1. Thanatology is the academic, and often scientific, study of death among human beings. It investigates the circumstances surrounding a person’s death, the grief experienced by the deceased’s loved ones, and larger social attitudes towards death such as ritual and memorialization. It is primarily an interdisciplinary study, frequently undertaken by professionals in nursing, psychology, sociology, psychiatry, and social work. It also describes bodily changes that accompany death and the after-death period.
2. There are more than 200 understatements regarding death. These include the statements “to be in Abraham’s bosom,“ “sleep with the Tribbles,“ as well as “just add maggots.“
3. The cause of death in all scenarios is one’s failure to breath or the lack of oxygen. This is caused by muscle spasms, which others consider as the agonal phase. Agonal was derived from the Greek word agon, which means contest.
4. The digestive enzymes in your body will begin to eat your organs within the first three days after death. Afterwards, the bacteria in your gut will feed on ruptured cells. This process will release sufficient noxious gas that will cause the body to bloat and the eyes to bulge.
5. Promessa, a Swedish company, claimed that it can decompose the body within six to twelve months after death. This is supported by the ecological burial method that the firm promotes. The method uses liquid nitrogen to freeze-dry the body and pulverize with high-frequency vibrations. Afterwards, the company will seal the body in a cornstarch coffin.
6. A certain group in India known as the Zoroastrian leave the bodies of dead people in the open and let the vultures eat the bodies.
7. Queen Victoria wanted to be buried wearing the bathrobe of her deceased husband Prince Albert while holding a plaster cast.
8. Families living in Madagascar dig up the bones of deceased loved ones and parade these within the village. This ritual or ceremony is known as the Famadihana. After the ceremony, the bones will be sealed in a new shroud and will be reburied. The used shroud will be received by the newly married and childless couple in the family and it will be used to cover the bed of the couple.
9. There are times under the right humidity and temperature, the fatty tissues of a buried corpse will become a substance that has the same appearance with a soap. This substance is known as the grave wax or the adipocerous. The formation of the substance depends on the presence of a damp and cold environment as well as the lack of oxygen. When this happens, the saponification will continue for hundreds of years.
10. During the 9th-century Europe, there were numerous anecdotal evidences, which proved that some illed individuals were mistakenly announced dead by health officials. Their bodies were laid out in health facilities specifically constructed for corpses.
11. There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then ‘coming back to life’, sometimes days later in their own coffin, or when embalming procedures are just about to begin. Owing to significant scientific advancements in the Victorian era, some people in Britain became obsessively worried about living after being declared dead.
12. Do you know that the statistics of people who commit suicide in the City of New York are higher than those that are murdered.
13. Turritopsis nutricula is a small (5mm) species of jellyfish which uses transdifferentiation to become younger after sexual reproduction. This cycle can repeat indefinitely, rendering it biologically immortal. It originates from the Caribbean sea, but has now spread around the world.
14. Death messengers, in former times, were those who were dispatched to spread the news that an inhabitant of their city or village had died. They were to wear unadorned black and go door to door with the message, “You are asked to attend the funeral of the departed __________ at (time, date, and place).” This was all they were allowed to say, and were to move on to the next house immediately after uttering the announcement. This tradition persisted in some areas to as late as the mid 19th Century.
15. A death rattle is a gurgling or rattle-like noise produced shortly before or after death by the accumulation of excessive respiratory secretions in the throat. Those who are dying may lose their ability to swallow, resulting in such an accumulation. While death rattle is a strong indication that someone is near death, it can also be produced by other problems that cause interference with the swallowing reflex, for instance, brain injuries.
16. Sometimes, after an organism has died, small movements of the limbs (a twitch of a finger or even a whole leg moving) can be observed. This phenomenon, known as postmortem spasm, can be observed in human cadavers as well as smaller organisms that have died.

Source: Various

Mohan Rao.

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. – Confucius

1. Hemp has a higher quality fiber than wood fiber. Far fewer caustic chemicals are required to make paper from hemp than from trees. Hemp paper does not turn yellow and is very durable
2. Hempen plastics are biodegradable, Their by-products during hemp plastic production are 40% less harmful than DuPont plastics. Henry Ford’s first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the panels of the car were made of hemp plastics(Popular Mechanics, 1941)
3. The seeds contain one of the highest sources of protein in nature. ALSO: They have two essential fatty acids that clean your body of cholesterol
4. Hemp clothing is extremely strong and durable over time and it has more to do with the fibre structure which is very unique than any other fibres producing plants.
5. Hemp cultivation and production do not harm the environment. The USDA Bulletin #404 concluded that hemp produces 4 times as much pulp with at least 4 to 7 times less pollution.(Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938)
6. The AMA(American Medical Association) understood Hemp to be a MEDICINE found in numerous healing products sold over hundreds of years.
7. Quality paints and varnishes were made from hemp seed oil until 1937. 58,000 tons of hemp seeds were used in America for paint products in 1935
8. For thousands of years, 90% of all ships’ sails and rope were made from hemp.
9. 9. 80% of all textiles, fabrics, clothes, linen, drapes, bed sheets, etc. were made from hemp until the 1820s
10. Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled ‘The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.’ It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th Century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world

If you are still wondering why Hemp has not taken over the world, Hemp is another name for “Marijuana” or Cannabis* which is banned all over the world.

The conspiracy behind why it was banned, is another Useless fact for some other day.
Mohan Rao.

PS: Cannabis is the Dutch word for Canvas and this explains why ship sails were made of hemp.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
- Gautama Buddha

Lapsus is an involuntary mistake made while writing or speaking. According to Freud, in his early psychoanalytic theory it represents a missed deed that hides an unconscious desire.

In literature there are a number of different lapsus depending on the mode of correspondence:

Lapsus Linguae (pl. same): slip of the tongue.

• Lapsus Calami: slip of the pen. With the variation of Lapsus Clavis: slip of the typewriting
• Lapsus Manu: slip of the hand. Similar to Lapsus Calami.
• Lapsus Memoriae: slip of memory.

Types of Slips of the Tongue.

Slips can happen on any level:

• Syntactic – is instead of was.
• Phrasal slips of tongue – I’ll explain this tornado later.
• Lexical/semantic – moon full instead of full moon.
• Morphological level – workings paper
• Phonological (sound slips) – snow flurries becoming flow snurries

Additionally, each of these three levels of error may take various forms:

• Anticipations: Where an early output item is corrupted by an element belonging to a later one. Thus “reading list” – “leading list”.
• Perseverations: Where a later output item is corrupted by an element belonging to an earlier one. Thus “waking rabbits” – “waking wabbits”.
• Deletions: Where an output element is somehow totally lost. Thus “same state” – “same sate”.
• Shift: Moving a letter. Thus “black foxes” – “back floxes”.
• Haplologies: half one word and half the other. Thus “stummy” instead of “stomach or tummy”.

Mohan Rao.
The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
- Zen Proverb

According to critics of paranormal beliefs, postdiction (or post-shadowing or prediction after the fact) is an effect of hindsight bias that explains claimed predictions of significant events.

Most predictions from such figures as John of Patmos, Nostradamus and James Van Praagh are deliberately written in a such a vague and ambiguous way as to make interpretation nearly impossible before the event, rendering them useless as predictive tools. After the event has occurred, however, details are adapted into the prediction by the psychics or their supporters using selective thinking – emphasize the “hits”, ignore the “misses” – in order to lend acceptance to the prophecy and give the impression of an accurate “prediction”. Inaccurate predictions are simply not mentioned.Supporters sometimes contend that the problem lies not with the wording of the prediction, but with the interpretation[citation needed] – an argument sometimes used by supporters of religious texts.

Postdiction might be applicable if the prediction was:

1. Vague : The prediction makes a non-specific claim like disaster of some kind. Such a prediction can be massaged to fit any number of events.
2. Open ended : The prediction has a very long cut-off date or none at all and therefore runs indefinitely. Many of Nostradamus’ quatrains are open-ended and have been postdicted over the centuries to fit various contemporary events.
3. Recycled : The prediction is reused again and again in order to match the most recent event
4. Catch-all : The prediction covers more than one possible outcome. For example, the Delphic Oracle’s answer as to whether Crœsus should attack the Persians: If you attack you will destroy a mighty empire. Crœsus attacked and thereby destroyed his own empire.
5. Statistically likely : The prediction makes a claim for something that happens with enough frequency that a high hit rate is virtually assured. For example, predicting terrorism on any day of the year, or particularly around national holidays, anniversaries, or religious festivals.
6. Unavailable until after the fact : A prediction cannot be verified if there is no public record of when it was made. A famous example was the psychic Tamara Rand, who “predicted” that Ronald Reagan was in danger of someone with the initials “J.H.”. The video interview in which this prediction was made was shot the day after the assassination attempt.

So what are you predicting now? Or Postdicting is it?

Mohan Rao.

Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.
- Zen Proverb