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The California legislature has passed, and the governor has signed an “End of life Act” legalizing assisted suicide. On the same day it was signed the Southern Medical Journal published a study connecting physician-assisted suicide with an increase in overall suicide rates. Since assisted suicide became…

A death simulator called Xinglai is open in China. When you “die,” you lay down on a conveyer belt through a dark tunnel that simulates cremation and then being “reborn” out the other side through a latex womb. The experience “gives you the chance to calm down, give in to some deeper thoughts, and think…

During the closing moments of the season three finale of Supernatural, the show ends with a cliffhanger. The younger of the Winchester brothers, Sam, kneels crying over the remains of his older brother, Dean. The audience expects the show to be over; however, the writers have a final twist. The camera…

In the AMC TV show “The Walking Dead,” characters are faced with a world with zombies, the walking dead. The show makes it very evident that the walkers have no capacity to love, feel, think, or consider anything of value or sustenance. The prerequisite for which they become a zombie is death—they must…

Jerry Maestas might have trouble telling if a person was spiritually dead or not. After all, he drove his car for three days with a passenger, Amy Marquez, who had none of the signs of life. Finally, he drove her to an emergency room where she was pronounced dead. “I don’t know how he didn’t know” (she…

Jerry Maestas drove his car for three days with a passenger, Amy Marquez, who had none of the signs of life. Finally, he drove her to an emergency room where she was pronounced dead. “I don’t know how he didn’t know” (she was dead) said police Lt. Christian Lopez. “There were flies all over.” --The Week,…

In New Mexico, Jerry Maestas drove around for three days with Amy Marquez in his car. Maestas says he thought she was asleep, but when her skin began to acquire a bluish pallor, he drove her to an emergency room. Turns out that she was dead. --The Week, April 22, 2011 Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and…

Alan Campbell called the United Kingdom's National Health Service to set up and appointment with a specialist. The NHS told him he was dead. Even though the person on the other end of the line could hear him talking, she insisted he would have to return to his general practitioner for proof he was alive.…

DEATH The cover of Time magazine for June 22, 2009 has the photo of a hospital bed with the caption above in a bold red box, “How Not To End Up Here.” The subtitle at the bottom of the page says, “It’s All About Prevention.” The cover story is about avoiding getting sick, thus preventing the cost of…

ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE plants in nature is the Ibervillea sonorae. It can exist for seemingly indefinite periods without soil or even water. As Annie Dillard tells the story, one was kept in a display case at the New York Botanical Garden for seven years without soil or water. For seven springs it…

DEAD OR ALIVE Twenty-five-year-old Marcio Freitas da Silva was having a difficult time finding a job, until he discovered the reason why. Government records indicated that the unemployed man was dead. Three years earlier, another man of the same name and age died. On that death certificate, coroners…

LIFE In this email to his former pastor in California, a Naval Officer expresses what facing danger and death is teaching him about life. “Here in Norfolk, it was certainly a hollow feeling that we experienced when the Cole was attacked. Just two months prior to the attack, the Cole was at the next pier…

HELL According to a recent Gallop Poll, the number of Americans that believe in hell is up from 54% in 1965 to 73% today. The problem isn't that postmodern people don't believe it hell, it is that they don't think they will go there. In 1965, 17% thought they were headed there, today only 6% see it as…