Michael Wilson - Life After Death: What Happens to Your Body After You Die?

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There must be very few of us who havent considered, at some point in our life, the question of what happens after we die. Most of us muse on this in a rather detached, philosophical fashion when we are young, but usually regard it as something that doesnt really affect us and quickly move on to occupy ourselves with more exciting activities. However, as we grow older, we generally get more interested in this question. Once we reach the age of around 70 it finally dawns on us that death is something that really is going to happen to us, probably in the not-too-distant future. Although we start to think more about it, we usually get no nearer to finding an answer to that intriguing what comes after question.

Many religions claim to know what happens after we die and this provides comfort to huge numbers of people. But for the rest of us, death remains an interesting, rather worrying, one way journey into the unknown. However, while we may not be able to work out what happens to the essential me after death, we can take comfort in knowing what happens to the physical carrier of the me i.e. our body. Yes, it will certainly decompose and become smelly. Yes, it will be eaten by microbes and insects and all sorts of other creatures. But, think positive! Our body is a very rich and valuable source of nutrients that will end up feeding huge numbers, and an immense variety, of other creatures. You will end up being recycled in the biosphere and will support the continuation of life on our beautiful planet - this book describes how this comes about.

Chapter . Insects also play an important role in the decomposition process and, as in the case of microbes, different insects become active as this progresses. The types of insects involved, and the contribution they make to the decomposition process, are described in the succeeding chapter. Finally, the impact that nutrients from a human corpse have on the environment is revealed in the last chapter which also has a little poem to send you on your way, hopefully in a positive frame of mind.

For those of you who would like to know more, a reading list has been included at the end of each chapter. Many of the references provided, whether they are websites or scientific papers, have been chosen because they can be accessed freely by the general public. However, some of the more specialised ones are not freely-available and youll have to try and obtain them through a library.

Images of dead human beings and other animals can, of course, be very disturbing to look at. Consequently, to spare the feelings of readers, those images that may be upsetting have been included in an Appendix at the end of the book. These can be viewed by those whose curiosity is able to outweigh their sensitivity.