October 28, 2010 • 27 mins
Many people find graveyards creepy, but what makes them so unsettling and spooky? In this special Halloween episode, Robert and Allison take you into the graveyard as they explore our cultural fears about cemetaries and share a little graveyard science.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, this is Alison I don't
about the science hows to freaks dot com. And this
is Robert Lamb, science writer at how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to our spooky podcast. Yes, we are continuing to
(00:25):
uh get a little spooky here with our topics and
uh say, we're venturing into the graveyard. Yes, into the cemetery,
which I think for most people like, especially since we
already you know, sort of brought up the spooky thing.
You may be picturing like a you know, a darkly
lit cemetery. You know, it's maybe there's a some movement
over here in the corner, or a cat or something moving,
(00:46):
there's a you know, it's like there's a moon in
the sky and and they're all these like funny noises
going on, and then Michael Jackson pops and then Michael
Jackson because this is thrill. Yeah, I mean that's totally
what I picture. Vincent Pryor is cackling in the background. Yeah.
I think we can all instantly, you know, go there
imagining the creepy haunted cemetery. Um, but in real life,
(01:08):
do you ever you ever go to the cemetery. I
do sometimes I run through them. Yeah. Yeah, I think
that if you paid me enough, I would sleep in
one in a cemetery for then I could be persuaded
to do that. I'm not sure what the fee would be. Yeah,
would you No, I'm just thinking we should like try
and get to get a PayPal like link put on
the blogs. Maybe we can, we can. I think I
(01:28):
can do it by myself. It would be better if
I were allowed to take my dog, I think. But
it's true because dogs can sense uh yes, of course
they can't, very scientific and ghosts hate dogs, right, Oh,
but they like cats? Is that what you're getting out
of it? Well, that's that's an interesting thing because people
bring up the you know, the fact a lot that
that cats do like to hang out in cemeteries and
(01:49):
a lot of that, Like, realistically, it comes down to
their fewer people in a cemetery, people were less likely
to be mean to cats, and cats like lounging around
on stuff that's been warmed by the sun. You know.
So there's all that you know, and not to mention
the chipmunks. Yes, yeah, right, so you're gonna bring up
your obligatory reference of Phantasm, the movie that you try
to work into. Many podcasts have brought utast. You have
(02:12):
brought up fantastic People. Okay, well, A Phantasm one of
those great films that delivers the whole spooky graveyard thing.
And this is what you think of when you think
of grave. Yeah, it's hard, it's hard not to think
of the movie Phantasm. But in real life, UM, I
really like going to Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta. Which
did you We just went, Yeah, yeah, we just went.
You know, we can weather. It's great for it right now.
(02:33):
And you know, it's a it's a it's an historic
location here in in town. It's peaceful. You can walk
around and uh and take pride in your city. You know,
check out some of the old cats buried there. I
mean inside casts, I mean here. There's not a pet
cemetery in Oakland. Oh, that is a good movie. That
is one that we should I love that movie. I forget.
I don't remember much about the movie, but the book
(02:53):
was pretty grand. Yeah, you're Stephen King fan. So what's
the scarp? Why are we so scared of cemeteries? Well,
it's really inter thing. Uh. And I wrote an article
about this, uh back in the day, like a couple
of years ago or something. And uh and yeah, it's
it's a lot. When you start really taking it apart,
it's really fascinating. UM. As a biological organism, we're you know, programmed,
(03:17):
it's in our genes to stay alive. Sure, so if
something is you know, might bring about our death, we're
going to run from it, right or fight it. So
an obvious reminder of our death, like say, a cemetery
is a place that we're going to avoid. Well not
well not it's not as whack and white as that.
But but when we start thinking about death, it's like
(03:38):
we end up, you know, death itself ends up being
something that we might try and fight or avoid. And
you know, if you can you can see you know,
people trying to avoid death or you know, outright defy it.
You know, every day. You know, it's in it's in
our science, it's in our our you know, New Age medicine,
it's in our you know, our belief systems. You know. Um,
you know, death cannot be the end. There must be
(03:58):
a way that I that things can keep going. Um
and uh, you know, we make a big deal out
of it. We also, um, you know, we distance it
from our thoughts too. That's another way that we deal
with death. You just you know, you're trying not to
think about it or well, and of course we also
limit our intimacy with it, you know. So interesting question
here do you think that um as a as a HomeBuyer,
(04:21):
what do you think that does to the price of
a home? If your house is located next to a cemetery,
do you think that automatically brings the price of a
house down? Just wondering. I don't know, we should throw
that out to the listeners. Yeah, anybody, now, please do
tell us. I'm curious about this because seems like for
some folks that would be you would be a plus. Yeah,
kind of like a park but different. You know, it's
just dead people buried there. I guess there could be
(04:44):
people dead people buried in the park too, we just
don't know about. Yeah, I'd be more concerned about that
the unmarked graves there than the people who got it nice.
You know, let's talk a little bit more about death, well, particulately.
The study from a Chicago's Mount Sinai Hospital. This was
an interest king. Oh, yes, this is just a little
sidebar here. Um this Back in the nineteen sixties, Dr
(05:04):
Eric cast of Chicago's Mount Sinai Hospital, Um, he experimented
with giving dying patients LSD, which of course is so
you know, hallucinogen um. And he actually, this is not
something you can get funding for these days, but back
then this is possible. I imagine they flag research with
LSD in it. Yeah, but he ended up dosing like
(05:25):
eighty patients, you know, and seventy two reported, uh that
they gained like some sort of insight, like you know,
they that they were a part of the universe or
that you know, they felt better about, um, the end
that was coming to them. And we need to stress
they were not giving them to them like here, take
l s D and die. They were like, you're gonna
die soon, you know, it's it's bound to happen, you know,
(05:45):
in the in the immediate future. Here's some thinking about it.
These patients were all the hospice. Yeah, yeah, chronic we're
suffering from chronic conditions exactly. Yeah. So out of those
eight seventy two reported insight, fifty eight found it pleasant
and wanted to do it again. Of course, that's a
heck of a time in your life to find out
there's something you want to do more of, you know. Yeah, right, well,
(06:09):
so I was thinking about this when you when you
brought this study to my attention, and it was interesting
and that I think that taking elis you certainly could
alter your perspective on death. Um. But also I mean,
if you're hanging out at the boundary between life and death,
presumably this might be a transcendent experience. I mean this is,
of course, you know, highly subjective. This is me talking
(06:30):
about it. But if you're hanging out there on this
really crazy boundary between life and death, do you want
to obscure it with drugs? Wouldn't you want to be
a firsthand witness to it? I mean similar, I guess
you could look at it like we're talking about it before.
You know, also with birth, right you know some momentum
childbirth is painful, you know, and whether you whether or
(06:52):
not you want to take drugs in that scenario, you know,
bringing life into the world. It's just really interesting. I
was ying, Yeah, it's it's I keep going back and
forth on it when I really understand either way, just
just thinking about it now, it's interesting you mentioned about
it you know, being at this boundary point between life
and death. That's another thing that factors into our experience
with cemeteries. Obviously, graveyards are for the living, you know. Um,
(07:15):
I think we can agree, especially in a science podcast,
that the dead people don't care. You know, you can,
you can, you know, it's it's it's all about the
people who survive and wanting to have a place where
you can remember a loved one that's departed or honor
a loved one that's departed. So we you know, we
create these necropolis um you know, environments is um. You know,
(07:41):
we create these these these environments you know, full of
marble and stone and silent statues, and and it has
a very you know, anytime you go to a cemetery,
no matter what you're feelings on death, and you know
the hereafter, you know, happen to be um. You know,
it's it's a very somber environment. And we kind of
take that feeling of the boundary of life and death
(08:01):
and we we make a physical space out of it,
you know, and then you pour in a whole bunch
of you poor in religion, you pour in like folk tales,
you cultural tradition, cultural traditions and and horror movies TV,
all of it. You pour all that in and it
just intensifies that feeling. You know, it's um and creates
this kind of contested feeling. There's a contested space between
life and death. So you know, you walk into the
(08:24):
midst of all that, you're going to have some interesting
feelings going on, even if it isn't outright you know,
fear or you know, creepiness. So we had a childhood
a tradition. I don't know if you ever did this,
but you know, similar to the thing where you hold
your feet up when you're going over railroad tracks. Did
you ever do that? I don't know what the reasoning
there is. When you were driving by the cemetery, No, no no, no, okay,
(08:45):
So there's two separate superstitions at work here. When was
if you go over railrotchracks, you're supposed to hold your
feet up while you go over the railtrack. That never
did that. I don't really know what that especially while driving. No,
but you're supposed to hold your breath while you drove
past the cemetery, and that was really tricky if the
cemetery was was long, and I'm not sure what that
was based on either. So we always held our breath.
(09:05):
Now we had our breath when we went over bridges.
Oh yeah, in case you needed mean, it makes just
as much sense. But but no, we never did anything
curious with um. Some more stuff about just how we
viewed death that I found really interesting, according to philosophy
professor anton Than niekerk Um, Yeah, we come as a
(09:31):
culture to see dying not as something our bodies eventually do,
all right, but something that eventually happens to our bodies.
It's kind of you know, like think of it this way,
like your body eventually dies that I mean, that's a
true statement, but we often end up viewing it instead
in terms of like death happens to us. Death is
(09:53):
something that is like an exterior force is enacted upon us.
And you see that in religion and the mythology and
folk tales and and all in just art, you know,
you'll see death depicted as what right, which we have
a cool article on Bill Harris, right it. Yeah, that's
a that's a good thing. You know what came out
that was so interesting. And there's a whole Mexican cult
(10:15):
um that's like kind of an offshoot of grim Reaper stuff.
It's so interesting. The name is eluding me, right, yes, yes, yes, yeah, anyway, yeah,
so you have grim Reaper, you have the Angel of
Death and all this, right, but we don't really we
don't really have that, um. But well we still have
(10:35):
that today, but increasingly UM as a culture, we don't
really think about the Grim Reaper or they are change
all of death coming to us as a real thing. Okay,
So instead, according to sociologist Zigmut Bombing, we practice something
called quote the deconstruction of mortality. And and in that
(10:58):
deep deep for a podcasts Let's Let's roll out, he
says that we break down death into smaller pieces that
we can digest easily. So instead of like thinking about
just going like, oh my goodness, the yawning um you know,
weight of the tomb and the you know, the the
infinite nothingness or beyond death or through the infinite possibilities
beyond death, instead of getting torn down with all that,
(11:20):
we think about the biological functions of death. We think
about diseases and mental problems. Right yeah, and you can
you know, you break it down and you can then
you can you can sort of like assign those tasks off.
You know, it's like, oh, doctors here, take care of this,
you know, psychiatrist, psychologists, you to take care of this.
And then when the act actually occurs again, you know, increasingly,
(11:43):
especially in like western um, you know, society. You know,
it's like people, don't we have people to touch the
dead bodies for us to prepare them too. You know,
there's a whole industry, um you know that takes care
of that for us and removes us, you know, from
intimacy with death and the deceased, right and so cemeteries
being such a visible sign of our own demise is
(12:03):
problematic for us. That's what you're saying, right, Yeah, yeah,
that's that's what it comes on to a lot of people.
So you do have people who like really get you know,
I have an aversion to it, you know, like really
would rather not drive past the cemetery or as I
think about the memories involved in a cemetery, you know,
what if you saw I mean, if you had to
bury your mother or your father, family member, you know,
(12:24):
a friend or anything like that. I mean, they can
be associated with some pretty powerful memories, sad memories. So
there you have it. That's basically our cultural fears about
cemeteries in a nutshell, in a nutshell, indeed, a morbid nutshell. Yeah.
So whether or not you like cemeteries, let's talk about
the science of cemeteries or some of the science going
(12:46):
on at cemeteries. Yeah, this is pretty cool. I like
this study. Yeah, this is and this is a good
thing to think of. If you're you know, if you're
the type of person who goes to a cemetery and
you don't feel anything whatsoever, then this is perfect because yea,
do some science there. So what kind of science is
going on? Well, it all breaks down to this, um,
it breaks down. That's kind of funny considering what we're
(13:08):
about to talk about. You know, we're talking about Okay,
you have mortal body. You know it's going to decay
and die and decay and all that. So you put
a stone marker because the stone is gonna last forever, right, Yeah,
because you have like a marble slab. It may it's
gonna last longer than a human lifetime, you know, but
it's still gonna decay. We've all seen, you know, cemetery.
(13:30):
You know, cemetery upkeep is a you know, a constant
effort because you have tombstones are falling over, their crumbling,
they're flaking. And what's the reason for that? Acid rain? Well, yeah,
or just rain in general. Yeah, weathering, the weathering process,
what happens to us. All. Well, there's a certain acidity
to rain as it is, Um, I think the way
it breaks down. Rainwater is about a five point six
(13:52):
on the pH scale and that depends on area. Though, yeah,
go on, this is this is roughly but and to
put that in context, a pH zero row is essentially
battery acid and so the so each step up from
zero is less acidic, right, Okay, so rainwater five point six,
cup of coffee is five. Um. Stomach acid is like
(14:14):
a two. That's pretty strong. Acid rain is more like
a four. So acid rain is like one whole number, um,
you know, or over one whole number. Right, So acid
rain is a relatively weak acid on the whole. Yeah.
But but of course the thing is you have the
tombstone is out there in the open since the day
that it's you know, been planted, probably a little before,
(14:35):
and uh, and it's constantly getting hit with this stuff. Right.
So you looked up a pretty cool article um that
ran in Science World, and there's an. The author was
talking about how cemeteries wind up being this really great
unintentional geological experiment in which we can measure the effects
of acid rain um in a particular area. Yeah. I
(14:57):
think specifically they mentioned the Graveyard Project, and they've been around,
they have Great Stone Project. Yes, Uh, they've they've gone
around until just like hundreds and you know, hundreds of
cemeteries and looked at thousands of tombstones and U and
one of the things they look for is when you
have the letters you know, um, John Smith lies here, Yeah, exactly,
(15:20):
you know, when those are indented in the tombstone. There's
often lead in there too. The lead doesn't break down
under you know, all the rain and the weathering, so
that stays in place, so they can use that as
a frame of reference. He has a gauge to how
how much of the marble and stone has has been
eating a way by the rain. Yeah. And and of
(15:40):
course it's a tombstone, so it has a date on
it right there, so that that also helps. It's handy
for measurements. Yeah. Yeah, like you said, I think they're um,
they've gotten like hundreds of measurements from different cemeteries, so
it's pretty neat. Yeah, they can. They can study like
how the local weathering conditions work, you know, and and
then you know, compare them to what they might have
seen to be in the past, and then you know
(16:02):
analyze use that to analyze how how the atmosphere has
changed in the area. Right, And they can also compose
a worldwide weathering map to see what's going on different
patterns of acid rain in different areas, so you can
figure out what climate change is doing, figure out what
pollution is doing. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Let's talk of
a little bit about the high chech grades going on.
This fascinated me. Yeah. Yeah, we've talked a lot about
(16:23):
old crumby stuff and now we're talking about sort of
new fangled stuff. But I mean we've always kind of
been fascinated with graveyard technology. I mean, back in the day,
we would build mazes and pyramids to confuse grave robbers.
Um You even mentioned that there were bells to ring
from your casket, so that, yeah, well, because they had that,
(16:44):
there was always that fear that you're gonna be buried alive.
So you needed a little line out right, and you
couldn't just have a cell phone on you right right
that movie. It's up now. But in the old days
you would have like a string and you would hey, hey, guys,
don't don't bury me yet, she's gonna ring this spell
in case you haven't heard me screaming. Yeah, So that
that's graveyard technology right there. In action also had the locks, right, yeah,
(17:06):
because they especially in Victorian era, you had all the
corpse um body snatching going on. You know, you needed corpses,
you know, cadavers for for surgical studies and science. But
that was the only way to get him. You had
to hire some drunk guy to go out to the
cemetery and bus one open for you. But now we
have GPS going on in our graves. Yeah, this is
(17:26):
this is pretty cool. Um. I've read about this in
a number of places. There was a cool article on
Wired um and the idea is, like, you know, increasingly
green burials the thing. I think we've talked about this.
We have talked about it a little bit, but green
burial essentially just means that there's a whole being dug
in the ground. Um, I think you're the body is
placed in a shroud of some sort. Yeah, there's no
(17:49):
like embalming the body with a bunch of chemicals to
make it last a little longer. There's no like, you know,
giant metal casket. You know, is there even an exterior barrier?
I thought, I literally thought it was just the body
that is going in. I think I think a lot
of it is shrouds. Yeah, yeah, definitely no giant metal casket,
that's for sure. Right. So the problem with this, if
you can call it a problem, is that, um, it's
(18:10):
it's pretty inconspicuous. I mean, you could certainly place a
headstone there, but a lot of people are even moving
away from uh, putting a headstone. Yeah, because like the
idea of being, you want the body to return to
nature and you know, um, a graveyard is often a
very unnatural environment. Though I think it's the there's like
a really good um Unitarian cemetery, I think in Savannah.
(18:33):
Have you seen that, they let they let everything that
grow up. It's still a graveyard, they're still tombstones, but
they let the nature kind of take over. It's pretty
pretty swank. Well. So the tricky thing here is that's great,
you know about being one with nature and all that,
but it can be hard for a family member, say
to locate a body of a loved one, right and
again graves burial all that it's about the survivors. So
(18:56):
how do you extend the olive branch of them? Right?
So you send a little tag down with them when
you bury them, so that you can make sure that
you can locate the body in the future. Everything else
breaks down, you'll have this one little like radio dally
down there sending off the signal to tell you where
you know, uncle greg Um, you know, became one with nature,
so then you would use a little device to find it.
(19:16):
But it but it as cool as that is. I
can't help but think. You know, our our geo tagging
is so advanced now, and you know this technology is everywhere,
Like what's stopping someone now from just going out? You
know they have the natural barrier and just mark the
exact location and then just you know, find it with
you know, with that GPS device. That's true, you make
(19:39):
a good point there or a lambor. And what are
the Japanese doing? Well, Yeah, the Japanese are in a
situation where they have far less room to bury people.
I think about this a lot with New Orleans too. Yeah, yeah,
there's yeah, there's not not a lot of places there too,
but unless you want to rise and back up right well.
And and in Japan it's also big just to have
a place for like cremated ashes to go. But but
(20:01):
they also have a you know, a long standing tradition
of honoring you know, the dead being. You want to
be able to visit your your you know, your your
dead father, grandfather's grave and you know, and honor them
when you want. Sure, it's a big deal. And it's
very expensive though, if you if you're trying to keep
that amount of you know, that little space on a
shelf or that you know, that little plot somewhere going
you know, all the time. It's it's really pricing and
(20:23):
people think some serious dough into it. So the Japanese
is always very efficient when it comes to space. Have
created these high rise columbariums. Yeah, and that's uh, it's
kind of like a giant death vending machine essentially. It is. Yeah,
in Japanese Buddhism, the columbarium is called a no pseudo,
(20:43):
I believe, and uh, yeah, and it is this version
of it is like a giant vending machine with the
like robotic retrieval. Yeah, so you go to see Uncle Greg. Right,
Uncle Greg. Do you have an Uncle Greg? By the way,
I hope not, because poor Uncle Greg. Okay, Yeah, so
so Uncle Greg is actually like up on a like
(21:05):
a shelf and like the you know, the third floor
of this big um you know, necropolis condo deal, you know.
So so you go into a little little altar area. Yeah,
and if you shut a card, swipe it and that
tells the machine where Uncle Greg is stored. So then
the robotic retrieval system grabs Uncle Greg zips him down there.
(21:28):
Then the little doors open and voila, there's Uncle Greg
right there for you. That's pretty cool, it's pretty ingenious. Yeah,
it's a high tech solution to u, you know, a
very real problem. But there's one final thing we're gonna
cover that you can do with your ashes, which I'm
not surprised that you brought up because you are kind
of a music buff. I do like music, I'm not
as int like I have friends that are DJs and
(21:49):
they're super into vinyl. You know, friend of mine has
a basement just full of vinyl. So does death have
something to do with vinyl? Yes? It does. And there's
actually a company and the UK called and vinylly. It's
like and finally and vinyl, you know, and uh, and
what they'll do is pretty amazing. They will, um, they
(22:09):
will take your ashes and they will press them into
a vinyl record. I'm curious about the whole integration process
and how that works. Well, apparently they have to spread
the ashes have to be sprinkled onto the raw piece
of vinyl, which in the industry is known as like
a biscuit or a puck, and then they press it
into the plates. So it's you know, it's it's in there,
(22:30):
just pressed, you know, into it. So it's not just
the ashes being made into a record. And uh, and
it's you can actually play this, um, you know, on
a record player. They say that each one will be
like a twenty four minute track and for about two
thousand pounds, you know, you can get artwork and everything
and up to thirty discs with your ashes inside them. Okay,
(22:51):
so here's the thing. What song? Oh yeah, is this
a curious question. Actually, when I first found the story,
I threw it out on Twitter and ask a few people,
and I also threw it to d J Chiba in
the UK. Is a really cool DJ interview heading for
the blogs, and he said that he would go with
the end by the doors. That was really so it's
(23:15):
that's a that's a tough one to top. I would
probably personally go with something really beautiful and serene off
of one of one of the boards of Canada albums.
But that's just because you know, I like the serenity
of the sound, you know. But I think also people
would often do like some the ideas that you would do,
like a personal message on these see but I would
(23:36):
rather do the music I can well. And so I've
thought about my death mix. Have you not? Have you here?
Have you done this exercise? You know? People like to
imagine who's going to be at their funeral or service
or what have you. Um, sometimes I've thought about what
music I want to play at my funeral. I haven't
put together an actual set list, contemplated some songs that
(23:57):
I want, um a set list, and there's some by
Peter gay Real, but I cannot think of the song
by Peter Gabriel. The one that definitely comes to mind
is digging in the Dirt. But oh that's a good one. Um,
oh wait, I know a lot of Gabriel tints. Or
maybe you're thinking of Mercy Street. I love Mercy Street. Yeah,
Peter Gabriel, fine, fine man. Especially perhaps do you have
(24:18):
on Era your final album? Yeah? I would probably just
go to the boards of Canada album or if I
die before DJ ch that he can come in DJ
my my funeral. So I think that's all we have
for death in Cemeteries. I'm sure we've cheered you up
immensely today, but you know, we gotta get you guys
in the mood for Halloween. What do you what are
you hearing out there? Robert, You've got some We got
(24:38):
some really cool listener mail from Jeremy and uh. And
he sent us a lot of stuff and I don't
have time to go over a lot of it um here,
but he sent us like a really cool how dangerous
a Zombie um poster to kind of inform you. He
was responding to our Science Versus Monsters podcast, which was
the the other Halloween when we did well it have
(25:00):
been too back from from now along with the mad scientists,
right and uh and so he shared some thoughts on
monsters and all that tells. Here'll share something he said
about vampires, m vampires and the quote where the mathematician
talked about turning the population into vampires and dying out
in three years. Well, I'm a vampire buff love movies
and Laura, I watch about every movie that comes out
(25:21):
just to see the director, writer's take on vampires. I
even watched the horrible Twilight movies because of this and
everything that I've reached. And that's why you watched him.
It was that dude's hair. That's why I watched it. Um,
that's amazing anyway, that that was me, he says, Um,
vampires do not change someone just by biting them. There's
(25:41):
always more work involved. The reason being is that vampiresm
is not a disease, unlike lecanthropy, where wolves shape shifters.
I can see the point that the mathematician is trying
to make, but his point only would would work with
a very limited scope if any of the vampire legends.
I know you guys mentioned this after the fact, but
I wanted to reiterate this. Um. So that's cool. He's
(26:03):
you know, he's standing up for the vampire myths and
you know, pointing out that that study indeed, Um sort
of sort of tongue in cheek, but yeah, but they
still picked and shows exactly what version of the mythos
they were going to go with for that study, which
isn't very scientific very scientific. So if you guys want
to send us your thoughts and monsters, science or spooky stuff,
(26:28):
um send us Anino science stuff at how stuff worst
dot com yep, and but us visit us on Twitter
where we are lab stuff, or on Facebook career stuff
from the Science Lab. Thanks for listening, guys. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
(26:49):
stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com
home page
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, this is Alison I don't
about the science hows to freaks dot com. And this
is Robert Lamb, science writer at how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to our spooky podcast. Yes, we are continuing to
(00:25):
uh get a little spooky here with our topics and
uh say, we're venturing into the graveyard. Yes, into the cemetery,
which I think for most people like, especially since we
already you know, sort of brought up the spooky thing.
You may be picturing like a you know, a darkly
lit cemetery. You know, it's maybe there's a some movement
over here in the corner, or a cat or something moving,
(00:46):
there's a you know, it's like there's a moon in
the sky and and they're all these like funny noises
going on, and then Michael Jackson pops and then Michael
Jackson because this is thrill. Yeah, I mean that's totally
what I picture. Vincent Pryor is cackling in the background. Yeah.
I think we can all instantly, you know, go there
imagining the creepy haunted cemetery. Um, but in real life,
(01:08):
do you ever you ever go to the cemetery. I
do sometimes I run through them. Yeah. Yeah, I think
that if you paid me enough, I would sleep in
one in a cemetery for then I could be persuaded
to do that. I'm not sure what the fee would be. Yeah,
would you No, I'm just thinking we should like try
and get to get a PayPal like link put on
the blogs. Maybe we can, we can. I think I
(01:28):
can do it by myself. It would be better if
I were allowed to take my dog, I think. But
it's true because dogs can sense uh yes, of course
they can't, very scientific and ghosts hate dogs, right, Oh,
but they like cats? Is that what you're getting out
of it? Well, that's that's an interesting thing because people
bring up the you know, the fact a lot that
that cats do like to hang out in cemeteries and
(01:49):
a lot of that, Like, realistically, it comes down to
their fewer people in a cemetery, people were less likely
to be mean to cats, and cats like lounging around
on stuff that's been warmed by the sun. You know.
So there's all that you know, and not to mention
the chipmunks. Yes, yeah, right, so you're gonna bring up
your obligatory reference of Phantasm, the movie that you try
to work into. Many podcasts have brought utast. You have
(02:12):
brought up fantastic People. Okay, well, A Phantasm one of
those great films that delivers the whole spooky graveyard thing.
And this is what you think of when you think
of grave. Yeah, it's hard, it's hard not to think
of the movie Phantasm. But in real life, UM, I
really like going to Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta. Which
did you We just went, Yeah, yeah, we just went.
You know, we can weather. It's great for it right now.
(02:33):
And you know, it's a it's a it's an historic
location here in in town. It's peaceful. You can walk
around and uh and take pride in your city. You know,
check out some of the old cats buried there. I
mean inside casts, I mean here. There's not a pet
cemetery in Oakland. Oh, that is a good movie. That
is one that we should I love that movie. I forget.
I don't remember much about the movie, but the book
(02:53):
was pretty grand. Yeah, you're Stephen King fan. So what's
the scarp? Why are we so scared of cemeteries? Well,
it's really inter thing. Uh. And I wrote an article
about this, uh back in the day, like a couple
of years ago or something. And uh and yeah, it's
it's a lot. When you start really taking it apart,
it's really fascinating. UM. As a biological organism, we're you know, programmed,
(03:17):
it's in our genes to stay alive. Sure, so if
something is you know, might bring about our death, we're
going to run from it, right or fight it. So
an obvious reminder of our death, like say, a cemetery
is a place that we're going to avoid. Well not
well not it's not as whack and white as that.
But but when we start thinking about death, it's like
(03:38):
we end up, you know, death itself ends up being
something that we might try and fight or avoid. And
you know, if you can you can see you know,
people trying to avoid death or you know, outright defy it.
You know, every day. You know, it's in it's in
our science, it's in our our you know, New Age medicine,
it's in our you know, our belief systems. You know. Um,
you know, death cannot be the end. There must be
(03:58):
a way that I that things can keep going. Um
and uh, you know, we make a big deal out
of it. We also, um, you know, we distance it
from our thoughts too. That's another way that we deal
with death. You just you know, you're trying not to
think about it or well, and of course we also
limit our intimacy with it, you know. So interesting question
here do you think that um as a as a HomeBuyer,
(04:21):
what do you think that does to the price of
a home? If your house is located next to a cemetery,
do you think that automatically brings the price of a
house down? Just wondering. I don't know, we should throw
that out to the listeners. Yeah, anybody, now, please do
tell us. I'm curious about this because seems like for
some folks that would be you would be a plus. Yeah,
kind of like a park but different. You know, it's
just dead people buried there. I guess there could be
(04:44):
people dead people buried in the park too, we just
don't know about. Yeah, I'd be more concerned about that
the unmarked graves there than the people who got it nice.
You know, let's talk a little bit more about death, well, particulately.
The study from a Chicago's Mount Sinai Hospital. This was
an interest king. Oh, yes, this is just a little
sidebar here. Um this Back in the nineteen sixties, Dr
(05:04):
Eric cast of Chicago's Mount Sinai Hospital, Um, he experimented
with giving dying patients LSD, which of course is so
you know, hallucinogen um. And he actually, this is not
something you can get funding for these days, but back
then this is possible. I imagine they flag research with
LSD in it. Yeah, but he ended up dosing like
(05:25):
eighty patients, you know, and seventy two reported, uh that
they gained like some sort of insight, like you know,
they that they were a part of the universe or
that you know, they felt better about, um, the end
that was coming to them. And we need to stress
they were not giving them to them like here, take
l s D and die. They were like, you're gonna
die soon, you know, it's it's bound to happen, you know,
(05:45):
in the in the immediate future. Here's some thinking about it.
These patients were all the hospice. Yeah, yeah, chronic we're
suffering from chronic conditions exactly. Yeah. So out of those
eight seventy two reported insight, fifty eight found it pleasant
and wanted to do it again. Of course, that's a
heck of a time in your life to find out
there's something you want to do more of, you know. Yeah, right, well,
(06:09):
so I was thinking about this when you when you
brought this study to my attention, and it was interesting
and that I think that taking elis you certainly could
alter your perspective on death. Um. But also I mean,
if you're hanging out at the boundary between life and death,
presumably this might be a transcendent experience. I mean this is,
of course, you know, highly subjective. This is me talking
(06:30):
about it. But if you're hanging out there on this
really crazy boundary between life and death, do you want
to obscure it with drugs? Wouldn't you want to be
a firsthand witness to it? I mean similar, I guess
you could look at it like we're talking about it before.
You know, also with birth, right you know some momentum
childbirth is painful, you know, and whether you whether or
(06:52):
not you want to take drugs in that scenario, you know,
bringing life into the world. It's just really interesting. I
was ying, Yeah, it's it's I keep going back and
forth on it when I really understand either way, just
just thinking about it now, it's interesting you mentioned about
it you know, being at this boundary point between life
and death. That's another thing that factors into our experience
with cemeteries. Obviously, graveyards are for the living, you know. Um,
(07:15):
I think we can agree, especially in a science podcast,
that the dead people don't care. You know, you can,
you can, you know, it's it's it's all about the
people who survive and wanting to have a place where
you can remember a loved one that's departed or honor
a loved one that's departed. So we you know, we
create these necropolis um you know, environments is um. You know,
(07:41):
we create these these these environments you know, full of
marble and stone and silent statues, and and it has
a very you know, anytime you go to a cemetery,
no matter what you're feelings on death, and you know
the hereafter, you know, happen to be um. You know,
it's it's a very somber environment. And we kind of
take that feeling of the boundary of life and death
(08:01):
and we we make a physical space out of it,
you know, and then you pour in a whole bunch
of you poor in religion, you pour in like folk tales,
you cultural tradition, cultural traditions and and horror movies TV,
all of it. You pour all that in and it
just intensifies that feeling. You know, it's um and creates
this kind of contested feeling. There's a contested space between
life and death. So you know, you walk into the
(08:24):
midst of all that, you're going to have some interesting
feelings going on, even if it isn't outright you know,
fear or you know, creepiness. So we had a childhood
a tradition. I don't know if you ever did this,
but you know, similar to the thing where you hold
your feet up when you're going over railroad tracks. Did
you ever do that? I don't know what the reasoning
there is. When you were driving by the cemetery, No, no no, no, okay,
(08:45):
So there's two separate superstitions at work here. When was
if you go over railrotchracks, you're supposed to hold your
feet up while you go over the railtrack. That never
did that. I don't really know what that especially while driving. No,
but you're supposed to hold your breath while you drove
past the cemetery, and that was really tricky if the
cemetery was was long, and I'm not sure what that
was based on either. So we always held our breath.
(09:05):
Now we had our breath when we went over bridges.
Oh yeah, in case you needed mean, it makes just
as much sense. But but no, we never did anything
curious with um. Some more stuff about just how we
viewed death that I found really interesting, according to philosophy
professor anton Than niekerk Um, Yeah, we come as a
(09:31):
culture to see dying not as something our bodies eventually do,
all right, but something that eventually happens to our bodies.
It's kind of you know, like think of it this way,
like your body eventually dies that I mean, that's a
true statement, but we often end up viewing it instead
in terms of like death happens to us. Death is
(09:53):
something that is like an exterior force is enacted upon us.
And you see that in religion and the mythology and
folk tales and and all in just art, you know,
you'll see death depicted as what right, which we have
a cool article on Bill Harris, right it. Yeah, that's
a that's a good thing. You know what came out
that was so interesting. And there's a whole Mexican cult
(10:15):
um that's like kind of an offshoot of grim Reaper stuff.
It's so interesting. The name is eluding me, right, yes, yes, yes, yeah, anyway, yeah,
so you have grim Reaper, you have the Angel of
Death and all this, right, but we don't really we
don't really have that, um. But well we still have
(10:35):
that today, but increasingly UM as a culture, we don't
really think about the Grim Reaper or they are change
all of death coming to us as a real thing. Okay,
So instead, according to sociologist Zigmut Bombing, we practice something
called quote the deconstruction of mortality. And and in that
(10:58):
deep deep for a podcasts Let's Let's roll out, he
says that we break down death into smaller pieces that
we can digest easily. So instead of like thinking about
just going like, oh my goodness, the yawning um you know,
weight of the tomb and the you know, the the
infinite nothingness or beyond death or through the infinite possibilities
beyond death, instead of getting torn down with all that,
(11:20):
we think about the biological functions of death. We think
about diseases and mental problems. Right yeah, and you can
you know, you break it down and you can then
you can you can sort of like assign those tasks off.
You know, it's like, oh, doctors here, take care of this,
you know, psychiatrist, psychologists, you to take care of this.
And then when the act actually occurs again, you know, increasingly,
(11:43):
especially in like western um, you know, society. You know,
it's like people, don't we have people to touch the
dead bodies for us to prepare them too. You know,
there's a whole industry, um you know that takes care
of that for us and removes us, you know, from
intimacy with death and the deceased, right and so cemeteries
being such a visible sign of our own demise is
(12:03):
problematic for us. That's what you're saying, right, Yeah, yeah,
that's that's what it comes on to a lot of people.
So you do have people who like really get you know,
I have an aversion to it, you know, like really
would rather not drive past the cemetery or as I
think about the memories involved in a cemetery, you know,
what if you saw I mean, if you had to
bury your mother or your father, family member, you know,
(12:24):
a friend or anything like that. I mean, they can
be associated with some pretty powerful memories, sad memories. So
there you have it. That's basically our cultural fears about
cemeteries in a nutshell, in a nutshell, indeed, a morbid nutshell. Yeah.
So whether or not you like cemeteries, let's talk about
the science of cemeteries or some of the science going
(12:46):
on at cemeteries. Yeah, this is pretty cool. I like
this study. Yeah, this is and this is a good
thing to think of. If you're you know, if you're
the type of person who goes to a cemetery and
you don't feel anything whatsoever, then this is perfect because yea,
do some science there. So what kind of science is
going on? Well, it all breaks down to this, um,
it breaks down. That's kind of funny considering what we're
(13:08):
about to talk about. You know, we're talking about Okay,
you have mortal body. You know it's going to decay
and die and decay and all that. So you put
a stone marker because the stone is gonna last forever, right, Yeah,
because you have like a marble slab. It may it's
gonna last longer than a human lifetime, you know, but
it's still gonna decay. We've all seen, you know, cemetery.
(13:30):
You know, cemetery upkeep is a you know, a constant
effort because you have tombstones are falling over, their crumbling,
they're flaking. And what's the reason for that? Acid rain? Well, yeah,
or just rain in general. Yeah, weathering, the weathering process,
what happens to us. All. Well, there's a certain acidity
to rain as it is, Um, I think the way
it breaks down. Rainwater is about a five point six
(13:52):
on the pH scale and that depends on area. Though, yeah,
go on, this is this is roughly but and to
put that in context, a pH zero row is essentially
battery acid and so the so each step up from
zero is less acidic, right, Okay, so rainwater five point six,
cup of coffee is five. Um. Stomach acid is like
(14:14):
a two. That's pretty strong. Acid rain is more like
a four. So acid rain is like one whole number, um,
you know, or over one whole number. Right, So acid
rain is a relatively weak acid on the whole. Yeah.
But but of course the thing is you have the
tombstone is out there in the open since the day
that it's you know, been planted, probably a little before,
(14:35):
and uh, and it's constantly getting hit with this stuff. Right.
So you looked up a pretty cool article um that
ran in Science World, and there's an. The author was
talking about how cemeteries wind up being this really great
unintentional geological experiment in which we can measure the effects
of acid rain um in a particular area. Yeah. I
(14:57):
think specifically they mentioned the Graveyard Project, and they've been around,
they have Great Stone Project. Yes, Uh, they've they've gone
around until just like hundreds and you know, hundreds of
cemeteries and looked at thousands of tombstones and U and
one of the things they look for is when you
have the letters you know, um, John Smith lies here, Yeah, exactly,
(15:20):
you know, when those are indented in the tombstone. There's
often lead in there too. The lead doesn't break down
under you know, all the rain and the weathering, so
that stays in place, so they can use that as
a frame of reference. He has a gauge to how
how much of the marble and stone has has been
eating a way by the rain. Yeah. And and of
(15:40):
course it's a tombstone, so it has a date on
it right there, so that that also helps. It's handy
for measurements. Yeah. Yeah, like you said, I think they're um,
they've gotten like hundreds of measurements from different cemeteries, so
it's pretty neat. Yeah, they can. They can study like
how the local weathering conditions work, you know, and and
then you know, compare them to what they might have
seen to be in the past, and then you know
(16:02):
analyze use that to analyze how how the atmosphere has
changed in the area. Right, And they can also compose
a worldwide weathering map to see what's going on different
patterns of acid rain in different areas, so you can
figure out what climate change is doing, figure out what
pollution is doing. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Let's talk of
a little bit about the high chech grades going on.
This fascinated me. Yeah. Yeah, we've talked a lot about
(16:23):
old crumby stuff and now we're talking about sort of
new fangled stuff. But I mean we've always kind of
been fascinated with graveyard technology. I mean, back in the day,
we would build mazes and pyramids to confuse grave robbers.
Um You even mentioned that there were bells to ring
from your casket, so that, yeah, well, because they had that,
(16:44):
there was always that fear that you're gonna be buried alive.
So you needed a little line out right, and you
couldn't just have a cell phone on you right right
that movie. It's up now. But in the old days
you would have like a string and you would hey, hey, guys,
don't don't bury me yet, she's gonna ring this spell
in case you haven't heard me screaming. Yeah, So that
that's graveyard technology right there. In action also had the locks, right, yeah,
(17:06):
because they especially in Victorian era, you had all the
corpse um body snatching going on. You know, you needed corpses,
you know, cadavers for for surgical studies and science. But
that was the only way to get him. You had
to hire some drunk guy to go out to the
cemetery and bus one open for you. But now we
have GPS going on in our graves. Yeah, this is
(17:26):
this is pretty cool. Um. I've read about this in
a number of places. There was a cool article on
Wired um and the idea is, like, you know, increasingly
green burials the thing. I think we've talked about this.
We have talked about it a little bit, but green
burial essentially just means that there's a whole being dug
in the ground. Um, I think you're the body is
placed in a shroud of some sort. Yeah, there's no
(17:49):
like embalming the body with a bunch of chemicals to
make it last a little longer. There's no like, you know,
giant metal casket. You know, is there even an exterior barrier?
I thought, I literally thought it was just the body
that is going in. I think I think a lot
of it is shrouds. Yeah, yeah, definitely no giant metal casket,
that's for sure. Right. So the problem with this, if
you can call it a problem, is that, um, it's
(18:10):
it's pretty inconspicuous. I mean, you could certainly place a
headstone there, but a lot of people are even moving
away from uh, putting a headstone. Yeah, because like the
idea of being, you want the body to return to
nature and you know, um, a graveyard is often a
very unnatural environment. Though I think it's the there's like
a really good um Unitarian cemetery, I think in Savannah.
(18:33):
Have you seen that, they let they let everything that
grow up. It's still a graveyard, they're still tombstones, but
they let the nature kind of take over. It's pretty
pretty swank. Well. So the tricky thing here is that's great,
you know about being one with nature and all that,
but it can be hard for a family member, say
to locate a body of a loved one, right and
again graves burial all that it's about the survivors. So
(18:56):
how do you extend the olive branch of them? Right?
So you send a little tag down with them when
you bury them, so that you can make sure that
you can locate the body in the future. Everything else
breaks down, you'll have this one little like radio dally
down there sending off the signal to tell you where
you know, uncle greg Um, you know, became one with nature,
so then you would use a little device to find it.
(19:16):
But it but it as cool as that is. I
can't help but think. You know, our our geo tagging
is so advanced now, and you know this technology is everywhere,
Like what's stopping someone now from just going out? You
know they have the natural barrier and just mark the
exact location and then just you know, find it with
you know, with that GPS device. That's true, you make
(19:39):
a good point there or a lambor. And what are
the Japanese doing? Well, Yeah, the Japanese are in a
situation where they have far less room to bury people.
I think about this a lot with New Orleans too. Yeah, yeah,
there's yeah, there's not not a lot of places there too,
but unless you want to rise and back up right well.
And and in Japan it's also big just to have
a place for like cremated ashes to go. But but
(20:01):
they also have a you know, a long standing tradition
of honoring you know, the dead being. You want to
be able to visit your your you know, your your
dead father, grandfather's grave and you know, and honor them
when you want. Sure, it's a big deal. And it's
very expensive though, if you if you're trying to keep
that amount of you know, that little space on a
shelf or that you know, that little plot somewhere going
you know, all the time. It's it's really pricing and
(20:23):
people think some serious dough into it. So the Japanese
is always very efficient when it comes to space. Have
created these high rise columbariums. Yeah, and that's uh, it's
kind of like a giant death vending machine essentially. It is. Yeah,
in Japanese Buddhism, the columbarium is called a no pseudo,
(20:43):
I believe, and uh, yeah, and it is this version
of it is like a giant vending machine with the
like robotic retrieval. Yeah, so you go to see Uncle Greg. Right,
Uncle Greg. Do you have an Uncle Greg? By the way,
I hope not, because poor Uncle Greg. Okay, Yeah, so
so Uncle Greg is actually like up on a like
(21:05):
a shelf and like the you know, the third floor
of this big um you know, necropolis condo deal, you know.
So so you go into a little little altar area. Yeah,
and if you shut a card, swipe it and that
tells the machine where Uncle Greg is stored. So then
the robotic retrieval system grabs Uncle Greg zips him down there.
(21:28):
Then the little doors open and voila, there's Uncle Greg
right there for you. That's pretty cool, it's pretty ingenious. Yeah,
it's a high tech solution to u, you know, a
very real problem. But there's one final thing we're gonna
cover that you can do with your ashes, which I'm
not surprised that you brought up because you are kind
of a music buff. I do like music, I'm not
as int like I have friends that are DJs and
(21:49):
they're super into vinyl. You know, friend of mine has
a basement just full of vinyl. So does death have
something to do with vinyl? Yes? It does. And there's
actually a company and the UK called and vinylly. It's
like and finally and vinyl, you know, and uh, and
what they'll do is pretty amazing. They will, um, they
(22:09):
will take your ashes and they will press them into
a vinyl record. I'm curious about the whole integration process
and how that works. Well, apparently they have to spread
the ashes have to be sprinkled onto the raw piece
of vinyl, which in the industry is known as like
a biscuit or a puck, and then they press it
into the plates. So it's you know, it's it's in there,
(22:30):
just pressed, you know, into it. So it's not just
the ashes being made into a record. And uh, and
it's you can actually play this, um, you know, on
a record player. They say that each one will be
like a twenty four minute track and for about two
thousand pounds, you know, you can get artwork and everything
and up to thirty discs with your ashes inside them. Okay,
(22:51):
so here's the thing. What song? Oh yeah, is this
a curious question. Actually, when I first found the story,
I threw it out on Twitter and ask a few people,
and I also threw it to d J Chiba in
the UK. Is a really cool DJ interview heading for
the blogs, and he said that he would go with
the end by the doors. That was really so it's
(23:15):
that's a that's a tough one to top. I would
probably personally go with something really beautiful and serene off
of one of one of the boards of Canada albums.
But that's just because you know, I like the serenity
of the sound, you know. But I think also people
would often do like some the ideas that you would do,
like a personal message on these see but I would
(23:36):
rather do the music I can well. And so I've
thought about my death mix. Have you not? Have you here?
Have you done this exercise? You know? People like to
imagine who's going to be at their funeral or service
or what have you. Um, sometimes I've thought about what
music I want to play at my funeral. I haven't
put together an actual set list, contemplated some songs that
(23:57):
I want, um a set list, and there's some by
Peter gay Real, but I cannot think of the song
by Peter Gabriel. The one that definitely comes to mind
is digging in the Dirt. But oh that's a good one. Um,
oh wait, I know a lot of Gabriel tints. Or
maybe you're thinking of Mercy Street. I love Mercy Street. Yeah,
Peter Gabriel, fine, fine man. Especially perhaps do you have
(24:18):
on Era your final album? Yeah? I would probably just
go to the boards of Canada album or if I
die before DJ ch that he can come in DJ
my my funeral. So I think that's all we have
for death in Cemeteries. I'm sure we've cheered you up
immensely today, but you know, we gotta get you guys
in the mood for Halloween. What do you what are
you hearing out there? Robert, You've got some We got
(24:38):
some really cool listener mail from Jeremy and uh. And
he sent us a lot of stuff and I don't
have time to go over a lot of it um here,
but he sent us like a really cool how dangerous
a Zombie um poster to kind of inform you. He
was responding to our Science Versus Monsters podcast, which was
the the other Halloween when we did well it have
(25:00):
been too back from from now along with the mad scientists,
right and uh and so he shared some thoughts on
monsters and all that tells. Here'll share something he said
about vampires, m vampires and the quote where the mathematician
talked about turning the population into vampires and dying out
in three years. Well, I'm a vampire buff love movies
and Laura, I watch about every movie that comes out
(25:21):
just to see the director, writer's take on vampires. I
even watched the horrible Twilight movies because of this and
everything that I've reached. And that's why you watched him.
It was that dude's hair. That's why I watched it. Um,
that's amazing anyway, that that was me, he says, Um,
vampires do not change someone just by biting them. There's
(25:41):
always more work involved. The reason being is that vampiresm
is not a disease, unlike lecanthropy, where wolves shape shifters.
I can see the point that the mathematician is trying
to make, but his point only would would work with
a very limited scope if any of the vampire legends.
I know you guys mentioned this after the fact, but
I wanted to reiterate this. Um. So that's cool. He's
(26:03):
you know, he's standing up for the vampire myths and
you know, pointing out that that study indeed, Um sort
of sort of tongue in cheek, but yeah, but they
still picked and shows exactly what version of the mythos
they were going to go with for that study, which
isn't very scientific very scientific. So if you guys want
to send us your thoughts and monsters, science or spooky stuff,
(26:28):
um send us Anino science stuff at how stuff worst
dot com yep, and but us visit us on Twitter
where we are lab stuff, or on Facebook career stuff
from the Science Lab. Thanks for listening, guys. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
(26:49):
stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check
out our blogs on the house stuff works dot com
home page
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