Fun Facts About Body Farms and Other Life Updates

Author

A.D. Sui
December 09, 2023

CW: graphic description of decomposition 

I'm probably on three separate watchlists by now. I am also incredibly squeamish and had to revisit a bunch of articles and videos to write this up. So, voilá, and I'm sorry.

It all started about a year ago when I needed some information about how quickly a body would decompose in warm, humid conditions. I was working on a novel that had a spaceship and some bodies, and both were equally dead. Turns out, I wasn't the only one who is curious about decomposing flesh.
 
Taphonomic research facilities, or “body farms”, or “corpse farms” as they are sometimes called by people who are less than sensitive, are forensic research sites. Their main purpose is to investigate how organic matter decays and decomposes under different environmental factors, but “body farms” are also great places to train forensic archeologists and “human remains detection” dogs.
 
Usually, pig corpses are used to study the effects of rain, snow, and other elements on organic decay. Some facilities may also use human cadavers of those who have donated their bodies to science for the same purposes. Before exposing the body to the elements, some are autopsied, some are wrapped in textiles to provide partial protection from moisture, some are undressed, and others are given extra clothing. All, to better understand how the human body decays under a variety of conditions. Other factors such as disease, specifically diabetes and cancer can also alter the ways in which the body decomposes, hence the need for human cadavers.
 
While UK and Europe are resistant to creating their own taphonomic research sites, there are currently eight locations in the United States. The locations are strategically spread out to expose the bodies to different climates. A new one is due to pop up somewhere in Ohio.
 
For my own research purposes, I was concerned with warm and humid environments, which I learned are ideal for decomposition. Lucky me! Things I learned: decomposition begins a few minutes after death through autolysis, which is a fancy way of saying that once our cells stop getting oxygen everything goes tits up and their insides start eating their membranes. It happens first to the liver and the brain, which I already knew were kind of important. The body’s temperature also drops to meet the ambient temperature of the environment. Rigor mortis settles in, starting at the face and moving its way to the trunk, and the rest of the body, which makes the body rigid and difficult to maneuver. When we’re alive, most of the bacteria is confined to our gut, but once we die and our immune system promptly dies with us, the bacteria are free to roam and digest the organs. This usually begins taking place around twenty hours after death.

One very neat thing that happens as the body decomposes is the formation of a brand new ecosystem, with the decaying body as a food source. Necrophagous insects, vultures, small animals, and fungi will all participate in this ecosystem until the body reaches its skeletonization stage. In some way, I find this idea comforting. My reading into body farms and decomposition brought me a great appreciation for what happens to our tissue after we die. Whether to advance forensic science or to provide a small meal to an insect or animal, our bodies continue to serve the larger ecosystem even after we’re done using them. And that, rot and decomposition be damned, is beautiful.


And there you have it!
 
Body farms and decomposition!

Some non-decomposing things also happened this month:
 
My story “A Robot, a Physicist, and a Monk Walk into a Bar” was published in Fusion Fragment’s Issue #19.
 
You can read it HERE
 
And if you like this story, consider it for the upcoming Nebula nominations or any nomination for that matter.
 
My story “Hunt”, published in the Reclamation Issue of Apparition Literary, was nominated for the 2023 Pushcart Prize by the amazing Apparition Lit Team! Thanks folks <3!
 
You can read (and listen to it) HERE.

My story “Four Mistakes” published in Issue #3 of Soft Star Magazine was also nominated for the 2023 Pushcart Prize! Woot! Thanks Soft Star!

You can read it HERE.
 
And now to fully cleanse your mind of all doom and gloom, here is a picture of Benji as a puppy. What a furry potato! 

Benji, age 8 weeks, eating the couch I found on the side of the road.


That’s all for now!
 
NEXT MONTH’S TOPIC: HISTORY OF PSYCHIATRY


If you want to learn more about body farms here are some useful links. Proceed with caution: