Houston’s giant flower of death and President Andrew Jackson both stunk
Thousands of people visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science last month to observe the slow birth and quick death of Lois, the pet name ...
Author: Justin Nobel
Digital Dying is written by Justin Nobel, whose stories about science, culture and travel have appeared in publications such as the Chicago Tribune, Audubon, Gourmet.com, Nunatsiaq News, Point Reyes Light and The Smart Set www.justinnobel.com. Comments and ideas can be sent to justinnobel@gmail.com.
The sad story of how to appear at your own funeral
Last month, Theodore “Pete” Peterson sat at a New Jersey bar with a vodka tonic in hand and an oxygen tank at his side. There ...
Japan’s mummy-monks rise again
Last week, police in Tokyo broke into the home of Sogen Kato. According to local records he was 111, the fifth oldest man on earth. ...
Stripper funerals in China, naked funeral directors in America
Cai Jinlai and his son Cai Ruigong had a bet; if Jinlai lived past 100 his son would hire a stripper for his funeral.
The sad slow death of female serial killers, from “Monster” to Mary Ann Cotton
Paul Sterling Smith is a convicted sex offender and the prime suspect in the murder of an auto shop owner in Missouri. Earlier this month, ...
Mock funerals for Sarah Jessica Parker and Saudi Arabian schoolboys
On a winter morning in New York City a handful of mourners gathered underground. They dressed in black with black armbands, hung their heads low ...
Build your own cremated remains rocket, just like Hunter S. Thompson
On Independence Day, about 200 people gathered at a remote lake in north-central Florida to see an old friend explode. They ate barbeque and corn ...
As the morbidly obese die, coffins change shape
Walter Hudson was the fourth most obese human in medical history. By age 12, he weighed 200 pounds and by age 33 his waist measured ...
Gary Coleman follows in the funeral-less footsteps of John Lennon
For Gary Coleman, fame was a burden. After the once well-known child actor died of a brain hemorrhage last month, his final wishes surfaced.
Nicolas Cage will be buried like an Egyptian in the sunken city of strange cemeteries
Nicolas Cage owns a Gulfstream jet, two Europeans castles, a haunted mansion, a collection of shrunken heads, a dinosaur skull, a line of comic books ...
Lazarus Syndrome strikes a Brazilian drunk and a New Yorker named Mildred
While Ademir Jorge Goncalves and friends were drinking sugarcane liquor in a park in Santo Antonio de Platina, Brazil, a car crashed. The driver was ...
Man’s futile obsession with coffins that allow you to escape
The philosopher Blessed John Duns Scotus lapsed into a coma in November 1308 and was reportedly buried alive. Sometime later he was found outside his ...
Uma Thurman, Harry Houdini and Saint Vitalis of Milan have all once been worm food
On a Virginia mountaintop, a man and a woman are buried alive by a massive mushroom which induces a hallucinogenic trip then digests its victims. ...
The deadly world of funeral processions
The woman pulled left to pass a slow car and was face-to-face with the oncoming procession. Spooked, she swerved back right and lost control. Her ...
Dying wishes of the rich and misogynistic
David Morales Colon was murdered last month in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was 22 and loved motorcycles.
