3 Our bodies can twitch
In what must have scared earlier peoples and made them believe in the undead, our bodies can twitch and flex for hours after death. As muscle tissues die, they can contract. If enough contract, a visible muscle twitch or reflex can be seen, making it seem like the corpse is trying to regain consciousness. (To find out about the strangest human muscle to contract after death, check out #2.)
4 Our hair and nails don’t keep growing
A commonly-held myth states that our hair and nails continue growing after death. In fact, after our bodies die, our skin loses moisture, causing the skin on our entire body to shrink. The shrinkage exposes more of our nail cuticles and hair follicles, making them appear longer.
5 We empty our bowels
Commonly joked about on sitcoms, this fact does actually happens to our bodies when we die. As rigor mortis is affecting most of the body, some parts (sphincters, more accurately) are being loosened. Since the brain keeps our bodies’ sphincters closed as part of its regulation of involuntary functions, when the brain shuts down, the sphincters open, leading a corpse to rid itself of urine or feces left in the body.
Discussion about this post