Want to know how you’d die in outer space?

You’d be unconscious in 15 seconds, and would die a few minutes later from lack of oxygen. You’d also be radiated and frozen, but that would happen later, so you wouldn't notice it much. Cuz, you'd be dead.

I know this because I read the NPR article, “Boil, BurnOr Explode? How You Die In Space?” Ooh, and here’s a fun video about it!

So this is a REAL funeral?

The deceased gentleman was named Jason Calvert. And he had a good sense of humor!

Um, your book is sort of freaking me out right now.

The Beginner's Guide to Animal Autopsy, via.

Thanks, Mary Roach!

“One of the more distinctive ways to die in the 19th century was to get knocked into the sea by a dangling sheet of blubber.”

—Mary Roach, "Something Blubbery This Way Comes," Outside

It's not as bad as all that.

The name of the town is "Bury"! (Via.)

Coffin-shaped bathroom!

Let's say you're at a funeral and you have to pee or worse—bust a grumpy!

Normally, you'd be out of luck. But not in Millaa Millaa, Australia. Because look, over there . . .

See that coffin-shaped tombstone? It's not a tombstone, it's a working toilet, with its own sewage system and everything! According to this news article:

It's the loo that is taking the term toilet humour to a whole new level - and it has Millaa Millaa residents in a spin. 

After being told it would cost more than $80,000 to build a toilet at the local cemetery, the Chamber of Commerce decided to take issues into their own hands and build their own - in the shape of a coffin. 

"You have to be careful, not everyone is going to have our macabre sense of humour," Chamber president Pat Reynolds said. "But we did it with good intentions. It's for firstly, the cemetery, and secondly, maybe a few more people will notice Millaa Millaa."

Hey, I noticed!

Look, we dressed our dog as a lobster boiling to death in a pot!

Uncool!

Hey, want to see a good death scene?

Too bad! All I have is this awesomely cheesy death scene!

Ode to a Noggin Urn

A company named Cremation Solutions (motto: "Have a problem? We'll burn it to ash!") has come up with the most amazingly bad idea in the history of cremation solutions.

It's an urn in the shape of the dead person's head.

As you can see above, the likeness is uncanny. You recognize Ringo Starr above, right? Here's the promo copy.

They are created from one or two photographs with exceptional attention to details. With advances in facial analysis and the advent of state of the art 3D imaging, these high tech urns can be made to look like anyone. The full sized personal urn can hold all the ashes of an adult . . .

The personal urn does not come with hair. For hair we can digitally add hair if you wish, or wigs can be used . . . 

Personal urns can be designed to look like anyone. We just need good pictures. We prefer one picture from the front and one from the side . . .

Urns Like You or Like Them! No Two are Alike

As you can see, the company thought it was a good idea to make a head-urn of President Obama. Great salesmanship, Cremation Solutions! But at least this could be the best gag gift ever! Just send in two photos of your best friend . . . and when it's done, you have the perfect birthday present.

Also, I'd like to have urns made of identical twins just to prove that slogan at the end wrong. 

Cremation humor!

"Kiss your ash goodbye" via.

Happy Holidays!

This scary head/skull is from a German rosary that was made over 500 years ago. Here’s its description from the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

[This shows] the head of a deceased man, with half the image eaten away from decay. Such images served as reminders that life is fleeting and that leading a virtuous life . . . is key to salvation.

Well, isn't that lovely!

Oh, you clever, clever fungus.

Imagine the smell of barf. Now add to it the smell of poop and a rotting squirrel. Got it? Multiply that malodorous scent by two and you’ll know what the basket stinkhorn smells like!

This fungus can be found at the base of trees in Europe. Like other fungi, the way the basket stinkhorn doesn’t use seeds to reproduce. It uses spores (like the dots on the bottom of a fern’s frond). And to spread its spores, stinkhorns need flies.

You see, flies are drawn to things like barf, poop, and rotting squirrels. So the flies smell the stinkhorn and land on it, looking for a snack. In fact, the flies crawl all over the stinkhorn. This may be why the stinkhorn grows in that weird mesh-like pattern; it makes it easy for bugs to get all up and over it.

Anyway, the fly will eventually give up and off in disgust. Of course, the fly is coated with spores by then, and these will help spread the stinkhorn! Well-played, basket stinkhorn, well-played. (Photo by spacepleb.)

High-five!

Hand by Starke

Let’s say that your family has some heirlooms. You know, antique furniture, old jewelry, mummified hands, that sort of thing. What do you do with a mummified hand that’s been in your family for years?

In this case, the hand was given to a museum, and its staff informed the police. Maybe the hand had been chopped off illegally! Now note the bad puns from both the reporter and the police in this Reuters story.

SALMON, Idaho, Sep. 27, 2011 — Police in Idaho Falls said they have closed an investigation into the origins of a mummified hand after learning it dates back 700 to 1,000 years. 

The dismembered limb was handed over to the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls more than a year ago by a patron who told officials it had been in the family for years. Unable to link the limb to criminal activity, Idaho Falls officers submitted it to antiquities experts, police spokeswoman Joelyn Hansen said. 

A finding by a physical anthropologist showed the hand spanned between the 11th and 14th centuries, Hansen said. 

"It's out of the reach of our jurisdiction," she said. 

The limb will likely be offered to the Indian tribes of Utah now that police have a grip on its origins. 

"We're leaving it in someone else's hands," Hansen said.

"Maggot Orgy"? Avert your eyes!

A gentleman named Ethan shot this video that he titled "Totally Barfalicious Maggot Orgy in the [Unmentionable] of a Dead Harbor Seal."

The title pretty much says it all. In his video notes, Ethan adds, "Not for the faint-of-heart, I suppose." Since I just had a fatal cardiac arrest after watching this horror, I can only say, "Thanks. Thanks a lot." (To see the video and then also have a heart attack, click "Read more."

Now THIS is a creepy ad!

It's a good thing the trucks are clean, disinfected, and sanitary. I don't want my large, dead animals being transported in anything less!

From here (via).

Now that's just mean!

O-H-I-O? Okey-dokey!

If you get a group of hardcore Ohio State University fans together, four of them will spell O-H-I-O. (Ex.: The girls to the left, or the hundreds of people at this site.)

This explains the photo below. A gentleman named Roy Miracle died recently. And the folks attending his funeral decided to spell out Roy's favorite university, using Roy as the I. (I've never seen people so happy at a funeral!)

You can be an accidental mummy!

"Hel-looo?"

Did you know that you can become a mummy by accident? No, this isn’t a promo for a reality show about teen mothers (zinger!).

What I mean is that if you happened to fall into a tar pit or an ice crevasse or just a deep hole . . . and then if you died (sorry) . . . and then if you dried out and were eventually found, you could be a mummy, too.

It’s nice to dream, anyway! And this brings me to the Franklin Institute, a Philadelphia museum putting on an exhibition of 150 mummies from across the world that’s called —wait for it— Mummies of the World.

Some of the mummies are accidental ones, and some were mummified on purpose. Like this poor monkey-mummy from South America. Sure, it’s a cool name: “monkey mummy”. But that’s not a nice thing to do to a monkey!

To learn more about this awesome exhibit, check out this New York Times article. (That’s where these photos came from, BTW.)

Liar! Liar! Ooh, what's that smell?

This is grim, but hey, it's interesting!

In 1928, a woman named Ruth Snyder was executed for the murder of her husband. Ruth claimed to be innocent, but the evidence against her was overwhelming.

So Ruth Snyder was sentenced to sit in the electric chair.

As Janet Maslin writes, "She was was the rare liar who actually wound up with her hair on fire when she was electrocuted."