen stops flowing to the eyeballs. If a person’s eyes are open, this can happen as quickly as ten minutes after the time of death. It’s not the body’s only weird effect after death.

World After Death: second

 Growth in Death? It’s been one of the strangest things people have noticed after their loved one passes away - they swear that their nails and hair keep growing even after death. Is it possible that these keratin-based body parts are still active even after all life functions have ceased?

In a word - no. What actually happens is that the body starts drying out. This causes the skin to retract and tighten, which pulls it away from the hair and nails - making them look longer. And there are many dramatic changes in the body right after death.

World After Death: third

Unlucky Stiff It’s one of the most famous parts of death - rigor mortis. The whole body seems to tighten up and become stiff and hard. This makes the body hard to move - but it’s only a temporary condition that begins only a few hours after death. Within a day to five days, the body will loosen up - which makes prepping it for a funeral much easier. This is a benefit to having funerals a while after death. But some effects are much...creepier.

World After Death: fourth

A Ghostly Noise Imagine, you’re a morgue worker and you’re handling the latest bodies that came in. Then suddenly, from the closed room where you’re the only person working, comes a ghastly moan! Time to call the exorcist? Maybe not.

As gases left in a body start to filter out through orifices, this causes the vocal cords to vibrate. This can make it sound like a corpse is moaning or groaning - a terrifying effect, but a totally normal one. But absent intervention, the body will take care of itself after death.

World After Death: fifth

Eating at You Did you know that we technically have more foreign creatures living in us than our own cells? We’re full of bacterial cells at all times, but our body’s defense mechanisms keep them at bay. As soon as we die and our body systems cease to function, it’s buffet time for all those normally helpful bacteria. They’ll start eating at the body, and that lets them multiply much faster and start the process of decomposition in earnest. And decomposition happens in a lot of different ways.

World After Death: sixth

Wax On, Wax Off Grave wax might sound like a product cemetery owners use to keep everything in good shape, but it’s actually a natural product. Clinically known as adipocere, it’s a waxy product caused by decomposition of body fat that forms on the skin and can often leave the body looking something like a wax figure. This only happens when a body is under wet conditions with minimal oxygen, and bodies that decompose this way are a rarity found in museums. Decomposition varies based on conditions.

World After Death: seventh

A Grave Timeline How long does it take a body to decompose? That depends on the conditions. When buried under normal conditions, without the body being preserved, it will generally take about a year for the body to be reduced to nothing more than a skeleton. But experiments showed that when a body was kept in consistent fifty-degree weather, it will be nothing but bones in only four months. But under certain conditions, decomposition might not happen at all.

World After Death: eighth

The Bog Bodies European peat bogs are one of the most unique places in the world, because they’re cold, low in oxygen, and highly acidic. That means that bodies there don’t decompose like normal, when pulled out of the bog, can look perfectly preserved for years - or even thousands of years.

When the Tollund Man, an Iron Age specimen, was found in a Danish bog, his discoverers assumed they had found the body of a missing person. And in the harshest of conditions, bodies can become landmarks.

World After Death: ninth

A Frozen Warning Mount Everest is one of the most hostile climates on Earth, with the mountain above a certain point being known as the death zone. So it’s not a surprise that a lot of people die there - and because on the higher part of the mountain it never gets below freezing, most of them stay there.

It’s too dangerous and expensive to bring most bodies down, and they don’t decompose when frozen solid, so corpses like the famous Green Boots become markers that new climbers see, lying there like they were sleeping, as they climb the mountain. But now, there are easier ways to keep people from decomposing.

World After Death: tenth

Pickling a Person If you’ve chosen the full funeral package for your loved one, one of the choices you’ll likely have to make is about embalming. This practice uses a collection of chemicals to preserve the corpse, making it more resistant to decomposition. While it won’t slow down decomposition indefinitely, it’s a common choice for those who want to have an open casket funeral - so everyone can stand around talking about how natural the deceased looks. That’s enough about the body after death - how do we get there?

World After Death: eleventh

Running Out the Clock So how long can humans actually live? While the average lifespan in the United States is in the 70s, that’s driven down by those who die young. Those who make it to the 70s usually live longer - and a small percentage make it past 100 and beyond. This tiny group of centenarians and super-centenarians have an honorary queen in Jeanne Calment, a French woman who is the documented oldest person to ever live - making it to a shocking 122 years old! So how many people have ever died?

World After Death: twelfth

It’s Crowded Down There The world is more crowded than it’s ever been, but we’re still only a tiny fraction of the population of the world that’s already passed on. There are currently more than seven billion people on Planet Earth - but the total population of the planet over all of history is more than 108 billion. That means that a hundred billion people have already died - which is probably not a good sign for the living if the zombie wars ever come to pass. But what actually puts people underground?

World After Death: thirteenth

Common Cause The United States has kept track of the most common causes of death for a long time, and it’s mostly steady. The most common cause of all? Heart disease, which not surprisingly takes out many of the elderly. Cancer isn’t far behind, but #3 is accidental injury - which is the most common cause of death for all age groups between one year old and forty-four. Once you get older, it’s your own body that’s more likely to get you. But one cause of death isn’t a cause of death at all.

World After Death: fourteenth

No Exit You hear about it so often - an old person dies of old age. Well, people may say it, but you’ll never see it on a death certificate. That’s because no one has ever died of old age. What actually happens is that as people reach old age, the immune system weakens. It becomes easier for them to catch illnesses, and their body can’t repair the damage as quickly. So while old age won’t kill them, it becomes a game of attrition for what illness will finish the job. But can you die from...water?

World After Death: fifteenth

Too Much of a Good Thing Sure, you can die from water - drowning kills many people, and scalding water can cause fatal burns. But simply drinking too much can kill you as well. A woman who drank six liters of water in three hours to win a contest died of hyponatremia, or water overdose. But unlike other overdoses, this isn’t poisoning. What actually happens is that you drink too much water for your body to process, which causes the sodium levels in the blood to dilute fatally. And speaking of water

World After Death: sixteenth

A Wet Reveal If you wanted to kill someone, getting rid of their body in the water would seem to be smart. After all, everyone would just assume they drowned, right? Not if forensic scientists are on the case. Because the body stops functioning after death, detectives can figure out if someone was dead before they hit the water by looking at their lungs. If someone drowned, their lungs will have filled up with water, while a corpse dumped in the water would still have lungs full of air. But not all methods for solving murder held up with time.

World After Death: seventeenth

The Eyes Have It When someone was murdered in the 19th century, investigators did something unusual - they would remove the victim’s eyes and dissect them. This is because they believed that the eyes were like cameras, capturing images - and their killer’s image was the last thing they ever saw. Not surprisingly, though, they never seemed to find where that image was stored, and this became one of many weird scientific ideas that didn’t survive the march of progress. Some causes of death are a lot rarer than you might think.

World After Death: eighteenth

Not So Scary When someone paddles into the water, they’re no doubt keeping an eye out for any hungry finned predators. But dying of a shark attack is incredibly rare - and more people die of selfie-related incidents per year. Likewise, skydiving seems like a terrifying and dangerous activity, but the technology is surprisingly safe. More people die per year in dance parties and nightclubs than die by falling from an airplane. But three days of the year may be deadlier than any other.

World After Death: nineteenth

Nothing Like the Holidays What days are likeliest to end in death? Well, if we’re talking about natural causes, they shoot up on Christmas, the next day, and New Years’ Day. While murders and suicides actually decrease during the holidays, many people who might be feeling sick will put off treatment because they don’t want to check into the hospital on a holiday - and by then it might be too late. Add in many top doctors taking the holiday off, and it can be a deadly combo. But one cause of death may outstrip all the other.

World After Death: twenties

The Ultimate Plague What’s the deadliest disease of all time? No, it’s not Covid-19, the Spanish Flu, or even the Black Death. Instead, it’s a common disease that has been ravaging the world for centuries - Malaria. It’s so deadly because it’s spread by mosquitoes - and as anyone who ever tried to have a barbecue outside in the summer knows, those things are everywhere. It kills more than half a million people in most years, and likely killed far more in the past when medical treatment wasn’t as advanced. For many, death comes quickly - but what happens when it’s slower?

World After Death: twenty-first

The Last to Go When people die due to illness, organ failure, or cancer, they can often convalesce in the hospital or hospice facilities for an extended period, being kept comfortable with medicine. When they reach the final stage and their death is imminent, their senses will begin failing them, although they’re often too sedated to react. But one sense is the last to go - hearing, which allows their loved ones to keep talking to them up until the very end. Some deaths are a lot less peaceful than that, though.

World After Death: twenty-second

Execute This The death penalty became a lot less common in the 20th century, with many nations including all of Western Europe abolishing it due to human rights concerns. But fifty-three nations around the world still execute their worst criminals - and they use a variety of methods. While the United States’ favored method is lethal injection, you’ll find states and other countries that use the electric chair, the gas chamber, the firing squad, hanging, and even beheading. But which country executes the most people?

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