New "unbelievable" facts discovered about death

1. Decomposing corpses actually smell quite... sweet

As everyone knows, human and animal meat during the decomposition process will emit a foul odor, which is very difficult to smell.

In fact, this decomposition smell is a very complex compound, mixed from more than 400 different volatile chemicals.

According to the latest research, among the compounds in the rotten smell emanating from corpses also include 5 types of esters - a type of organic compound with a pleasant sweet scent. These five esters include 3-methylbutyl pentanoate, 3-methylbutyl 3-methylbutyrate, 3-methylbutyl 2-methylbutyrate, butyl pentanoate and propyl hexanoate.

In particular, these 5 types of esters can only be found in human corpses and not in the corpses of other animals. In addition, these esters can also be produced from plants and fruits when they rot.

An interesting thing is that for people who have a lot of contact with corpses, such as forensic examiners or funeral service workers, the corpse will have a "sweet" smell, not stinky like normal people. feel.

2. Hair, toenails, and fingernails growing long after death are... fiction

There is much information that human hair, toenails and fingernails will continue to grow after the body has died. This is extremely... fictional because after death, metabolism will stop working immediately and therefore no part of the body will continue to grow.

However, the truth is that when observing corpses after a while, we can see that their hair and toenails, fingernails... really grow longer.

Why so? Scientists explain that this is because dehydration causes other parts of the body to shrink, and the hair, toenails, and fingernails will look longer than before.

3. People will die if telomeres - the cause of aging - disappear

In the early days of cell theory, many people believed that cells inside humans were immortal, and could replicate themselves until the end of human life.

But by 1961, this idea was completely dismissed when scientists proved that cell division has limits. A cell will "die" after dividing about 50-70 times.

By the early 70s, scientists discovered telomeres - DNA sequences that repeat at the ends of chromosomes. Telomeres play a role in protecting chromosomes during cell division, keeping chromosomes from sticking together.

But it wasn't until 2012 that scientists showed evidence that telomeres are related to the aging process. Specifically, telomeres will shorten each time a cell divides. When telomeres are as short as possible, division will stop and a cell will "die".

If a person possesses long telomeres in each cell, cell division will take place longer, helping that person live longer. Therefore, measuring the length of telomeres in cells will help predict human lifespan.

4. The younger we are, the more afraid of death we are

A study in the US shows that people aged 40 - 50 are more worried about death than people aged 60 - 70. Another study also showed similar results for middle-aged and teenage people (18-25 years old).

Besides, another study also shows that on average, in men, anxiety about death will peak in their 20s and will gradually decrease over time.

This worry for men at the age of 60 will no longer be a concern. For women, around 40-50 years old is the time when women will worry less about this.

This is really a rather surprising result when people in their prime are more worried about "saying goodbye to the world" than people in the "close to earth, far from heaven" age.

But from a psychological perspective, young people have a whole future ahead, so they tend to be more "afraid of death" than the elderly.