To me when you die you are just entering the next phase, and I don't mean spiritually. That's a topic for another debate. (only don't let it get too rowdy around here!! lol lol) You can spend your next phase all by yourself in a dark box underneath a bit of earth, you can always skip the phase all together and be cremated, or you can make yourself more useful than you probably were in life by donating your body. You get to go to all different places and do all sorts of new and interesting things. I'd do it for sure. It's sort of like "Join The Navy And See The World"!!

RAmen brother! /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

most of what we do with a loved one's remains has more to do with our needs than the world's.

This is SO true! The "sacred" rituals of death are mostly for the family, whether it be a funeral or sitting Grandpa Joe on the mantle place. At least with organ or body donation, you have some say over your body after death.

For me, nothing would be worse than some well intentioned family member sticking me in a dress and displaying me in a box. *shudder*

This is probably the wrong time and place for this post, but I have to do it…someone earlier said that one of the uses for bodies donated to science was crash test dummy?

There's a story that circulated (have to double check scopes) i'm not sure whether true or joke but here goes. Back in the day the US military was having a problem w/birds flying through the windshields of the war planes so engineers were wracking their brains to develop an accurate test. They created a launcher and fine tuned its calibrations to best represent the velocity of a bird in flight hitting the windshield. But still w/dismal results. They finally asked the British what they use and the Brits replied frozen chickens. So the US engineers loaded up their launchers and let loose but the same problem no glass could withstand the force of the hit. One day the British engineers went to the test facilities to see how they were progressing and looked on in horror at the carnage in the testing area. The US engineers said no matter how they changed the formula it was always the same….the British shook their heads sadly and told them…we use frozen chickens but we THAW them out first.

In a similar topic, it was reported that NASA spent millions and millions of dollars trying to develop ink that could be used in pens by the astronauts while they were in space….the Soviets gave the cosmonauts pencils.

Didn't the Myth Busters test the chicken theory out?

They may have I remember them doing something like that some time ago….for some reason Monkette took them off the DVR sked…they're local to us in the Bay area

Here is the YouTube clip of the chicken gun. And yes, the myth was based on a story from NASA.

MB Chicken Gun