What happens to our bodies after we die? - Farnaz Khatibi Jafari
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TEDEd Animation
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Since the dawn of humanity, an estimated 100.8 billion people have lived and died, a number that increases by about 0.8% of the world’s population each year. What happens to all of those peoples’ bodies after they die? And will the planet eventually run out of burial space? Farnaz Khatibi Jafari traces the evolution of how humanity has treated bodies and burials.
Additional Resources for you to Explore
So, are you still wondering what else happens after burial? Visit the Forensic Library and learn all about decomposition. These two videos with the same titles will give you more information about “What happens when you die.”
How did scientists learn all this information about decomposition? The Body Farm is a good place to start. Watch the fascinating process of human decomposition and learn more about it.
The Strange, Smelly Science of Decomposing Bodies is another great resource to learn more about the decomposition process as well as the Body Farm. This journal article link Time Since Death and Decomposition of the Human Body: Variables and Observations in Case and Experimental Field Studies offers some great scientific information about the relationship between time of death and rate of decomposition. Life after death: the science of human decomposition is an informational article that describes the decomposing body as a complex ecosystem. Finding all this fascinating? This is what happens after you die, The tell-tale fly, The smell of death, and How nature can mummify a brain are a great series of articles from Mosaic about this topic.
Wondering about that fungal burial suit? Watch this TED Talk: Jae Rhim Lee: My mushroom burial suit.
Interested in learning more about forensics and forensic scientists? This TED-Ed lesson may give you some more insight: Early forensics and crime-solving chemists by Deborah Blum. Then, watch this TED Talk: A forensic anthropologist who brings closure for the "disappeared.”
How did scientists learn all this information about decomposition? The Body Farm is a good place to start. Watch the fascinating process of human decomposition and learn more about it.
The Strange, Smelly Science of Decomposing Bodies is another great resource to learn more about the decomposition process as well as the Body Farm. This journal article link Time Since Death and Decomposition of the Human Body: Variables and Observations in Case and Experimental Field Studies offers some great scientific information about the relationship between time of death and rate of decomposition. Life after death: the science of human decomposition is an informational article that describes the decomposing body as a complex ecosystem. Finding all this fascinating? This is what happens after you die, The tell-tale fly, The smell of death, and How nature can mummify a brain are a great series of articles from Mosaic about this topic.
Wondering about that fungal burial suit? Watch this TED Talk: Jae Rhim Lee: My mushroom burial suit.
Interested in learning more about forensics and forensic scientists? This TED-Ed lesson may give you some more insight: Early forensics and crime-solving chemists by Deborah Blum. Then, watch this TED Talk: A forensic anthropologist who brings closure for the "disappeared.”
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Meet The Creators
- Educator Farnaz Khatibi Jafari
- Script Editor Mia Nacamulli
- Director Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Animator Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Editor Ivana Bošnjak
- Designer Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Art Director Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Storyboard Artist Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Character Designer Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Modeler Ivana Bošnjak, Thomas Johnson Volda
- Composer Stephen LaRosa
- Sound Designer Stephen LaRosa
- Narrator Addison Anderson
