[Sharon]

1. Apparent hair and nail growth

Our hair and nails don’t actually grow as blood flow to the nail beds and hair roots has ceased. When the skin begins to shrink back during decomposition more hair and nail is exposed hence this surprisingly common misconception.





2. Post-mortem Caloricity

Algor mortis (cooling down) normally affects us once we expire however there have been case where the core temperature actually rises before it cools. This is called post-mortem caloricity.

Below are examples that can trigger this reaction:



3. Defaecation And Urination

Anything being held in your gut will find it's way out as your muscles completely relax. Urination is also extremely likely.



4. Self-cannibalisation

Well, sort of! A lot of the body's decomposition occurs endogenously - the bacteria and acids currently within your body have a big feast on you. Exogenous factors are things like insects and animals. Or genuine cannibals!



5. Post-mortem priapism ("Angel Lust")

Or "death erection". Although very rare, quick traumatic deaths can result in priapisms. Seen in mainly in hangings and crucifixions. Priapisms occur in live people too and is basically a medical condition involving a sustained and painful erection.





6. Livor Mortis

We turn quite a few shades of colours but noticeably 50 Shades Of Crimson. Whichever position you end up in upon death, gravity will cause your blood to pool in the areas closest to the ground. If you die face down, your face will turn crimson, if you die on your back then the back of your head, back and legs become bright pink.

If you touch an unembalmed body that's in this state, the discolouration can actually stain you. This is called "post-mortem staining".





7. Coffin Birth

If a pregnant woman passes away, decomposition gases can build up with such a force, the baby is expelled. The technical name for this is post-mortem fetal extrusion.










8. Muscle movement

This is very rare and if it does happen, it's only in the smaller muscle groups. A family noted their deceased relative's hand was "twitching like he was playing a piano".

The technicalities:

Postmortem spasm (synonyms: instantaneous rigor, instantaneous rigidity, cataleptic rigidity) is a form of muscular stiffening which occurs at the moment of death and which persists into the period of rigor mortis. Its cause is unknown but it is usually associated with violent deaths in circumstances of intense emotion. It has medico-legal importance because it records the last act of life. Postmortem spasm may affect all the muscles of the body but it most commonly involves groups of muscles only, such as the muscles of the forearms and hands. Should an object be held in the hand, then postmortem spasm should only be diagnosed if the object is firmly held and considerable force is required to break the grip. Postmortem spasm involving all the muscles of the body is exceedingly rare and most often described in battle situations.

ATP is required to reuptake calcium into the sarcomere's sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). When a muscle is relaxed, the myosin heads are returned to their "high energy" position, ready and waiting for a binding site on the actin filament to become available. Because there is no ATP available, previously released calcium ions cannot return to the SR. These leftover calcium ions move around inside the sarcomere and may eventually find their way to a binding site on the thin filament's regulatory protein. Since the myosin head is already ready to bind, no additional ATP expenditure is required and the sarcomere contracts. When this process occurs on a larger scale, the stiffening associated with rigor mortis can occur. it mainly occurs during high ATP use. Sometimes, postmortem spasms can be associated with erotic asphyxiation resulting in death.

Fatal destructive GSW such as the one illustrated often show postmortem spasms.



Video example (bottom of page) in prawn tails.

9. Vocalisation

If there is air still in the deceased's lungs, they will emit a strange sigh or even a moaning sound when they are moved.



10. Fatalities Fart

Dead people have the most appalling wind. This is simply due to decomposition gas build-up in the gut. It is expelled just as it is in life!

"Was that you???"

[Sharon]

Some interesting infographics

[Etsu]

Awesome stuff

[Big_Duke6]

Cool. I can't wait to hike deep into a wilderness area and blow my brains out so something(s) can have a decent meal.

[Xploit Machine]

[VoodooViper]

dat Sheeeit Had Me Laughing!!! An Educational Laugh!

Best Post of dah New Year!

[vagabond]

Fascinating!

[Thesilentobserver]

Nice post. Number 9 sounds hella creepy.

[kellyhound]

Dead people have the most appalling wind. This is simply due to decomposition gas build-up in the gut. It is expelled just as it is in life!

"Was that you???"

luv that pic.
Good info and nice pics

[K53]

So informative
fantastic post