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Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to Decomposition shortly after death. (2025). 9780128037133, Elsevier. ISBN 9780128037133 Some organisms, such as Turritopsis dohrnii, are biologically immortal; however, they can still die from means other than Senescence. Death is generally applied to whole organisms; the equivalent for individual components of an organism, such as cells or tissues, is necrosis. Something that is not considered an organism, such as a virus, can be physically destroyed but is not said to die, as a virus is not considered alive in the first place.
As of the early 21st century, 56 million people die per year. The most common reason is aging, followed by cardiovascular disease, which is a disease that affects the heart or . As of 2022, an estimated total of almost 110 billion humans have died, or roughly 94% of all humans to have ever lived. A substudy of gerontology known as biogerontology seeks to eliminate death by natural aging in humans, often through the application of natural processes found in certain organisms. However, as humans do not have the means to apply this to themselves, they have to use other ways to reach the maximum lifespan for a human, often through lifestyle changes, such as calorie reduction, dieting, and exercise. The idea of lifespan extension is considered and studied as a way for people to live longer.
Determining when a person has definitively died has proven difficult. Initially, death was defined as occurring when breathing and the heartbeat ceased, a status still known as clinical death. However, the development of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) meant that such a state was no longer strictly irreversible. Brain death was then considered a more fitting option, but several definitions exist for this. Some people believe that all brain functions must cease. Others believe that even if the brainstem is still alive, the personality and identity are irretrievably lost, so therefore, the person should be considered entirely dead. Brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death. For all organisms with a brain, death can instead be focused on this organ. The cause of death is usually considered important, and an autopsy can be done to determine it. There are many causes, from accidents to diseases.
Many cultures and religions have a concept of an afterlife. There are also different customs for honoring the body, such as a funeral, cremation, or sky burial. After a death, an obituary may be posted in a newspaper, and the "survived by" kin and friends usually go through the grieving process.
It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness. When consciousness ceases, an organism can be said to have died. One of the flaws in this approach is that there are many organisms that are alive but probably not conscious. Another problem is in defining consciousness, which has many different definitions given by modern scientists, psychologists and philosophers. Additionally, many religious traditions, including Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, hold that death does not (or may not) entail the end of consciousness. In certain cultures, death is more of a process than a single event. It implies a slow shift from one spiritual state to another.
Other definitions for death focus on the character of cessation of organismic functioning and human death, which refers to irreversible loss of personhood. More specifically, death occurs when a living entity experiences irreversible cessation of all functioning. As it pertains to human life, death is an irreversible process where someone loses their existence as a person.
The category of "brain death" is seen as problematic by some scholars. For instance, Dr. Franklin Miller, a senior faculty member at the Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, notes: "By the late 1990s... the equation of brain death with death of the human being was increasingly challenged by scholars, based on evidence regarding the array of biological functioning displayed by patients correctly diagnosed as having this condition who were maintained on mechanical ventilation for substantial periods of time. These patients maintained the ability to sustain circulation and respiration, control temperature, excrete wastes, heal wounds, fight infections and, most dramatically, to gestate fetuses (in the case of pregnant "brain-dead" women)."
While "brain death" is viewed as problematic by some scholars, there are proponents of it that believe this definition of death is the most reasonable for distinguishing life from death. The reasoning behind the support for this definition is that brain death has a set of criteria that is reliable and reproducible. Also, the brain is crucial in determining our identity or who we are as human beings. The distinction should be made that "brain death" cannot be equated with one in a vegetative state or coma, in that the former situation describes a state that is beyond recovery.
EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses, while certain drugs, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, or hypothermia can suppress or even stop brain activity temporarily; because of this, hospitals have protocols for determining brain death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals under defined conditions.
The stages that follow after death are: (2025). 9780080470665, Elsevier Academic Press. ISBN 9780080470665
In cases of electric shock, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for an hour or longer can allow stunned to recover, allowing an apparently dead person to survive. People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room. This "diving response," in which metabolism and oxygen requirements are minimal, is something humans share with called the mammalian diving reflex.
As medical technologies advance, ideas about when death occurs may have to be reevaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death (as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death). The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead. Therefore, the concept of information-theoretic death has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death occurs, though the concept has few practical applications outside the field of cryonics.
In developing nations, inferior sanitary conditions and lack of access to modern medical technology make death from infectious diseases more common than in developed countries. One such disease is tuberculosis, a bacterial disease that killed 1.8 million people in 2015. In 2004, malaria caused about 2.7 million deaths annually. The AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90–100 million by 2025.
According to Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Reporter on the Right to Food, 2000 – Mar 2008, mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58% of the total mortality rate in 2006. Ziegler says worldwide, approximately 62 million people died from all causes and of those deaths, more than 36 million died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in .Jean Ziegler, L'Empire de la honte, Fayard, 2007 p. 130.
Tobacco smoking killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people worldwide in the 21st century, a World Health Organization report warned.
Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by diet and physical fitness, but the accelerating incidence of disease with age still imposes limits on human longevity. The evolutionary cause of aging is, at best, only beginning to be understood. It has been suggested that direct intervention in the aging process may now be the most effective intervention against major causes of death.
Hans Selye proposed a unified non-specific approach to many causes of death. He demonstrated that stress decreases the adaptability of an organism and proposed to describe adaptability as a special resource, adaptation energy. The animal dies when this resource is exhausted. Selye assumed that adaptability is a finite supply presented at birth. Later, Goldstone proposed the concept of production or income of adaptation energy which may be stored (up to a limit) as a capital reserve of adaptation. In recent works, adaptation energy is considered an internal coordinate on the "dominant path" in the model of adaptation. It is demonstrated that oscillations of well-being appear when the reserve of adaptability is almost exhausted.
In 2012, suicide overtook car crashes as the leading cause of human injury deaths in the U.S., followed by poisoning, falls, and murder.
Accidents and disasters, from nuclear disasters to structural collapses, also claim lives. One of the deadliest incidents of all time is the 1975 Banqiao Dam Failure, with varying estimates, up to 240,000 dead. Other incidents with high death tolls are the Wanggongchang explosion (when a gunpowder factory ended up with 20,000 deaths), a collapse of a wall of Circus Maximus that killed 13,000 people, and the Chernobyl disaster that killed between 95 and 4,000 people.
kill around 45,000 people annually, although this number can vary from thousands to millions on a per-decade basis. Some of the deadliest natural disasters are the 1931 China floods, which killed an estimated 4 million people, although estimates widely vary; the 1887 Yellow River flood, which killed an estimated 2 million people in China; and the 1970 Bhola cyclone, which killed as many as 500,000 people in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). If naturally occurring are considered natural disasters, the Chinese famine of 1906–1907, which killed 15–20 million people, can be considered the deadliest natural disaster in recorded history.
In animals, predation can be a common cause of death. Livestock have a 6% death rate from predation. However, younger animals are more susceptible to predation. For example, 50% of young foxes die to birds, , , and Cannibalism as well. Young bear cubs in the Yellowstone National Park only have a 40% chance to survive to adulthood from other bears and predators.
Autopsies are either performed for legal or medical purposes. A forensic autopsy is carried out when the cause of death may be a criminal matter, while a clinical or academic autopsy is performed to find the medical cause of death and is used in cases of unknown or uncertain death, or for research purposes. Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices, and those where the body is dissected and an internal examination is conducted. Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases. Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is generally reconstituted by sewing it back together.
A necropsy, which is not always a medical procedure, was a term previously used to describe an unregulated postmortem examination. In modern times, this term is more commonly associated with the corpses of animals.
Almost all animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning eventually die from Senescence, known in life sciences as "senescence." Some organisms experience negligible senescence, even exhibiting biological immortality. These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, the hydra, and the planarian. Unnatural causes of death include suicide and predation. Of all causes, roughly 150,000 people die around the world each day. Of these, two-thirds die directly or indirectly due to senescence, but in industrialized countries – such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany – the rate approaches 90% (i.e., nearly nine out of ten of all deaths are related to senescence).
Physiological death is now seen as a process, more than an event: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible. Where in the process, a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working human heart and human lung determined to be brain death can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring.
The average lifespan is determined by vulnerability to and age or lifestyle-related afflictions such as cancer or cardiovascular disease. Extension of lifespan can be achieved by good diet, exercise, and avoidance of hazards such as tobacco smoking. Maximum lifespan is determined by the rate of aging for a species inherent in its . A recognized method of extending maximum lifespan is calorie restriction. Theoretically, the extension of the maximum lifespan can be achieved by reducing the rate of aging damage, by periodic replacement of damaged tissues, molecular repair, or rejuvenation of deteriorated cells and tissues.
A United States poll found religious and irreligious people, as well as men and women and people of different economic classes, have similar rates of support for life extension, while Africans and Hispanics have higher rates of support than white people. 38% said they would desire to have their aging process cured.
Researchers of life extension can be known as "biomedical ." They try to understand aging, and develop treatments to reverse aging processes, or at least slow them for the improvement of health and maintenance of youthfulness. Those who use life extension findings and apply them to themselves are called "life extensionists" or "longevists." The primary life extension strategy currently is to apply anti-aging methods to attempt to live long enough to benefit from a cure for aging.
Cryopreservation of people and other large animals is not reversible with current technology. The stated rationale for cryonics is that people who are considered dead by current legal or medical definitions, may not necessarily be dead according to the more stringent 'information-theoretic' definition of death.
Some scientific literature is claimed to support the feasibility of cryonics. Medical science and Cryobiology generally regard cryonics with skepticism.
Mortality salience is the awareness that death is inevitable. However, self-esteem and culture are ways to reduce the anxiety this effect can cause. The awareness of someone's own death can cause a deepened bond in their in-group as a defense mechanism. This can also cause the person to become very judging. In a study, two groups were formed; one group was asked to reflect upon their mortality, the other was not, afterwards, the groups were told to set a Bail bond for a prostitute. The group that did not reflect on death had an average of $50, the group who was reminded about their death had an average of $455.
Different people have different responses to the idea of their deaths. Philosopher Galen Strawson writes that the death that many people wish for is an instant, painless, unexperienced annihilation. In this unlikely scenario, the person dies without realizing it and without being able to fear it. One moment the person is walking, eating, or sleeping, and the next moment, the person is dead. Strawson reasons that this type of death would not take anything away from the person, as he believes a person cannot have a legitimate claim to ownership in the future. (2025). 9780198777885 ISBN 9780198777885
Commemoration ceremonies after death may include various mourning, funeral practices, and ceremonies of honoring the deceased. The physical remains of a person, commonly known as a corpse or body, are usually burial whole or cremated, though among the world's cultures, there are a variety of other methods of mortuary disposal. In the English language, blessings directed towards a dead person include rest in peace (originally the Latin, requiescat in pace) or its initialism RIP.
Death is the center of many traditions and organizations; customs relating to death are a feature of every culture around the world. Much of this revolves around the care of the dead, as well as the afterlife and the disposal of bodies upon the onset of death. The disposal of human corpses does, in general, begin with the last offices before significant time has passed, and ritualistic ceremonies often occur, most commonly interment or cremation. This is not a unified practice; in Tibet, for instance, the body is given a sky burial and left on a mountain top. Proper preparation for death and techniques and ceremonies for producing the ability to transfer one's spiritual attainments into another body (reincarnation) are subjects of detailed study in Tibet. Mummification or embalming is also prevalent in some cultures to retard the rate of Decomposition. The rise of secularism resulted in material mementos of death declining.
Some parts of death in culture are legally based, having laws for when death occurs, such as the receiving of a death certificate, the settlement of the deceased estate, and the issues of inheritance and, in some countries, .
Capital punishment is also a culturally divisive aspect of death. In most jurisdictions where capital punishment is carried out today, the death penalty is reserved for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries, sexual crimes, such as adultery and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes, such as apostasy, the formal renunciation of one's religion. In many retentionist countries, drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world, courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny. Mutiny is punishable by death in the United States.
Death in warfare and also have cultural links, and the ideas of dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which translates to "It is sweet and proper to die for one's country", is a concept that dates to antiquity. Additionally, grieving relatives of dead soldiers and death notification are embedded in many cultures. Recently in the Western world—with the increase in terrorism following the September 11 attacks but also further back in time with suicide bombings, kamikaze missions in World War II, and suicide missions in a host of other conflicts in history—death for a cause by way of suicide attack, including martyrdom, have had significant cultural impacts.
Suicide, in general, and particularly euthanasia, are also points of cultural debate. Both acts are understood very differently in different cultures. In Japan, for example, ending a life with honor by seppuku was considered a desirable death, whereas according to traditional Christian and Islamic cultures, suicide is viewed as a sin.
Death is personified in many cultures, with such symbolic representations as the Grim Reaper, Azrael, the Hindu god Yama, and Father Time. In western cultures, the Grim Reaper, or figures similar to it, is the most popular depiction of death.
In Brazil, death is counted officially when it is registered by existing family members at a cartório, a government-authorized registry. Before being able to file for an official death, the deceased must have been registered for an official birth at the cartório. Though a Public Registry Law guarantees all Brazilian citizens the right to register deaths, regardless of their financial means of their family members (often children), the Brazilian government has not taken away the burden, the hidden costs, and fees of filing for a death. For many impoverished families, the indirect costs and burden of filing for a death lead to a more appealing, unofficial, local, and cultural burial, which, in turn, raises the debate about inaccurate mortality rates.
Talking about death and witnessing it is a Grief in most cultures. Western societies may like to treat the dead with the utmost material respect, with an official embalmer and associated rites. Eastern societies (like India) may be more open to accepting it as a fait accompli, with a funeral procession of the dead body ending in an open-air burning-to-ashes. (2025). 9780700712670, Routledge. ISBN 9780700712670
Near-death experiences (NDEs) describe the Qualia associated with impending death. Some survivors of such experiences report it as "seeing the afterlife while they were dying". Seeing a being of light and talking with it, Life review, and the confirmation of cultural beliefs of the afterlife are common themes in NDEs. (2025). 9780313358654, ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9780313358654
also play a vital role, raising the temperature of the decomposing matter as they break it down into yet simpler molecules. Not all materials need to be fully decomposed. Coal, a fossil fuel formed over vast tracts of time in swamp ecosystems, is one example.
Death also has a role in competition, where if a species out-competes another, there is a risk of death for the population, especially in the case where they are directly fighting over resources.
Organisms showing only asexual reproduction, such as bacteria, some , like the and many , and unicellular organisms with sexual reproduction, colonial or not, like the Volvocales algae Pandorina and Chlamydomonas, are "immortal" at some extent, dying only due to external hazards, like being eaten or meeting with a fatal accident. In multicellular organisms and also in multinucleate ciliates (2025). 9780199657148 ISBN 9780199657148 with a Weismann barrier, that is, with a division of labor between mortal somatic cells and "immortal" germ cell, death becomes an essential part of life, at least for the somatic line.
The Volvox algae are among the simplest organisms to exhibit that division of labor between two completely different cell types, and as a consequence, include the death of somatic line as a regular, genetically regulated part of its life history.
Furthermore, anthropologist Barbara J. King has suggested that one way to evaluate the expression of grief in animals is to look for altered behaviors such as social withdrawal, disrupted eating or sleeping, expression of affect, or increased stress reactions in response to the death of a family member, mate, or friend. (2025). 9780226155203, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226155203 These criteria do not assume the ability to anticipate death, understand its finality, or experience emotions equivalent to those of humans, but at the same time do not rule out the possibility of those abilities existing in some animals or that different kinds of emotional experiences might constitute grief. Based on these criteria, King gives examples of observed potential mourning behaviors in animals such as cetaceans, apes and monkeys, elephants, domesticated animals (including dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, and farmed animals), giraffes, peccaries, donkeys, prairie voles, and some species of birds.
A volcano, a break in the earth's crust that allows lava, Pyroclastic flow to escape, has three states that it may be in, active, dormant, and extinct. An active volcano has recently or is currently Erupting volcano; in a dormant volcano, it has not erupted for a significant amount of time, but it may erupt again; in an extinct volcano, it may be cut off from the supply of its lava and will never be expected to erupt again, so the volcano can be considered to be dead.
A battery can be considered dead after the charge is fully used up. Electrical components are similar in this fashion, in the case that it may not be able to be used again, such as after a spill of water on the components, the component can be considered dead.
Stars also have a life-span and, therefore, can die. After it starts to run out of fuel, it starts to expand, this can be analogous to the star aging. After it exhausts all fuel, it may explode in a supernova, collapse into a black hole, or turn into a neutron star.
Death is part of several key Buddhist tenets, such as the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination.
Usually, the process of reincarnation makes one forget all memories of one's previous life. Because nothing really dies and the temporary material body is always changing, both in this life and the next, death means forgetfulness of one's previous experiences.
Muslims believe death to be wholly natural and predetermined by God. Only God knows the exact time of a person's death. Quran emphasizes that death is inevitable, no matter how much people try to escape death, it will reach everyone. () Life on earth is the one and only chance for people to prepare themselves for the life to come and choose to either believe or not believe in God, and death is the end of that learning opportunity.
The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms. When a person has died, it is also said they have "passed away", "passed on", "expired", or "gone", among other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms.
As a formal reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in "the deceased"; another noun form is "".
Bereft of life, the dead person is a "corpse", "cadaver", "body", "set of remains", or when all flesh is gone, a "skeleton". The terms "carrion" and "carcass" are also used, usually for dead non-human animals. The ashes left after a cremation are lately called "cremains".
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