IF THERE REALLY IS LIFE AFTER DEATH. THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN DECOMPOSITION

Unless we work as embalmers or forensics, we barely know roughly what happens to the human body when he dies, but probably do not pass concepts such as lividity, rigor mortis and decomposition. Nobody likes to stop and think about what will happen to their corpse or their loved ones once they leave this world, but knowing the process in detail has an undoubted scientific interest and, why not admit it, morbid. Knowing what happens with our body helps us to put our existence in perspective. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

An article published in Mosiac Science by Moheb Constandi complements quite rigorously the typical chronologies about the long decline of the human body. It starts when the heart stops pumping blood to the rest of the body, causing the circulation to stagnate, the bladder and bowels to empty, the skin to become stiff and the muscles to relax. Little by little, the temperature begins to descend until it acquires the same from the environment that surrounds the corpse, unless some environmental factor prevents it. The process has only just begun. Care: item not suitable for people with a weak stomach or to be read while we eat a sandwich of redfish.

From autolysis to rigor mortis
Although at first sight the most evident effects of death in a first stage are the stiffness and grayness of the skin caused by the absence of circulation, as well as the paleness of the lips and the appearance of a purple march in the lower areas of the body, Inside, another long process has begun. It is about autolysis, the biological process that produces the self-destruction of the cell, and to which Constandi also gives the graphic name of autodigestion. Parallel to this, the sperm of men die, the smell of rotten meat appears, the face is deformed and the eyes sink into their sockets.

During this phase, the cells stop receiving oxygen, which causes them to release their digestive enzymes to the cell membranes, which causes the cell to digest itself, so to speak, from the outside inwards. The two organs that are previously affected by this process are the brain and the liver, which is at the same time the organ that stays warm for longer, so it is usually used to establish the moment of death. The cells begin to decompose in the capillaries, which gives that peculiar tone to the skin.

During the following day, the body temperature ends up decaying, hand in hand with the rigor mortis, which will tense the muscles for about 24 hours. As explained by the author, are two fibrous proteins, actin and myosin, responsible for the occurrence of muscle contraction. When we die, its filaments are rendered useless, which causes the rigidity of the body. It is at that moment when our body begins to be affected by those organisms, such as the microbiota, with which we had lived in peace until then.

They are already here…!
When we die, our immune system stops working. Ideal moment for the microbiota - or, rather, the tanatomicrobiota, of the Greek word for "death" - to begin to spread throughout our body like Pedro for his home. This process begins in the stomach, specifically at the point where the small and large intestine meet. In short, our old neighbors begin to devour our tissues, feeding on damaged cells. First they conquer the liver and the kidney. Later, the rest of the body.

The article cites a recent research done by the University of Alabama at Montgomery to remember that the time it takes for microbes to pass from one organ to another can become a good tool to discover when someone has died: 20 hours for the liver, 58 for the rest of the organs. However, the study also warns that the degree of decomposition varies between people and even between their own organs, although the order is usually the same: spleen, intestine, stomach and uterus first, later kidney, heart and bones.

Once the microbes leave the digestive tract, it can be said that putrefaction has begun. It is another way of saying that molecular death is unstoppable, and accelerates when anaerobic bacteria, which do not need oxygen to develop, begin to be digested. This causes the body's sugars to ferment and generate methane, hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, which swells the abdomen, causes blisters to appear on the skin and begins to crack due to the pressure of the gases, causing the drip liquids through the body orifices. The skin will slowly withdraw from the bones; of them, the teeth are the last to disappear, due to the resistance provided by the enamel.

Say goodbye to your body and hello to your new inhabitants
To the days, little is left of which we were, reason why we would not have to feel much pain by the fact that our organism begins to be food for other organisms, of the predators (in case of to have been exposed to the inclemency) to the insects The most common visitors are blue flies or flies and flesh flies or sarcophagids - something like "meat eaters" - that deposit their eggs in the body and from which large numbers of worms will be born.

The nitrogen in our body devastates the vegetation in the first place

These cause the temperature of the body to rise again up to 10 degrees more, since they are very active in order to protect both external threats and the heat that emanates from the body. In turn, these attract other bodies such as spiders, wasps, beetles, ants or mites, which parasitize flies. Once the worms finish decomposing the body, they migrate in an orderly and systematic manner as formal children, a sign that another stage in the decay of the organism has ended.

Mummified human remains at the Southeast Texas Applied Forensic Science

Image source

We only need to feed the soil that is under us. The body is so chemically powerful that it can leave marks on the floor for years. At first, all the chemical load of the organism - each kilogram contains about 32 grams of nitrogen, 10 of phosphorus, 4 of potassium and 1 of magnesium - will devastate the nearby vegetation, although in the long term it ends up becoming fertilizer for the ecosystem. What in a day was a human being happens to become organically very rich soil: the one who does not console himself is because he does not want to.

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