7 ms·

This is interesting though I remember seeing a ted talk on covering the corpse in fungi to detoxify the corpse while composting because human bodies are general

This is interesting though I remember seeing a ted talk on covering the corpse in fungi to detoxify the corpse while composting because human bodies are generally highly toxic...

i_am_nomad 7y ago
I’m skeptical of this claim, that human bodies are “highly toxic.” What does that mean, exactly - what toxins are we talking about?
- emersonrsantos 7y ago
  Gastric acid, just to name one.
- jniedrauer 7y ago
  It's certainly true of embalmed bodies. Hopefully we wouldn't be composting those though.
- cobbzilla 7y ago
  Imagine you try the zombie thing and eat a lot of dead flesh. You would get really sick and maybe die. I don't know the chemical names offhand, but suffice to say the decomposition process has plenty of nasty byproducts, not to mention whatever might have been in the intestinal tract (eating feces == bad).
  - vanilla_nut 7y ago
    In all fairness, zombies don't generally eat heavily decomposed bodies. They tend to eat recently living or even currently living flesh most of the time, hence their tendency to kill people for their flesh. On a slightly more serious note... there are plenty of carrion eating animals. Many of which are capable of eating humans. I'm sure it's not that toxic.
    - cobbzilla 7y ago
      Apologies if my example was too beyond the pale, and as you mentioned, even less effective due to the freshness of the flesh. iirc the carrion-eating animals have evolved particular mechanisms such that eating dead flesh doesn't harm them; they can eat a lot of stuff that would kill us. What is deadly toxic for a human may be nontoxic for a vulture or cockroach.
cobbzilla 7y ago
iirc you can use lime (powdered limestone, not the fruit) to accelerate the decomposition process while simultaneously detoxing. someone correct me if I've got this wrong.
lelf 7y ago
Discussed 18 days ago btw, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19831087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19831087

This is interesting though I remember seeing a ted talk on covering the corpse in fungi to detoxify the corpse while composting because human bodies are generally highly toxic...

i_am_nomad 7y ago

I’m skeptical of this claim, that human bodies are “highly toxic.” What does that mean, exactly - what toxins are we talking about?

emersonrsantos 7y ago
Gastric acid, just to name one.
jniedrauer 7y ago
It's certainly true of embalmed bodies. Hopefully we wouldn't be composting those though.
cobbzilla 7y ago
Imagine you try the zombie thing and eat a lot of dead flesh. You would get really sick and maybe die. I don't know the chemical names offhand, but suffice to say the decomposition process has plenty of nasty byproducts, not to mention whatever might have been in the intestinal tract (eating feces == bad).
- vanilla_nut 7y ago
  In all fairness, zombies don't generally eat heavily decomposed bodies. They tend to eat recently living or even currently living flesh most of the time, hence their tendency to kill people for their flesh. On a slightly more serious note... there are plenty of carrion eating animals. Many of which are capable of eating humans. I'm sure it's not that toxic.
  - cobbzilla 7y ago
    Apologies if my example was too beyond the pale, and as you mentioned, even less effective due to the freshness of the flesh. iirc the carrion-eating animals have evolved particular mechanisms such that eating dead flesh doesn't harm them; they can eat a lot of stuff that would kill us. What is deadly toxic for a human may be nontoxic for a vulture or cockroach.

cobbzilla 7y ago

iirc you can use lime (powdered limestone, not the fruit) to accelerate the decomposition process while simultaneously detoxing. someone correct me if I've got this wrong.

lelf 7y ago

Discussed 18 days ago btw, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19831087 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19831087