What is Digg?89 Comments
- coolspray, on 10/12/2007, -5/+96It is estimated that nearly all humans have died since humans 'began'.
- ahawks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+51The term was most likely replaced with "Natural causes" and a slew of more specific causes.
Being "old" never killed anyone. It's not like your body checks its expiration date and goes "damn, 87 years, 2 months, 6 days... time's up!" and stops working. - Dakoman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+50what's more interesting is that 1/2 of the humans that have ever inhabited the earth have died of malaria
but that isnt on the list :( - crash331, on 10/12/2007, -3/+38reading comprehension ftw
- illicium, on 10/12/2007, -3/+37See #4. They should be in one item anyways
- da5idblacksun, on 10/12/2007, -11/+43#20 It is estimated that 100 billion people have died since humans began.
- BlindIrishman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+34You really don't die of "old age", you die because a major organ fails or something.
- cogit0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27All the cells in your body stop functioning and die because they get no oxygen from blood (or diffusion in special cases). Oxygen is necessary for cellular metabolism (creating ATP for those so inclined). So if your body is unable to get oxygen to all its cells, the cells die.
This is the same when you are shot in the head. You just lose the muscle control necessary to breath, killing all the other cells in your body. Even though you are not conscious (cause you have no head), the actual process of death occurs over a brief period of time lasting a few minutes. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+29I've heard that there are more people currently alive than have ever died. #20 says that's off my about 94 Billion. I wonder which is accurate.
- mt066, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24What if you explode into a bunch of little pieces and then those pieces catch on fire
- oslointhesummer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22I think they're talking about death on the cellular level.
i.e. if you're shot in the head (and "killed"), you stop breathing and you're heart stops beating, which leads to oxygen deprivation on the cellular level.
I think technically, even if you're shot in the head, you're body could be kept alive through life support, but "you" would really be dead. - MasterLJ, on 10/12/2007, -12/+31#20 It is estimated that 100 billion people have died since humans began.
#21 It is widely believed that Jack Bauer killed 99,999,999,999 of them. The Jews got to Jesus before Jack could. - Higgins, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19I expect to die of old age, I know this because my birth certificate has an expiration date.
- lazydrumhead, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22Exactly. There's no such thing.
- slant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18This might be because we now know what the actual causes are instead of just saying "old age." For example, kidney failure. I doubt they knew when people died from that in the early early 20th century. So they might have just claimed it to be due to "old age" and called it a day.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18@mt066:
Then you shouldn't have had that second helping of habanero chili. - cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad, Chapter LVIII:
"I shall not speak of the railway, for it is like any other railway--I shall only say that the fuel they use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose, and that sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, "D--n these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent--pass out a King;"--[Stated to me for a fact. I only tell it as I got it. I am willing to believe it. I can believe any thing.]"
*****, Mark Twain just hosed dozens of Digg'rs. The pun is too damn easy. - timf, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20Guns don't kill people. People kill people.
Guns protect people against people with smaller guns. - r00tus3r, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13can anyone verify this list?
- kilworth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+145. The trigger of death, in all cases, is lack of oxygen. Its decline may prompt muscle spasms, or the "agonal phase," from the Greek word agon, or contest.
What happens when i get a headshot? I always thought I would just be dead.. but this "fact" implies, that my oxygen-supply gets cut and I die from lack of oxygen.. can't really believe it.
Someone help me :) - cogit0, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Holy crap people, RTFA! And then read the comments above that state the same thing!
- peritonlogon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I've read this one before, and I still say, what about the people at ground zero in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? They were instantly vaporized. They didn't die from lack of oxygen.
- headzoo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14#3 No American has died of old age since 1951.
According to my 10th grade biology teacher, no one dies of "old age". It's either cancer or heart failure. Well, there's also unnatural deaths like getting run over by a train, but that's something else... - mt066, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8I heard "heart complications" is used a lot when doctors aren't entirely sure what happened.
- Quactaur, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Your teacher is right. Dieing of old age is like dieing of HIV, it itself doesn't kill you, but it stops other bodily processes that can save you.
- Jesty, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7But it gives a higher chance of your lungs being irritated, when your body is trying to keep you warm. William Henry Harrison died of pnemonia after giving his inauguration adress with no coat in January.
- ScottMitchell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think they mean burying them with some sort of ceremony. And you could date that by finding gravesites where the dead were buried with items that would have been useful to the living (like jewelry, intricate clothing items, etc.).
- omnithought, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Fueled by Soylent Green?
- chrisbtig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5#21: She's a perky goth chic who wears an ankh.
- GabeUtsecks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4There are more suicides than homicides EVERYWHERE.
[In 2003 -- according to the National Center for Health Statistics and the CDC -- there were 31,484 and 17,732 homicides. 11,920 of those homicides were using firearms whereas 16,907 suicides used firearms. I still haven't found any statistics showing any area with more homicides than suicides.] - herro, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6you're right. that was pretty Irrelevant.
- daRoach, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@RunningBike if you had read the straight dope article it explained that many people believed it was Egyptians who used the mummies as fuel then it clarified that the whole thing was a joke made by Mark Twain about railroaders using the mummies as fuel. Don't be such a douche telling people to "RTFA" when you don't even follow your own advice.
- Th3_anOmoLy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"11 Queen Victoria insisted on being buried with the bathrobe of her long-dead husband, Prince Albert, and a plaster cast of his hand."
Her husband must have done some pretty amazing things that involved hands and bathrobes when he was alive. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Depending on your definition of "living" I would beg to differ. When someone can reanimate a dog's head for a couple seconds, I don't particularly call it living.
I remember being told everyone who has ever died, has died of shock, which fits the description. - hiscity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The estimate is an exercise in calculus.
Fit the population growth curve to an exponential model, take the area, etc. etc. As I recall, the figure was something like 80 billion. So 100 billion is close enough.
The 2nd reference below gives 106 billion. It's interesting to note that 2000 years ago the estimated world population was 300 million. About as large as the US is now.
The last reference gives something like 50 billion.
Science like this makes one wonder about evolution.
references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verhulst_equation
http://www.prb.org/Template.cfm?Section=PRB&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=7421
http://lithoguru.com/gentleman/data/population.html
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~bjmcg/story2_peple_lived.html
http://www.vendian.org/envelope/TemporaryURL/population_landmarks.html
(10^11 = 100 x 10^9 = 100 billion US ... the british may call it something else)
but compare the summary:
1900 to present, ... say 10 billion.
1800 to 1900, ... say 4 billion.
1000 to 1800, ... say 15 billion.
1 to 1000, ... say 10 billion.
10kya to 2kya, ... say 10 billion.
= 10 + 4 + 15 + 10 + 10 about 50 billion - charlie55, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5"Well, yeah, there's a slight chance this could backfire: English philosopher Francis Bacon, a founder of the scientific method, died in 1626 of pneumonia after stuffing a chicken with snow to see if cold would preserve it."
being cold doesnt give you pneumonia. - jacksjr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2to start a similar thread: what do you think about cryogenic-ally freezing your body slightly preceding death (you are healthy and alive) but in old age. given today's technology and the advance of genetics, etc. how many of you would consider the option (of course for argument's sake that it was something within your means to do)?
- RoninBic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3also @ deschain do you have anything to support that
- geckoman414, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2RTFA if u had gotten to the next # in the article u wouldn't be retarded
- DarkHack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Its a course that mankind have to die.
- hiscity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Slow-frozen people? Latest research supports possibility of cryopreservation"
http://science.physorg.com/news70025926.html
"The latest research on water - still one of the least understood of all liquids despite a century of intensive study – seems to support the possibility that cells, tissues and even the entire human body could be cryopreserved without formation of damaging ice crystals, according to University of Helsinki researcher Anatoli Bogdan, Ph.D." - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1#20 should be restated as "Death is the number one killer in the world" or at least make it #21.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can confirm #9 and #10. They are true.
9 Zoroastrians in India leave out the bodies of the dead to be consumed by vultures.
10 The vultures are now dying off after eating cattle carcasses dosed with diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory used to relieve fever in livestock. - LoHo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1 "No American has died of old age since 1951."
wait...what? - LoHo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1oh my god nevermind.
thats embarassing - eN1X, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hate to tell ya but my great grandmother died a little over a year ago from "old age". She was 94 and her organs just slowly began to shut down. Now in my book thats a death via old age...correct me if im wrong?
- RoninBic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually DaRoach READ THE COMMENTS mikerb was debunking #13 which states "During a railway expansion in Egypt in the 19th century, construction companies unearthed so many mummies that they used them as fuel for locomotives." NOWHERE does it comment on the egyptians doing it. So he is saying it is false because egyptians didn't do it. here is the funny thing THEY WERENT TALKING ABOUT THE EGYPTIANS
and as a side note I'm Ronin_Bic - mhockey14221, on 10/12/2007, -5/+5i cant... nyc is the best city in the world
- mikerb73, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Seems #13 (mummy fuel) is BS:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/020222.html - MykeRotch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Those mummies that they used as locomotive fuel weren't the same mummies that everyone sees all the time, the ones with the bandages. They were the mummies of the commoners, who were encased in tar...thusly making them quite nice for the locomotive to burn, in lieu of coal.
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