Life After Death? a myth


	Life After Death? a myth

wildcat

6-8-2007 9:19 AM

751 views

tags:

science, life, death, growth, hair, fingernails, myth

2 Comments |

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6-9-2007 10:51 AM

strider72

Heh. You get my vote for "most controversial title for a non-controversial clip"

6-9-2007 3:17 PM

skwirlinator

LOL
I agree completely with ((strider72))

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/65e67edf-5d7d-4ec6-aa0c-fd15a4537d34/25671FC0-45B6-494D-880E-BFCBBCD91564/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.newscientist.com/blog/lastword/2007/06/life-after-death.html" href="http://www.newscientist.com/blog/lastword/2007/06/life-after-death.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.newscientist.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newscientist.com/blog/lastword/2007/06/life-after-death.html"><DIV>Why do hair and fingernails grow after death? Surely dead means dead. How can our bodies continue to produce more cells?</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newscientist.com/blog/lastword/2007/06/life-after-death.html"><BLOCKQUOTE><DIV>This is a myth possibly spawned by Enrich Maria Remarque's novel <EM>All Quiet on the Western Front</EM> in which Paul Bäumer, the 19-year-old narrator, considers the death of his friend Kemmerich from gangrene. He writes: "It strikes me that these nails will continue to grow like lean fantastic cellar-plants long after Kemmerich breathes no more. I see the picture before me. They twist themselves into corkscrews and grow and grow, and with them the hair on the decaying skull, just like grass in a good soil, just like grass..."</DIV><BR />Sorry to disappoint anybody, but hair and fingernails don't grow after death. Instead, our bodies dehydrate and our skin shrinks and tightens, pulling away from the hair and nails, creating the illusion of growth. Interestingly, funeral parlours put moisturiser on corpses to help reduce this effect.<BR /><EM>Richard Siddall, Harrow, Middlesex, UK</EM></BLOCKQUOTE></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/25671FC0-45B6-494D-880E-BFCBBCD91564/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>