Researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University have created a death calculator that allows users to compare mortality risks by gender, age, cause of death and geographic region based on  publicly available data from the United States and Europe.
Answer a few simple questions and you’ll be enlightened, perhaps even frightened. Of course, it can’t actually predict when you might kick the bucket. But it is able to  calculate your risk of dying in the next year and allows you to compare that risk to others in the world.
More specifically, it displays the risk ranking for up to 66 causes of …read more

Death – it happens to all of us…eventually. And when it does, the usual chain of events is a funeral and/or where you are either buried or cremated, followed by a period of mourning for those you left behind.
But, according to this fascinating article from mental floss, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Might sound somewhat morbid and gross, but it turns out there are plenty things your body can do and places for your body to end up rather than six feet under or in an urn.
According to this mental floss article  ‘10 Things Your Body Can Do After …read more

The winner of The Path DVD giveaway is…

 
Tobey
Congratulations Tobey. You will be receiving an email shortly with instructions on how to claim your prize.
The Path DVD, if you remember, is the first in a series of documentaries that are being created by Michael Habernig and April Hannah of Path11 Productions, who interviewed 13 individuals – well renowned authors, practitioners and well respected local practitioners in Upstate New York - who offer their their expertise on their own souls path, what they have learned along the way and their knowledge about the afterlife.
You can find out more about this interesting documentary by…
1. …read more

Death and Taxes – they are the two real guarantees in life. And of the two, taxes are probably the one that we understand the most about. Death, on the other hand, remains a mystery.  For ever, people have been asking the question ‘what is your purpose and why on earth do we live only to die?’
Many have tried to answer this question but in the end, death and the possibility of an afterlife, remains a mystery.
The directors of a new documentary The Path are hoping to remove some of this mystery surrounding death, dying, and, in particular,  the afterlife.

It features interviews …read more

“Michael Crichton may puzzle or annoy in his occasional lapses in taste, but he cannot be dismissed. Serious questions and important issues often lurk beneath what can seem to be a slick commercial surface.”
-interview with Lorraine Hirsch, Christain Science Monitor, 1981
Michael Crichton was a master storyteller who managed to intergrate science, technology, medicine, and environmental issues into compelling, controversal,  and thought provoking stories. He wrote books (State of Fear) I couldn’t put down, movies (Jurassic Park) that scared me, and televisions series (ER) that captivated me.
One of his last books, Next, dealt with the issued of DNA, biotechnology and the …read more

I suddenly realized that Liberty and I have just passed our 5 month anniversary as Healthbolt bloggers. Wow, how time flies when you’re having fun. And it is fun. Getting to research and post on all the interesting, informative, bizarre, and oddball health and medical things is like a dream come true…
I did some maths and five months working on ‘the Bolt’ equates to around 250 posts between us. That’s a whole lot of words.
My choice for Top 5 Posts…
Doing a Hasselhoff…new medical slang and it’s companion piece Pumpkin Positive – more medical slang would be my all time favorite …read more

There are only two things that are guaranteed in this world – you are born and you will die. Just how long you have between the two events depends on a multitude of factors. Longevity is possible, and for most of us highly probable (so says the Vitality Compass).
Death and dealing with the dead might seem like a morbid topic but apparently it’s also a very popular one. After all, how many of you were hooked on Six Feet Under?
Top 10 Weird Ways We Deal with the Dead.
This is a fascinating list of what happened to the dead throughout history. …read more

First there was the Yale Art student who…
“…apparently recorded the forced miscarriages on video and planned to exhibit the images on a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a gallery in Yale’s Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall. She also planned to include hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting layered with blood from the purported miscarriages mixed with petroleum jelly.”
When this was revealed, it caused immediate controversy and condemnation. It also resulted in immediate damage control by Yale University, with the student in question suddenly denying that she had (as earlier claimed)
“…inseminated herself repeatedly over nine months, took herbal drugs to …read more

I finally got around to seeing The Bucket List this evening.
Having read a number of reviews panning the movie…
The message of the film is a sentimental homily you might read in a greeting card; its tone felt patronising and potentially rather offensive to people actually enduring the painful, humiliating process of dying. (Times Online)
Saddest of all, the professed spiritual goals on the pair’s checklist of things to do — “laugh till you cry,” “witness something majestic” — are the kind of pallid bromides found in the pages of a quickie self-help book: “I’m Not O.K., and Neither Are You.” (New …read more

Have you heard the latest?
Jack Kervorkian, aka Dr Death, is planning on running for US Congress as an Independent. If you remember, Dr Kervokian is an assisted suicide advocate who was paroled last year after spending eight years in prison for second degree murder.
Apparently having served time for murder does not prohibit him from running for office. All he has to do is gather a minimum of 3,000 signatures on nominating petitions by July 17th and his name will be added to the November ballot.
I guess, having agreed not to assist in any more suicides, Dr Kervorkian needs a new …read more