When whales die: Yesterday,
a 20-30 foot whale washed up a shore in New Jersey. Officials are going to deal with it by cutting it up into small parts and burying it. In previous incidents, officials tried to explode it into bits that were meant to fall in the ocean and get eaten by seagulls, but that
didn't work out [YT] so well, especially for nearby spectators. Even if you want to let it decompose naturally, you have to be careful for
spontaneous explosions due to gassy buildup. Especially when transporting it in busy city streets. Oops. When whales die in the ocean, on the other hand, their bodies eventually fall to the sea floor and can start mini ecosystems, where female
pink glowstick-like sea worms that harbor the male pink glowstick sea worms inside their bodies live, eat whale bones, and propagate. (Previously on Metafilter:
Taiwan explosion)
posted by Salamandrous
on Jul 28, 2009 -
46 comments
Peculiar corpses: "
Incorruptibles remaining free of decomposition have baffled scientists to this day. These bodies are discovered in many different environments, including environments that would typically cause an accidental or deliberately preserved corpse to decompose rapidly." The photographed examples seem to all be associated with Christian faith. Hmm. "[At Oratorio di San Lorenzo] in Palermo, however, corpses are treated as characters in a play":
The Museum of the Dead, reassuringly less preserved.
posted by nthdegx
on May 30, 2008 -
67 comments
Barbarism or good ole American capitalism? If you want to see the true face of war, go to the amateur porn Web site
NowThatsFuckedUp.com. For almost a year, American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been taking photographs of dead bodies, many of them horribly mutilated or blown to pieces, and sending them to Web site administrator Chris Wilson. In return for letting him post these images, Wilson gives the soldiers free access to his site. American soldiers have been using the pictures of disfigured Iraqi corpses as currency to buy pornography.
posted by halekon
on Sep 23, 2005 -
136 comments
Mutilation of victims and Muslim law The ruling by Sheik Omar Abdullah Hassan al-Shehabi specifies two circumstances in which the desecration of an infidel -- a non-Muslim -- is permitted. One is retaliation "when the enemy is disfiguring Muslim corpses or when it otherwise serves the Islamic nation." The other is when mutilation will "terrorize the enemy" or "gladden the heart of a Muslim warrior."
posted by swerdloff
on Jun 13, 2004 -
45 comments
Preservation by Plastination : Until recently the privilege to view corpses and the human body’s interior has been confined to medicine students and anatomists in dissection rooms. It is only due to the invention of plastination that the general public is now also able to enjoy fascinating insights into the human body.
posted by starscream
on Aug 4, 2003 -
11 comments
How About Raising Money for Him Instead of The Star Wars Kid? Perhaps the most faithful of Delhi's unpaid city servants turns 80 on Tuesday, but has no plans to retire.
Mohammed Habib has had the grisly task of collecting the city's unclaimed corpses since he was 12. He says he has disposed of hundreds of bodies - and all for free - in a country where millions live in poverty.
posted by turbanhead
on Jul 29, 2003 -
8 comments
Interview with the certified forensic entomologist. In other words she examines insects in dead bodies for criminal investigations. Its good to know that there are dedicated professionals doing this just in case I happen to wash up on the shores of Lake Michigan. Hey, it could happen to any of us.
posted by skallas
on Jan 9, 2002 -
5 comments
Corpses are great if used to prove points, and they mayor of Taipei wanted to make a point in cleaning up the rivers there so it can become a tourist attraction. I think his point was well made when a corpse of a 50 year old man came floating by.
posted by Mark
on Feb 7, 2000 -
0 comments
