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 death, provides  easy and direct comparisons, and estimates of the number of people that die for a specific group.
To find out more, click here if you dare….

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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 You Die’, throughout history, the dead have been busy doing everything from getting married (ghost marriage) and unwinding with a few friends (mummy based panaceas) to powering up crematoriums, being a Soviet tourist attraction (Lenin), standing trial (Pope Formosus), and touring the world as a work of art (Body Worlds).

That’s just to tip of the iceberg when it comes to dead adventures. Head on over to mental floss to find out all the gory details.

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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. Checking out the film’s official website – www.thepathseries.com – where you can buy a copy of the DVD.
2. Heading over to facebook or myspace
3. Watch trailers and interviews at YouTube.

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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 with 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 watch the trailer here.

According to the Michael Habernig and April Hannah, creators of The Path, they hope that people watching this documentary will…

 ”…take away some knowledge about other possibilities of the afterlife [and]  feel empowered to become their own explorers and researchers. We want people to leave the theater feeling like they need to find out more answers for themselves and begin to experience other possibilities as to what may be out there after we die. We are also hoping that the fear of death will subside as our documentary does give hope that consciousness lives on and never dies.”

The Path is due for release 12th Febuary and I have to admit I am intrigued to hear what they have to say.

Healthbolt’s got a copy of The Path DVD to giveaway.

So if you’re interested, all you need to do is leave a comment telling us why you want to see this DVD.

Entries close 11th Febuary 2009 and the winner will be announced on the 12th February 2009.

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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 ownership of disease. Here, he talks with Charile Rose about these topics and also environmentalism….

After a private battle with cancer, Michael passed away today at the age of 66. He will be missed.

Michael Crichton
1942-2008
RIP

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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 post to write. I simply laughed my way through it.

On the other hand, it was tears and laughter when writing Randy Pausch’s ‘The Last Lecture’ Revisited. Randy is a true inspiration.

Liberty probably ruined a lot of people’s day when she posted Dangit! Now Diet Soda is Bad for You Too?!?. Healthbolt had already highlighted What Happens To Your Body If You Drink [Regular] Coke Right Now? and now it turns out diet sodas not much better…guess that just leaves water!!!

Longevity is a theme Healthbolt has been running with lately, asking questions like Can Our Earth Support Us As We Age?, and then daring you to take the Vitality Compass quiz to see how well you will age.

And who could forget this post – A Fella’s Willy – Handle With Care – that reminded us that some parts of the human body are more fragile that others. Everything, it seems, has a breaking point.

So what’s your favorite posts?

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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. From ‘towers of silence’ and ‘tree burials’ to ‘plascination’ and ‘cyronics’, humankind has always looked at different ways to bury the dead and honor the spirits.

A New Twist to the Burial at Sea

Forget about six feet under. The Neptune Memorial Reef is offering a much more deeper burial option. Located in open waters just off the coast of Key Biscayne, this reef is being marketed as the perfect final resting place for those who loved the sea. A relatively new development, the artifical reef’s first phase has room for only 850 remains. But the company is planning on the concept growing with the reef one day covering 16 acres and room enough for 125,000 remains. A person’s ashes are mixed with cement and fitted into a mold which is then taken by a diver in the memorial area and secured onto the reef. A copper and bronze plaque is installed with the person’s name, date of birth and death.

Museums

Turns out there are even museums that focus solely on the dead and the mortuary business…

National Museum of Funeral History in Houston, Texas is where you can learn about Civil War embalming practices and check out fantasy coffins. The museum itself is housed in a reproduction of an early 1900’s coffin factory. There’s even a funeral industry Hall of Fame.

Museum of Mourning Art at Arlington Cemetery in a replicia of Mount Vernon, explores grief and mourning throughout history.

Museum of Funeral Customs in Springfield, Illinios focuses on the history of American funeral and mourning customs.

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“…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 induce abortions and then recorded the bloody aftermath.”

It was, she said, an elaborate effort of creative fiction.

And then there was the prize winning German artist who…

“…is looking for someone whose dying hours will be spent in a art gallery with the public admiring the way the light plays on the flesh of a person gasping for the last breath.”

Seems this artist has a thing about death. Having already gained critical acclaim for a sculpture of a dead woman, he has been planning this artistic display for years. He even has a pathologist and art collector on board. All he is lacking is a dying volunteer.

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t really see either of these two projects as art.

Definitely bizarre. Possibily sick and twisted.

But Art?

What do you think?

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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 York Times

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play a pair of old men with cancer who go in search of adventure. The results are deceitful and nauseating. (The Telegraph)

…I thought that it might just be a waste of time.

I was wrong.

The Bucket List is definitely a movie worth seeing.

Not for the acting – both Nicholson and Freeman seemed to be on autopilot.

Not for the dialogue. It was predictable.

Not even for the scenery, amazing though it was.

The Bucket list is worth seeing because, despite all it’s faults, the movie brings two questions into play:

1. If you had only a short time to live, would you want to know?  
2.  If you knew you had only a short time to live, what would your Bucket List be?

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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 career path.

His campaign, no doubt, will attract a great deal of attention.

Just imagine what his slogan could be.

Here’s my pick…

‘Dying for a Change…Vote Kervorkian’.

So what would your banner say ?

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