Death
Science has a lot to say about life and death. Doctors can carry out an autopsy before the deceased starts to decompose, to establish the cause of death. Forensic scientists collect evidence after a homicide. Does being dead mean that your heart stops beating or your brain stops being conscious? Your body is just a machine to carry your brain around, but if you are in a coma you can be pronounced 'brain dead', even though your heart and lungs keep working, a bit like a zombie. And when you die, what about the afterlife..?

What does dying feel like? A doctor explains what we know

While we don’t know if anything happens afterwards, we do know exactly what happens in the moments leading up the end. Dr Kathryn Mannix leads you through the last few steps on your body’s journey.
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Top 10: Most dangerous animals in the world

Which animal kills the most humans per year? Spoiler: it's not sharks.
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How long does it take for a body to decompose at sea?

If you're planning a burial at sea, the rate at which your body to break down largely depends on whether you pick a tropical or temperate ocean.
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If you get swallowed whole by an animal, how long would you stay alive?

It's unlikely you'd be able to crawl out...
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What would happen if you fell out of a commercial aircraft?

Thankfully, it's a rare occurrence.
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Down on the body farm: The gruesome, but vital forensic facility coming to the UK

Just like language, decomposition is dependent on location. This is why researchers are keen to start studying the dialect of taphonomy here in the UK.
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Can a corpse filled with trapped gas explode when cremated?

You were only supposed to blow the doors off... Exploding decomposing bodies are unlikely during cremation unless someone forgot to take the pacemaker out of dear uncle Joe.
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How long should we extend human life?

We’re all getting older. But how long should we be able to keep getting older for?
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How can we deal with all the dead?

More people die every day, but our graveyards aren’t getting any bigger. So what happens when we inevitably start running out of places to put the bodies?
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Are we thinking about death wrong in the West?

Everyone who’s alive now – you, your friends, your family – one day won’t be. It’s an unavoidable fact, and yet we often go to great lengths to avoid acknowledging it. Jules Howard explains why that might be a mistake.
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Can we cure old age?

Do you want to live forever? Are you sure? Because while you might be up for it, your body isn’t. But there might be things we can do about that.
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How many people have died because of the pandemic?

How can we calculate the true toll of the pandemic?
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What stories do our skeletons tell?

Professor Sue Black reveals how forensic anthropologists search for the criminal secrets that are etched on the bones of victims.
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Deaths in England and Wales up 37 per cent due to pandemic

New analysis has counted deaths from all causes, not just COVID-19, to provide a picture of the pandemic across 21 countries.
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Sue Black reveals the secrets stored in our bones

Read the full transcript of our Science Focus Podcast interview with Sue Black on the human skeleton – listen to the full episode at the bottom of the page.
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Bronze Age musical instruments made from human bone

Radiocarbon dating and CT scanning was used to examine bones from 4,500 years ago.
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"Death is part of life, and there is a lot we can learn from it"

There are moments when disease and political protest suddenly make dead bodies far more visible, here are five lessons they can teach us.
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"Death will force us to test technology in ways it was never meant to be used"

We can no longer celebrate lives through large funerals and wakes, but could technology offer a way to help us negotiate our grief?
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A timeline of cryonics

The important steps humanity has taken towards extending life span and cheating death.
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Could you live forever?

A new facility will store tens of thousands of cryogenically-frozen people. The hope is to one day bring them back to life, but just how realistic are its aims?
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Shakespeare's remarkable scientific accuracy

The Bard kept up-to-date with all the latest science and medicine.
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Why are non-COVID related deaths on the rise?

Are people dying during the lockdown because they are reluctant to seek help for other conditions?
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What happens to your data when you die?

We ask social psychologist and host of BBC Radio 4's Digital Human Aleks Krotoski about life after death.
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