How long does it take your body to decompose after you die?
818347
not so sure about the amount of time it takes for you to decompose. i guess it has alot to do with where you are  buried (temperarure and weather wise) and in what type of casket.  ive heard that things like hair and finger nails continue to grow after you are dead...im guessing your eyes and tongue dry out and eventually whither away.
270930
Not very long. In most circumstance 5-7 minutes. However, in some cases, let's say, when someone falls into a half frozen pond or something, the cold is suppose to slow down their body system enough that there have been a few cases where people have been pulled out of FREEZING water 20 minutes later and they lived. Some may have had brain damage but they lived. I hope this helps!
412862
Premature Burial.\nIn other words (for those ignorant twats among you)...being buried alive.\n\nThink about it.  You fall into an unusually deep sleep or perhaps a coma and people mistake it for death.  Perhaps you fell victim to some voodoo curse that removes your vital signs temporarily.  They have the funeral and then bury your ass in your fancy coffin in 6 feet of dirt.\nYou wake up the first night after you are buried.  It is dark and confined.  What happened to you?  Last thing you remember was going to sleep normally.  Imagine the terror.  And imagine it escalate when you feel the silky linings of your casket and realize what has happened to you.  You pound feverishly at the coffin lid but no one will be hearing you.  You will just fade away when the oxygen does.\nIt is cruel because it allowed you enough time to become aware and then to realize your fate and then understand that Jesus isn't there to help prevent your untimely demise.  \n\nOf course being buried alive in other, less traditional ways is just as bad.  \nLike if you were buried alive in a molasses flood.  Trapped as if you were a prehistoric mosquito in amber.\nYour scientific importance in 1000 years matters little to you as you understand you are being buried in Aunt Jemima.\nMaybe millions of dog volunteer workers from around the world will come and lick you out out of your hardened, sweet and sticky tomb but I doubt it.  \n\nThere are some other bad ways to die my goodbitches, but I am off to get some lunch.\n\n\n.
978815
My religion has an idea about what happens after death, but it's a little different from others.\nWhen I die, the components of my body are supposed to go back into nature via the natural processes. I am not supposed to be cremated or embalmed or sealed into an impermeable casket. I am to be buried in dirt in the simplest possible wooden box, so that the earth can re-claim the material that has made up my formerly-living body.\nI will not remain aware of myself as a human. I may experience some molecular "memory" as I am assimilated into various other organisms.\nIf I leave a child behind when I go, my genetic material continues to live. If I leave recorded art or literature, a part of my mind continues to live. If someone loves me while I'm alive and remembers me fodly after I die, then a part of my emotion survives.\nThat's about it. I don't need more than that.
1072730
I am so sorry about your grandfather. It is impossible for anyone to give you an exact amount of time he has left. However, if he is being cared for by a hospice agency, then his doctor has determined that he has less than 6 months (give or take - you just never know)\nSome signs of impending death are:\nDecreased eating/drinking\nA decrease in urine output\nExtremities become cool and dark\nirregular breathing pattern\na collection of secretions in the mouth/throat - so that it "rattles"when they breath\nI am sorry I can't give you more specific information - no one can.\nI wish you the best.
676688
if you dont breath for more then 4 minutes the brain cells start dieing - to hold on for longer would require a lot of practise. generally you pass out and the brain automatically starts the breathing process.\nonce brain cells die - there is no recovery - and you never know what part of the brain is dieing
2357
It is a myth that hair keeps growing after we die. As our bodies begin to decompose after death we loose moisture and skin begins to shrink but hair and nails do not shrink therefore making it appear to be growing.
545846
without dying you mean? depending on the person..maybe 2 weeks..maybe.
668393
the answer is 6-10 minutes if u are healthy, the question was how long u can LIVE not stay conscious. therefore the body organs and cells can last from 6-10 minutes.furthermore 4-6 minutes without minutes without breathing the cells begin to deteriorate, then 6-10 minutes without breathing the cells begin to die. u can only be resucitated after 10 minutes ONLY if your core temperature is well below normal hypothermic.
970442
A few hours after a person or animal dies, the joints of the body stiffen and become locked in place. This stiffening is called rigor mortis. Depending on temperature and other conditions, rigor mortis lasts approximately 72 hours. The phenomenon is caused by the skeletal muscles partially contracting. The muscles are unable to relax, so the joints become fixed in place. \nMore specifically, what happens is that the membranes of muscle cells become more permeable to calcium ions. Living muscle cells expend energy to transport calcium ions to the outside of the cells. The calcium ions that flow into the muscle cells promote the cross-bridge attachment between actin and myosin, two types of fibers that work together in muscle contraction. The muscle fibers ratchet shorter and shorter until they are fully contracted or as long as the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and the energy molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) are present. \n\nHowever, muscles need ATP in order to release from a contracted state (it is used to pump the calcium out of the cells so the fibers can unlatch from each other). ATP reserves are quickly exhausted from the muscle contraction and other cellular processes. This means that the actin and myosin fibers will remain linked until the muscles themselves start to decompose. \nRigor mortis can be used to help estimate time of death. The onset of rigor mortis may range from 10 minutes to several hours, depending on factors including temperature (rapid cooling of a body can inhibit rigor mortis, but it occurs upon thawing). Maximum stiffness is reached around 12-24 hours post mortem. Facial muscles are affected first, with the rigor then spreading to other parts of the body. The joints are stiff for 1-3 days, but after this time general tissue decay and leaking of lysosomal intracellular digestive enzymes will cause the muscles to relax.
1013414
ANSWER 1: When a person drowns, water takes the place of air in the lungs. The body becomes heavier and sinks. It stays there until enough gas builds up inside the body from bacterial decomposition to make it buoyant and free it from the suction that silt and mud creates on the river bed, so that it surfaces. \n\nHow long this takes depends on the depth and temperature of the water, the amount of sunlight the corpse receives, and whether it is lying under a ledge or a bridge. \n\nWhether the body is lying on the north or south side of a waterway can also affect the time it takes to rise, because heating of the water varies on each bank. \n\nObviously, the body can take longer to rise if it is underneath something like a tree, or is caught by an underwater obstruction. I once studied a body that had risen to the surface with part of a brick wall tied to it by ropes around the chest. There were five bricks covered with mortar on each side of the body and still it floated. \n\nWhat's more, if a body is trapped by, say, its leg, the gases will keep forming until it is buoyant enough to detach itself from the trapped leg and rise up. \n\nBodies can also be washed into the side of a river and remain undiscovered, below an overhanging tree, for example. \n\nDebris piles up on top of the body and silt accumulates. If the body lies out of the Sun's rays, which cause much more rapid decomposition, it can remain there until a flood washes away the silt and debris. \n\nOf course, if the water is cold enough, the dead body may be held in "deep freeze" and it might never rise._New Scientist \n\n\nANSWER 2: Dead bodies undergo a series of changes, biological, chemical and physical, which eventually return the body's components to the food chain. \n\nThese changes and the speed of decomposition depend on where the body is. Decomposition in air is roughly twice as fast as it is underwater and about four times as fast as underground. \n\nA living person has almost the same density as water: when you breath in, you float, and when you breath out, you sink. \n\nThis is why dead bodies sink initially. \n\nThen the changes begin, and one of the most important is the bacterial decomposition of sugars and proteins in the tissues, mainly coliforms, Clostridium, Psedomonas and Proteus species. \n\nThese are anaerobic bacteria that normally live inside the large intestine, though they may come from an infected wound, such as gangrene. \n\nAs they feed on the decaying flesh, the bacteria excrete gases carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide which inflate some body parts, mainly the face, abdomen and male genitals. \n\nBodies usually stay underwater for between one and two weeks, although this varies widely and some bodies never come up at all. One of the factors which affects this is the temperature of the water. \n\nContrary to common belief, there is no significant difference between the time it takes for male and female corpses to resurface. There is one notable difference though: while most corpses rise with spine uppermost, women and obese persons may rise face-up. This is caused by gas forming in breasts and large abdomens.
789560
The body begins to canabalize itself, starting with muscle tissue and then fat I believe.  Forty days is probably close to the limit for survival if not well beyond it.  Dehydration will kill much more quickly though, more like 3-4 days if I'm not mistaken.
310592
Many people believe that a person's hair, fingernails and toenails continue to grow after death. Despite what you may have read or seen in the movies, this is false. Once a person has died all growth of the hair and nails ceases. After death the body dehydrates and the skin around the hair and nails will recede a little making it appear as the deceased's nails and hair have grown. However, it is only an optical illusion. The nails and hair remains the same length as before but more of it is exposed due to tissue shrinkage.
656787
A newly dead human being, or any other animal, will sink when placed in water.  After the gases of decomposition build up in the chest and abdomen, however, the body will inflate, rise like a hydrogen-filled balloon, and pop to the surface, sometimes dragging with it surprisingly heavy weights that a murderer might have thought sufficient to keep it down.   With the passage of time and further decomposition, however, the body cavities eventually rupture, the gas escapes, and the corpse goes down again, this time for good.\n\nThere is one notable exception:  sometimes, due to air caught in the clothing, a body will stay on the surface for several hours before sinking.
860526
Rigor mortis is a condition that affects the muscles, not the bones.  It is a chemical condition that occurs after death.  It isn't permanent, it usually disappears after 24 hours.  Then the body goes limp again.
329485
Animal remains of all kinds decompose at different rates depending upon whether and/or how they were embalmed, presence and/or type of coffin, the soil type, ambient temperature, general climate conditions, and activity of other organisms, including bacteria and insects.\n\nAs mentioned by a previous responder, bones rarely decompose entirely, however they may become extremely delicate and/or fragmentary due to soil chemistry, water, compression, and disturbance.\n\nA great deal of study and experimentation in recent years has been devoted to studying rates of decomposition of bodies for forensic information, including the effects of temperature, climate, burial at various depths, placement in various other items such as plastic bags, coolers, boxes, car trunks, etc,; and the study of the life-cycles of insects to help determine the amount of time since death.
626180
that depends on environment.  a warm, humid environment will deteriorate a corpse much faster than a cool, dry one.  For instance, extremely well preserved remains have been found high in mountainous regions thousands of years old.  But a body left in a swampy region will be extremely deteriorated within a matter of days or weeks.