# Do You Know Anyone Who's Body Wasn't Buried Or Cremated **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 12, 2010, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638 "2010-02-12T01:35:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![spotthegerbil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@spotthegerbil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spotthegerbil)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/21 "2010-02-12T23:56:08Z")
> [@xash](#): > > In decades past, it took all of 30mins for the vultures to clean up and leave just bones. In more recent years, the vulture population has fallen drastically, and there is debate on whether this practice of interring should continue. Last year I was prescribed Diclofenac. Had I died and been disposed of in this manner, it wouldn’t have been a very good deal for the vultures. To the relief of vultures everywhere it’s probably out of my system by now. Reference - [why diclofenac might not be great for vultures](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diclofenac#Ecological_problems) ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/22 "2010-02-13T00:02:08Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > One of my favorite professors willed her body to science to be used as a cadaver. I don’t know what is ultimately done with cadavers: anyone here know? As alluded to above, IIRC most cadavers willed to science are used in med schools as practice material. I’m considering it. ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/23 "2010-02-13T09:26:39Z")
> [@spotthegerbil](#): > > Last year I was prescribed Diclofenac. Had I died and been disposed of in this manner, it wouldn’t have been a very good deal for the vultures. To the relief of vultures everywhere it’s probably out of my system by now. > > Reference - [why diclofenac might not be great for vultures](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diclofenac#Ecological_problems) Diclofenac, now banned in India, is actually the primary cause of the decline of the vulture population in India - but because of cows, not humans. > **[BBC NEWS | South Asia | India in effort to save vultures](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4372783.stm)** > > The veterinary drug blamed for killing South Asia's vultures is banned by the Indian government. > [@](#): > > Conservationists say that the population of three species of Asian vultures has fallen by 97% in 12 years, and they are now at risk of extinction. > > The livestock painkiller diclofenac, consumed by vultures when they eat a carcass, has been blamed for the fall. > > Studies in India, Pakistan and Nepal have found extensive evidence of diclofenac in dead vultures. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/24 "2010-02-13T09:40:47Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > As alluded to above, IIRC most cadavers willed to science are used in med schools as practice material. > > I’m considering it. If I take this route, I’m going all Wildest Bill on them. Maybe have some surgical steel-enclosed breadboard in my gut with wires and LEDs connected to various organs. No one will be able to figure out what it did, and the LEDs should add a touch. Or maybe something simpler. Maybe a pressure-switch implanted under my scalp, so when they cut open my skull one of those mini-speakers calls out “_Braiiiinnnnssssss_.” If budgets are tight, I’ll just go with a spring-loaded, chest-mounted “Gotcha Ya!” ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/25 "2010-02-13T21:25:46Z")
I’ve been to a couple of burials at sea, it’s not unusual in the yachting community. After the boys slid the body in - we realized he was supposed to have been buried with his cell phone - he was in that business, and there it was perched on a winch. One of the boys lobbed it in after him, midair it started ringing. Wooooo. I wasn’t at this other burial, but they sank the body without enough ballast and the old boy bobbed up in St. Maarten, twice as I recall, ended up being buried on land. It’s the cheapest burial apparently, as long as you’ve got a few mates, some anchor chain and a boat. Again in the sailing world, I know a few people who’ve just gone missing at sea and others who have definitely drowned at sea. The missing ones … it’s particularly difficult for their families since they have to wait for years to have them declared dead. RIP lads. ---
**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/26 "2010-02-14T02:02:11Z")
> [@Eureka](#): > > Donating your body to science doesn’t neccessarily mean that it isn’t eventually cremated and some ashes given back for disposal. > > How long it takes depends on what they do with the body, apparently. > > I have this information 3rd hand at best, but there are vague plans for a big family gathering when my grandmother’s ashes are returned/ready for dispersal. This is what happened to my wife’s grandfather who donated his body to science. After a couple of years the remains were cremated and returned to the family. ---
**Author:** ![BaneSidhe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c5a1d2/32.png) [@BaneSidhe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BaneSidhe)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/27 "2010-02-14T05:47:52Z")
> [@faithfool](#): > > My mother wants a [green burial](http://www.google.com/search?q=green+burials&rlz=1I7DKUS_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7). That’s really neat—don’t know if any cemetary round here does it yet, but hopefully they will someday. I have a friend who wants a Viking funeral, but I don’t think the Charleston Police and Fire Departments would appreciate a flaming boat drifting down the Kanawha…:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/28 "2010-02-14T06:19:47Z")
I know a guy that was left on Mt. Everest. He couldn’t make it and no one could help him. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/29 "2010-02-14T07:07:16Z")
> [@Lubricious\_Integument](#): > > My wife is bequeathing her body to the body farm at the University of Tennessee and I am bequeathing mine to the local medical school. We’ve both completed our paperwork but hopefully it will be a good long time before we are put to our respective uses. I would do this, but I mostly want my bones donated, and the University of Tennessee has a lot of individuals already. So I’m planning on willing mine to my university, since they’re always in need of teaching specimens. Human skeletons are expensive. Also, from what I hear, while medical schools can be picky about cadavers (they mostly want 'em whole and healthy, relatively speaking), anthropologists will take just about anything. Students in that discipline learn from incomplete fragments as well as whole specimens. Anyone here ever read Mary Roach’s _Stiff_? It’s about the uses of cadavers in science and other pursuits. Fascinating book. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638/30 "2010-02-14T07:34:35Z")
I have absolutely no problem with my remains being used as a cadaver and would prefer it. Pardon the hijack, but two questions about this: 1- do you bequeathe it to a university or an organization or what exactly? 2- if a relative puts up a squabble (because I have some who would), I wonder if the agencies usually yield. I have a near physical repulsion at the concept of burial. I don’t mean that I’m repulsed by dead bodies- not particularly fond of them obviously but it doesn’t gross me out to be at a funeral- but the notion of my dead loved ones being dressed up like dolls and put in boxes that cost the same amount as a car and put in the ground to rot would seem to be one of those things like slavery and outhouses and using leeches to cure the flu- a relic of ignorance and barbarism that you’d think we’d have gotten out of our system.\* \*Not saying that it should be illegal, mind, just that I personally think it’s gross and a ridiculous waste of money and rarely benefits anybody but morticians and cemetery owners; maudlin movie and TV scenes aside, you rarely meet anybody who actually goes to a grave to talk as there’s no real reason to assume a person’s spirit is there; my parents’ graves [40 miles apart per their request] are 2 of the only places where I never get any sense of them- if their essence/soul/whatever still exists I’d think a grave would be the last place it would be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-know-anyone-whos-body-wasnt-buried-or-cremated/528638.md?page=1)