Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey guys, this is Alison I don't
Speaker 1: about the science hows to freaks dot com. And this
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb, science writer at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our spooky podcast. Yes, we are continuing to
Speaker 1: uh get a little spooky here with our topics and
Speaker 1: uh say, we're venturing into the graveyard. Yes, into the cemetery,
Speaker 1: which I think for most people like, especially since we
Speaker 1: already you know, sort of brought up the spooky thing.
Speaker 1: You may be picturing like a you know, a darkly
Speaker 1: lit cemetery. You know, it's maybe there's a some movement
Speaker 1: over here in the corner, or a cat or something moving,
Speaker 1: there's a you know, it's like there's a moon in
Speaker 1: the sky and and they're all these like funny noises
Speaker 1: going on, and then Michael Jackson pops and then Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson because this is thrill. Yeah, I mean that's totally
Speaker 1: what I picture. Vincent Pryor is cackling in the background. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think we can all instantly, you know, go there
Speaker 1: imagining the creepy haunted cemetery. Um, but in real life,
Speaker 1: do you ever you ever go to the cemetery. I
Speaker 1: do sometimes I run through them. Yeah. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that if you paid me enough, I would sleep in
Speaker 1: one in a cemetery for then I could be persuaded
Speaker 1: to do that. I'm not sure what the fee would be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: would you No, I'm just thinking we should like try
Speaker 1: and get to get a PayPal like link put on
Speaker 1: the blogs. Maybe we can, we can. I think I
Speaker 1: can do it by myself. It would be better if
Speaker 1: I were allowed to take my dog, I think. But
Speaker 1: it's true because dogs can sense uh yes, of course
Speaker 1: they can't, very scientific and ghosts hate dogs, right, Oh,
Speaker 1: but they like cats? Is that what you're getting out
Speaker 1: of it? Well, that's that's an interesting thing because people
Speaker 1: bring up the you know, the fact a lot that
Speaker 1: that cats do like to hang out in cemeteries and
Speaker 1: a lot of that, Like, realistically, it comes down to
Speaker 1: their fewer people in a cemetery, people were less likely
Speaker 1: to be mean to cats, and cats like lounging around
Speaker 1: on stuff that's been warmed by the sun. You know.
Speaker 1: So there's all that you know, and not to mention
Speaker 1: the chipmunks. Yes, yeah, right, so you're gonna bring up
Speaker 1: your obligatory reference of Phantasm, the movie that you try
Speaker 1: to work into. Many podcasts have brought utast. You have
Speaker 1: brought up fantastic People. Okay, well, A Phantasm one of
Speaker 1: those great films that delivers the whole spooky graveyard thing.
Speaker 1: And this is what you think of when you think
Speaker 1: of grave. Yeah, it's hard, it's hard not to think
Speaker 1: of the movie Phantasm. But in real life, UM, I
Speaker 1: really like going to Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta. Which
Speaker 1: did you We just went, Yeah, yeah, we just went.
Speaker 1: You know, we can weather. It's great for it right now.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a it's a it's an historic
Speaker 1: location here in in town. It's peaceful. You can walk
Speaker 1: around and uh and take pride in your city. You know,
Speaker 1: check out some of the old cats buried there. I
Speaker 1: mean inside casts, I mean here. There's not a pet
Speaker 1: cemetery in Oakland. Oh, that is a good movie. That
Speaker 1: is one that we should I love that movie. I forget.
Speaker 1: I don't remember much about the movie, but the book
Speaker 1: was pretty grand. Yeah, you're Stephen King fan. So what's
Speaker 1: the scarp? Why are we so scared of cemeteries? Well,
Speaker 1: it's really inter thing. Uh. And I wrote an article
Speaker 1: about this, uh back in the day, like a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago or something. And uh and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's a lot. When you start really taking it apart,
Speaker 1: it's really fascinating. UM. As a biological organism, we're you know, programmed,
Speaker 1: it's in our genes to stay alive. Sure, so if
Speaker 1: something is you know, might bring about our death, we're
Speaker 1: going to run from it, right or fight it. So
Speaker 1: an obvious reminder of our death, like say, a cemetery
Speaker 1: is a place that we're going to avoid. Well not
Speaker 1: well not it's not as whack and white as that.
Speaker 1: But but when we start thinking about death, it's like
Speaker 1: we end up, you know, death itself ends up being
Speaker 1: something that we might try and fight or avoid. And
Speaker 1: you know, if you can you can see you know,
Speaker 1: people trying to avoid death or you know, outright defy it.
Speaker 1: You know, every day. You know, it's in it's in
Speaker 1: our science, it's in our our you know, New Age medicine,
Speaker 1: it's in our you know, our belief systems. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, death cannot be the end. There must be
Speaker 1: a way that I that things can keep going. Um
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we make a big deal out
Speaker 1: of it. We also, um, you know, we distance it
Speaker 1: from our thoughts too. That's another way that we deal
Speaker 1: with death. You just you know, you're trying not to
Speaker 1: think about it or well, and of course we also
Speaker 1: limit our intimacy with it, you know. So interesting question
Speaker 1: here do you think that um as a as a HomeBuyer,
Speaker 1: what do you think that does to the price of
Speaker 1: a home? If your house is located next to a cemetery,
Speaker 1: do you think that automatically brings the price of a
Speaker 1: house down? Just wondering. I don't know, we should throw
Speaker 1: that out to the listeners. Yeah, anybody, now, please do
Speaker 1: tell us. I'm curious about this because seems like for
Speaker 1: some folks that would be you would be a plus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of like a park but different. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just dead people buried there. I guess there could be
Speaker 1: people dead people buried in the park too, we just
Speaker 1: don't know about. Yeah, I'd be more concerned about that
Speaker 1: the unmarked graves there than the people who got it nice.
Speaker 1: You know, let's talk a little bit more about death, well, particulately.
Speaker 1: The study from a Chicago's Mount Sinai Hospital. This was
Speaker 1: an interest king. Oh, yes, this is just a little
Speaker 1: sidebar here. Um this Back in the nineteen sixties, Dr
Speaker 1: Eric cast of Chicago's Mount Sinai Hospital, Um, he experimented
Speaker 1: with giving dying patients LSD, which of course is so
Speaker 1: you know, hallucinogen um. And he actually, this is not
Speaker 1: something you can get funding for these days, but back
Speaker 1: then this is possible. I imagine they flag research with
Speaker 1: LSD in it. Yeah, but he ended up dosing like
Speaker 1: eighty patients, you know, and seventy two reported, uh that
Speaker 1: they gained like some sort of insight, like you know,
Speaker 1: they that they were a part of the universe or
Speaker 1: that you know, they felt better about, um, the end
Speaker 1: that was coming to them. And we need to stress
Speaker 1: they were not giving them to them like here, take
Speaker 1: l s D and die. They were like, you're gonna
Speaker 1: die soon, you know, it's it's bound to happen, you know,
Speaker 1: in the in the immediate future. Here's some thinking about it.
Speaker 1: These patients were all the hospice. Yeah, yeah, chronic we're
Speaker 1: suffering from chronic conditions exactly. Yeah. So out of those
Speaker 1: eight seventy two reported insight, fifty eight found it pleasant
Speaker 1: and wanted to do it again. Of course, that's a
Speaker 1: heck of a time in your life to find out
Speaker 1: there's something you want to do more of, you know. Yeah, right, well,
Speaker 1: so I was thinking about this when you when you
Speaker 1: brought this study to my attention, and it was interesting
Speaker 1: and that I think that taking elis you certainly could
Speaker 1: alter your perspective on death. Um. But also I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're hanging out at the boundary between life and death,
Speaker 1: presumably this might be a transcendent experience. I mean this is,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, highly subjective. This is me talking
Speaker 1: about it. But if you're hanging out there on this
Speaker 1: really crazy boundary between life and death, do you want
Speaker 1: to obscure it with drugs? Wouldn't you want to be
Speaker 1: a firsthand witness to it? I mean similar, I guess
Speaker 1: you could look at it like we're talking about it before.
Speaker 1: You know, also with birth, right you know some momentum
Speaker 1: childbirth is painful, you know, and whether you whether or
Speaker 1: not you want to take drugs in that scenario, you know,
Speaker 1: bringing life into the world. It's just really interesting. I
Speaker 1: was ying, Yeah, it's it's I keep going back and
Speaker 1: forth on it when I really understand either way, just
Speaker 1: just thinking about it now, it's interesting you mentioned about
Speaker 1: it you know, being at this boundary point between life
Speaker 1: and death. That's another thing that factors into our experience
Speaker 1: with cemeteries. Obviously, graveyards are for the living, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: I think we can agree, especially in a science podcast,
Speaker 1: that the dead people don't care. You know, you can,
Speaker 1: you can, you know, it's it's it's all about the
Speaker 1: people who survive and wanting to have a place where
Speaker 1: you can remember a loved one that's departed or honor
Speaker 1: a loved one that's departed. So we you know, we
Speaker 1: create these necropolis um you know, environments is um. You know,
Speaker 1: we create these these these environments you know, full of
Speaker 1: marble and stone and silent statues, and and it has
Speaker 1: a very you know, anytime you go to a cemetery,
Speaker 1: no matter what you're feelings on death, and you know
Speaker 1: the hereafter, you know, happen to be um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a very somber environment. And we kind of
Speaker 1: take that feeling of the boundary of life and death
Speaker 1: and we we make a physical space out of it,
Speaker 1: you know, and then you pour in a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of you poor in religion, you pour in like folk tales,
Speaker 1: you cultural tradition, cultural traditions and and horror movies TV,
Speaker 1: all of it. You pour all that in and it
Speaker 1: just intensifies that feeling. You know, it's um and creates
Speaker 1: this kind of contested feeling. There's a contested space between
Speaker 1: life and death. So you know, you walk into the
Speaker 1: midst of all that, you're going to have some interesting
Speaker 1: feelings going on, even if it isn't outright you know,
Speaker 1: fear or you know, creepiness. So we had a childhood
Speaker 1: a tradition. I don't know if you ever did this,
Speaker 1: but you know, similar to the thing where you hold
Speaker 1: your feet up when you're going over railroad tracks. Did
Speaker 1: you ever do that? I don't know what the reasoning
Speaker 1: there is. When you were driving by the cemetery, No, no no, no, okay,
Speaker 1: So there's two separate superstitions at work here. When was
Speaker 1: if you go over railrotchracks, you're supposed to hold your
Speaker 1: feet up while you go over the railtrack. That never
Speaker 1: did that. I don't really know what that especially while driving. No,
Speaker 1: but you're supposed to hold your breath while you drove
Speaker 1: past the cemetery, and that was really tricky if the
Speaker 1: cemetery was was long, and I'm not sure what that
Speaker 1: was based on either. So we always held our breath.
Speaker 1: Now we had our breath when we went over bridges.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, in case you needed mean, it makes just
Speaker 1: as much sense. But but no, we never did anything
Speaker 1: curious with um. Some more stuff about just how we
Speaker 1: viewed death that I found really interesting, according to philosophy
Speaker 1: professor anton Than niekerk Um, Yeah, we come as a
Speaker 1: culture to see dying not as something our bodies eventually do,
Speaker 1: all right, but something that eventually happens to our bodies.
Speaker 1: It's kind of you know, like think of it this way,
Speaker 1: like your body eventually dies that I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: true statement, but we often end up viewing it instead
Speaker 1: in terms of like death happens to us. Death is
Speaker 1: something that is like an exterior force is enacted upon us.
Speaker 1: And you see that in religion and the mythology and
Speaker 1: folk tales and and all in just art, you know,
Speaker 1: you'll see death depicted as what right, which we have
Speaker 1: a cool article on Bill Harris, right it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a good thing. You know what came out
Speaker 1: that was so interesting. And there's a whole Mexican cult
Speaker 1: um that's like kind of an offshoot of grim Reaper stuff.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting. The name is eluding me, right, yes, yes, yes, yeah, anyway, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you have grim Reaper, you have the Angel of
Speaker 1: Death and all this, right, but we don't really we
Speaker 1: don't really have that, um. But well we still have
Speaker 1: that today, but increasingly UM as a culture, we don't
Speaker 1: really think about the Grim Reaper or they are change
Speaker 1: all of death coming to us as a real thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: So instead, according to sociologist Zigmut Bombing, we practice something
Speaker 1: called quote the deconstruction of mortality. And and in that
Speaker 1: deep deep for a podcasts Let's Let's roll out, he
Speaker 1: says that we break down death into smaller pieces that
Speaker 1: we can digest easily. So instead of like thinking about
Speaker 1: just going like, oh my goodness, the yawning um you know,
Speaker 1: weight of the tomb and the you know, the the
Speaker 1: infinite nothingness or beyond death or through the infinite possibilities
Speaker 1: beyond death, instead of getting torn down with all that,
Speaker 1: we think about the biological functions of death. We think
Speaker 1: about diseases and mental problems. Right yeah, and you can
Speaker 1: you know, you break it down and you can then
Speaker 1: you can you can sort of like assign those tasks off.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, oh, doctors here, take care of this,
Speaker 1: you know, psychiatrist, psychologists, you to take care of this.
Speaker 1: And then when the act actually occurs again, you know, increasingly,
Speaker 1: especially in like western um, you know, society. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like people, don't we have people to touch the
Speaker 1: dead bodies for us to prepare them too. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a whole industry, um you know that takes care
Speaker 1: of that for us and removes us, you know, from
Speaker 1: intimacy with death and the deceased, right and so cemeteries
Speaker 1: being such a visible sign of our own demise is
Speaker 1: problematic for us. That's what you're saying, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what it comes on to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So you do have people who like really get you know,
Speaker 1: I have an aversion to it, you know, like really
Speaker 1: would rather not drive past the cemetery or as I
Speaker 1: think about the memories involved in a cemetery, you know,
Speaker 1: what if you saw I mean, if you had to
Speaker 1: bury your mother or your father, family member, you know,
Speaker 1: a friend or anything like that. I mean, they can
Speaker 1: be associated with some pretty powerful memories, sad memories. So
Speaker 1: there you have it. That's basically our cultural fears about
Speaker 1: cemeteries in a nutshell, in a nutshell, indeed, a morbid nutshell. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So whether or not you like cemeteries, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the science of cemeteries or some of the science going
Speaker 1: on at cemeteries. Yeah, this is pretty cool. I like
Speaker 1: this study. Yeah, this is and this is a good
Speaker 1: thing to think of. If you're you know, if you're
Speaker 1: the type of person who goes to a cemetery and
Speaker 1: you don't feel anything whatsoever, then this is perfect because yea,
Speaker 1: do some science there. So what kind of science is
Speaker 1: going on? Well, it all breaks down to this, um,
Speaker 1: it breaks down. That's kind of funny considering what we're
Speaker 1: about to talk about. You know, we're talking about Okay,
Speaker 1: you have mortal body. You know it's going to decay
Speaker 1: and die and decay and all that. So you put
Speaker 1: a stone marker because the stone is gonna last forever, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you have like a marble slab. It may it's
Speaker 1: gonna last longer than a human lifetime, you know, but
Speaker 1: it's still gonna decay. We've all seen, you know, cemetery.
Speaker 1: You know, cemetery upkeep is a you know, a constant
Speaker 1: effort because you have tombstones are falling over, their crumbling,
Speaker 1: they're flaking. And what's the reason for that? Acid rain? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: or just rain in general. Yeah, weathering, the weathering process,
Speaker 1: what happens to us. All. Well, there's a certain acidity
Speaker 1: to rain as it is, Um, I think the way
Speaker 1: it breaks down. Rainwater is about a five point six
Speaker 1: on the pH scale and that depends on area. Though, yeah,
Speaker 1: go on, this is this is roughly but and to
Speaker 1: put that in context, a pH zero row is essentially
Speaker 1: battery acid and so the so each step up from
Speaker 1: zero is less acidic, right, Okay, so rainwater five point six,
Speaker 1: cup of coffee is five. Um. Stomach acid is like
Speaker 1: a two. That's pretty strong. Acid rain is more like
Speaker 1: a four. So acid rain is like one whole number, um,
Speaker 1: you know, or over one whole number. Right, So acid
Speaker 1: rain is a relatively weak acid on the whole. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but of course the thing is you have the
Speaker 1: tombstone is out there in the open since the day
Speaker 1: that it's you know, been planted, probably a little before,
Speaker 1: and uh, and it's constantly getting hit with this stuff. Right.
Speaker 1: So you looked up a pretty cool article um that
Speaker 1: ran in Science World, and there's an. The author was
Speaker 1: talking about how cemeteries wind up being this really great
Speaker 1: unintentional geological experiment in which we can measure the effects
Speaker 1: of acid rain um in a particular area. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think specifically they mentioned the Graveyard Project, and they've been around,
Speaker 1: they have Great Stone Project. Yes, Uh, they've they've gone
Speaker 1: around until just like hundreds and you know, hundreds of
Speaker 1: cemeteries and looked at thousands of tombstones and U and
Speaker 1: one of the things they look for is when you
Speaker 1: have the letters you know, um, John Smith lies here, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, when those are indented in the tombstone. There's
Speaker 1: often lead in there too. The lead doesn't break down
Speaker 1: under you know, all the rain and the weathering, so
Speaker 1: that stays in place, so they can use that as
Speaker 1: a frame of reference. He has a gauge to how
Speaker 1: how much of the marble and stone has has been
Speaker 1: eating a way by the rain. Yeah. And and of
Speaker 1: course it's a tombstone, so it has a date on
Speaker 1: it right there, so that that also helps. It's handy
Speaker 1: for measurements. Yeah. Yeah, like you said, I think they're um,
Speaker 1: they've gotten like hundreds of measurements from different cemeteries, so
Speaker 1: it's pretty neat. Yeah, they can. They can study like
Speaker 1: how the local weathering conditions work, you know, and and
Speaker 1: then you know, compare them to what they might have
Speaker 1: seen to be in the past, and then you know
Speaker 1: analyze use that to analyze how how the atmosphere has
Speaker 1: changed in the area. Right, And they can also compose
Speaker 1: a worldwide weathering map to see what's going on different
Speaker 1: patterns of acid rain in different areas, so you can
Speaker 1: figure out what climate change is doing, figure out what
Speaker 1: pollution is doing. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Let's talk of
Speaker 1: a little bit about the high chech grades going on.
Speaker 1: This fascinated me. Yeah. Yeah, we've talked a lot about
Speaker 1: old crumby stuff and now we're talking about sort of
Speaker 1: new fangled stuff. But I mean we've always kind of
Speaker 1: been fascinated with graveyard technology. I mean, back in the day,
Speaker 1: we would build mazes and pyramids to confuse grave robbers.
Speaker 1: Um You even mentioned that there were bells to ring
Speaker 1: from your casket, so that, yeah, well, because they had that,
Speaker 1: there was always that fear that you're gonna be buried alive.
Speaker 1: So you needed a little line out right, and you
Speaker 1: couldn't just have a cell phone on you right right
Speaker 1: that movie. It's up now. But in the old days
Speaker 1: you would have like a string and you would hey, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: don't don't bury me yet, she's gonna ring this spell
Speaker 1: in case you haven't heard me screaming. Yeah, So that
Speaker 1: that's graveyard technology right there. In action also had the locks, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they especially in Victorian era, you had all the
Speaker 1: corpse um body snatching going on. You know, you needed corpses,
Speaker 1: you know, cadavers for for surgical studies and science. But
Speaker 1: that was the only way to get him. You had
Speaker 1: to hire some drunk guy to go out to the
Speaker 1: cemetery and bus one open for you. But now we
Speaker 1: have GPS going on in our graves. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: this is pretty cool. Um. I've read about this in
Speaker 1: a number of places. There was a cool article on
Speaker 1: Wired um and the idea is, like, you know, increasingly
Speaker 1: green burials the thing. I think we've talked about this.
Speaker 1: We have talked about it a little bit, but green
Speaker 1: burial essentially just means that there's a whole being dug
Speaker 1: in the ground. Um, I think you're the body is
Speaker 1: placed in a shroud of some sort. Yeah, there's no
Speaker 1: like embalming the body with a bunch of chemicals to
Speaker 1: make it last a little longer. There's no like, you know,
Speaker 1: giant metal casket. You know, is there even an exterior barrier?
Speaker 1: I thought, I literally thought it was just the body
Speaker 1: that is going in. I think I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it is shrouds. Yeah, yeah, definitely no giant metal casket,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Right. So the problem with this, if
Speaker 1: you can call it a problem, is that, um, it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty inconspicuous. I mean, you could certainly place a
Speaker 1: headstone there, but a lot of people are even moving
Speaker 1: away from uh, putting a headstone. Yeah, because like the
Speaker 1: idea of being, you want the body to return to
Speaker 1: nature and you know, um, a graveyard is often a
Speaker 1: very unnatural environment. Though I think it's the there's like
Speaker 1: a really good um Unitarian cemetery, I think in Savannah.
Speaker 1: Have you seen that, they let they let everything that
Speaker 1: grow up. It's still a graveyard, they're still tombstones, but
Speaker 1: they let the nature kind of take over. It's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty swank. Well. So the tricky thing here is that's great,
Speaker 1: you know about being one with nature and all that,
Speaker 1: but it can be hard for a family member, say
Speaker 1: to locate a body of a loved one, right and
Speaker 1: again graves burial all that it's about the survivors. So
Speaker 1: how do you extend the olive branch of them? Right?
Speaker 1: So you send a little tag down with them when
Speaker 1: you bury them, so that you can make sure that
Speaker 1: you can locate the body in the future. Everything else
Speaker 1: breaks down, you'll have this one little like radio dally
Speaker 1: down there sending off the signal to tell you where
Speaker 1: you know, uncle greg Um, you know, became one with nature,
Speaker 1: so then you would use a little device to find it.
Speaker 1: But it but it as cool as that is. I
Speaker 1: can't help but think. You know, our our geo tagging
Speaker 1: is so advanced now, and you know this technology is everywhere,
Speaker 1: Like what's stopping someone now from just going out? You
Speaker 1: know they have the natural barrier and just mark the
Speaker 1: exact location and then just you know, find it with
Speaker 1: you know, with that GPS device. That's true, you make
Speaker 1: a good point there or a lambor. And what are
Speaker 1: the Japanese doing? Well, Yeah, the Japanese are in a
Speaker 1: situation where they have far less room to bury people.
Speaker 1: I think about this a lot with New Orleans too. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's yeah, there's not not a lot of places there too,
Speaker 1: but unless you want to rise and back up right well.
Speaker 1: And and in Japan it's also big just to have
Speaker 1: a place for like cremated ashes to go. But but
Speaker 1: they also have a you know, a long standing tradition
Speaker 1: of honoring you know, the dead being. You want to
Speaker 1: be able to visit your your you know, your your
Speaker 1: dead father, grandfather's grave and you know, and honor them
Speaker 1: when you want. Sure, it's a big deal. And it's
Speaker 1: very expensive though, if you if you're trying to keep
Speaker 1: that amount of you know, that little space on a
Speaker 1: shelf or that you know, that little plot somewhere going
Speaker 1: you know, all the time. It's it's really pricing and
Speaker 1: people think some serious dough into it. So the Japanese
Speaker 1: is always very efficient when it comes to space. Have
Speaker 1: created these high rise columbariums. Yeah, and that's uh, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a giant death vending machine essentially. It is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in Japanese Buddhism, the columbarium is called a no pseudo,
Speaker 1: I believe, and uh, yeah, and it is this version
Speaker 1: of it is like a giant vending machine with the
Speaker 1: like robotic retrieval. Yeah, so you go to see Uncle Greg. Right,
Speaker 1: Uncle Greg. Do you have an Uncle Greg? By the way,
Speaker 1: I hope not, because poor Uncle Greg. Okay, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: so Uncle Greg is actually like up on a like
Speaker 1: a shelf and like the you know, the third floor
Speaker 1: of this big um you know, necropolis condo deal, you know.
Speaker 1: So so you go into a little little altar area. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you shut a card, swipe it and that
Speaker 1: tells the machine where Uncle Greg is stored. So then
Speaker 1: the robotic retrieval system grabs Uncle Greg zips him down there.
Speaker 1: Then the little doors open and voila, there's Uncle Greg
Speaker 1: right there for you. That's pretty cool, it's pretty ingenious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a high tech solution to u, you know, a
Speaker 1: very real problem. But there's one final thing we're gonna
Speaker 1: cover that you can do with your ashes, which I'm
Speaker 1: not surprised that you brought up because you are kind
Speaker 1: of a music buff. I do like music, I'm not
Speaker 1: as int like I have friends that are DJs and
Speaker 1: they're super into vinyl. You know, friend of mine has
Speaker 1: a basement just full of vinyl. So does death have
Speaker 1: something to do with vinyl? Yes? It does. And there's
Speaker 1: actually a company and the UK called and vinylly. It's
Speaker 1: like and finally and vinyl, you know, and uh, and
Speaker 1: what they'll do is pretty amazing. They will, um, they
Speaker 1: will take your ashes and they will press them into
Speaker 1: a vinyl record. I'm curious about the whole integration process
Speaker 1: and how that works. Well, apparently they have to spread
Speaker 1: the ashes have to be sprinkled onto the raw piece
Speaker 1: of vinyl, which in the industry is known as like
Speaker 1: a biscuit or a puck, and then they press it
Speaker 1: into the plates. So it's you know, it's it's in there,
Speaker 1: just pressed, you know, into it. So it's not just
Speaker 1: the ashes being made into a record. And uh, and
Speaker 1: it's you can actually play this, um, you know, on
Speaker 1: a record player. They say that each one will be
Speaker 1: like a twenty four minute track and for about two
Speaker 1: thousand pounds, you know, you can get artwork and everything
Speaker 1: and up to thirty discs with your ashes inside them. Okay,
Speaker 1: so here's the thing. What song? Oh yeah, is this
Speaker 1: a curious question. Actually, when I first found the story,
Speaker 1: I threw it out on Twitter and ask a few people,
Speaker 1: and I also threw it to d J Chiba in
Speaker 1: the UK. Is a really cool DJ interview heading for
Speaker 1: the blogs, and he said that he would go with
Speaker 1: the end by the doors. That was really so it's
Speaker 1: that's a that's a tough one to top. I would
Speaker 1: probably personally go with something really beautiful and serene off
Speaker 1: of one of one of the boards of Canada albums.
Speaker 1: But that's just because you know, I like the serenity
Speaker 1: of the sound, you know. But I think also people
Speaker 1: would often do like some the ideas that you would do,
Speaker 1: like a personal message on these see but I would
Speaker 1: rather do the music I can well. And so I've
Speaker 1: thought about my death mix. Have you not? Have you here?
Speaker 1: Have you done this exercise? You know? People like to
Speaker 1: imagine who's going to be at their funeral or service
Speaker 1: or what have you. Um, sometimes I've thought about what
Speaker 1: music I want to play at my funeral. I haven't
Speaker 1: put together an actual set list, contemplated some songs that
Speaker 1: I want, um a set list, and there's some by
Speaker 1: Peter gay Real, but I cannot think of the song
Speaker 1: by Peter Gabriel. The one that definitely comes to mind
Speaker 1: is digging in the Dirt. But oh that's a good one. Um,
Speaker 1: oh wait, I know a lot of Gabriel tints. Or
Speaker 1: maybe you're thinking of Mercy Street. I love Mercy Street. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Peter Gabriel, fine, fine man. Especially perhaps do you have
Speaker 1: on Era your final album? Yeah? I would probably just
Speaker 1: go to the boards of Canada album or if I
Speaker 1: die before DJ ch that he can come in DJ
Speaker 1: my my funeral. So I think that's all we have
Speaker 1: for death in Cemeteries. I'm sure we've cheered you up
Speaker 1: immensely today, but you know, we gotta get you guys
Speaker 1: in the mood for Halloween. What do you what are
Speaker 1: you hearing out there? Robert, You've got some We got
Speaker 1: some really cool listener mail from Jeremy and uh. And
Speaker 1: he sent us a lot of stuff and I don't
Speaker 1: have time to go over a lot of it um here,
Speaker 1: but he sent us like a really cool how dangerous
Speaker 1: a Zombie um poster to kind of inform you. He
Speaker 1: was responding to our Science Versus Monsters podcast, which was
Speaker 1: the the other Halloween when we did well it have
Speaker 1: been too back from from now along with the mad scientists,
Speaker 1: right and uh and so he shared some thoughts on
Speaker 1: monsters and all that tells. Here'll share something he said
Speaker 1: about vampires, m vampires and the quote where the mathematician
Speaker 1: talked about turning the population into vampires and dying out
Speaker 1: in three years. Well, I'm a vampire buff love movies
Speaker 1: and Laura, I watch about every movie that comes out
Speaker 1: just to see the director, writer's take on vampires. I
Speaker 1: even watched the horrible Twilight movies because of this and
Speaker 1: everything that I've reached. And that's why you watched him.
Speaker 1: It was that dude's hair. That's why I watched it. Um,
Speaker 1: that's amazing anyway, that that was me, he says, Um,
Speaker 1: vampires do not change someone just by biting them. There's
Speaker 1: always more work involved. The reason being is that vampiresm
Speaker 1: is not a disease, unlike lecanthropy, where wolves shape shifters.
Speaker 1: I can see the point that the mathematician is trying
Speaker 1: to make, but his point only would would work with
Speaker 1: a very limited scope if any of the vampire legends.
Speaker 1: I know you guys mentioned this after the fact, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to reiterate this. Um. So that's cool. He's
Speaker 1: you know, he's standing up for the vampire myths and
Speaker 1: you know, pointing out that that study indeed, Um sort
Speaker 1: of sort of tongue in cheek, but yeah, but they
Speaker 1: still picked and shows exactly what version of the mythos
Speaker 1: they were going to go with for that study, which
Speaker 1: isn't very scientific very scientific. So if you guys want
Speaker 1: to send us your thoughts and monsters, science or spooky stuff,
Speaker 1: um send us Anino science stuff at how stuff worst
Speaker 1: dot com yep, and but us visit us on Twitter
Speaker 1: where we are lab stuff, or on Facebook career stuff
Speaker 1: from the Science Lab. Thanks for listening, guys. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
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Speaker 1: home page