January 2012
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Vultures skeletonise corpse for the sake of... →
Let’s hear it for Central Texas! (San Marcos isn’t far from Austin, where I live.)
oldowan:
Ever entertained the idea of leaving your body to science? Even if you have, you can scarcely have considered the strange fate of one donated corpse that has just been revealed in the journal Forensic Science International: a donor’s body was left in a Texan wilderness so that vultures...
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The New Yorker: The Story of a Suicide →
Two college roommates, a webcam, and a tragedy.
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The Book of Face →
<Self Promotion>
The Ossuary now has its very own baby Facebook page, and the only person who likes it so far is me.
Come join me; I’d love to hear from you!
</Self Promotion>
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Lizzie Borden: Ax Enthusiast →
From Atlas Obscura:
The date was August 4th, 1892. It was a horrible sweltering day in Fall River, Massachusetts. Andrew Borden, Lizzie’s father, a successful yet notoriously stingy banker, had just returned home from town and retired to the sitting room to take a nap. Abby, his wife and Lizzie’s stepmother, was supposed to be out visiting a neighbor (at least according to Lizzie). There was...
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“Oft have I digg’d up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at...”
– Aaron, Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), Act 5 Scene 1.
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Triumph of Life: Plague Columns →
From Atlas Obscura’s Morbid Monday, many Mondays back:
After the second wave of the Black Death swept through Europe in the 17th century, the survivors burned the bodies, thanked god, and built monumental tributes to their deliverance.
On a grand scale, plague memorial churches, like Santa Maria della Salute in Venice, were built to celebrate the end of epidemics.
On a smaller scale...
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Exhumation
deathlydame:
The digging up of a buried body is called exhumation, and is considered sacrilege by most cultures that bury their dead. However, there is often a number of circumstances in which exhumation is tolerated:
If an individual died under suspicious circumstances, a legitimate investigating agency (such as a police agency) may exhume the body to determine the cause of death.
A...
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ConsumerReports.org: From Camelot to the auction... →
Via The Consumerist.
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Programming Language Inventor or Serial Killer? →
Try this quiz. I got a 7 out of 10.
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CNN Video: Dead man riding motorcycle at his... →
From 2010: CNN’s Jeanne Moos reports.
Sort-of related: When I lived in New York, I worked a block away from Time Warner Center (the building she’s standing outside of). I used to go over there to grab lunch at Whole Foods and I’d often see her standing outside interviewing people. She never stopped me, though. Sigh.
(Image via Oddity Central.)
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What Remains: Conversations with American Funeral... →
Good article by Max Rivlin-Nadler on The Awl about a visit to the National Funeral Directors Conference in Chicago. It’s all about the changing nature of the funeral biz and the rise in cremations.
One (alarming) highlight:
In 2007, an EPA report found dangerously high levels of formaldehyde and phenol in drinking water in locations near funeral homes throughout New York state. The...
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Quigley's Cabinet: Portrait Sitter →
A full week after her death, a French woman was exhumed so that her husband could kiss her again and have a cast taken of her face.
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Atlas Obscura: The Face of the Emperor →
Atlas Obscura’s Morbid Monday post this week is about death masks—specifically, Napoleon’s.
They have a copy of this famous (alleged) death mask at the Harry Ransom Center, the research library here in Austin, Texas, where I was lucky enough to work for a while.
Read the article.
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The unclaimed dead: medical examiners post photos... →
The corpses’ faces are mostly bloated, their skin pale and discolored. One man’s lips are stiffened into a grim frown and he stares with half-open eyes. Another man appears to be sleeping, his color natural enough that he almost looks alive.
Forensic investigator Michael Simley knows some people will find the photographs unsettling, but he said he decided to post them online for an important...
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Quigley's Cabinet →
A wonderful blog. Simply fascinating.
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Not sure these are my "best" posts since I started... →
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