Scientists have worked out what would happen to a human body when exposed to a series of grisly scenarios.
These include
throwing yourself out of the International Space Station, digging a hole through the Earth and jumping through it, as well as sticking your hand in a particle accelerator.
Paul Doherty, a senior scientist at San Francisco’s Exploratorium, and his friend Cody Cassidy have painstakingly spent years calculating the effect certain gruesome scenarios could have on your body.
Doherty took questions from the public during a Reddit Q&A, revealing some of the most terrifying scenarios he’s come across.
We’ve rounded up some of the worst ways to die, so look away now if you’re squeamish.
Being consumed by a ‘bone-eating snot flower’
The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean.
It’s not the place to take a dip, but if you were so inclined, you’d be in for a nasty demise.
Doherty said you would drown before reaching the bottom, but if you took a submarine trip to the depths and went for a swim, there’s a variety of ways you might die.
He said: “Fortunately you’re mostly water, and water is incompressible. So you would retain your basic human shape.”
“The air pockets inside you, namely in your nasal cavity, throat and chest, would be a problem, though.”
“Those would collapse inward … Because you wouldn’t have any air, you wouldn’t float to the surface and you would likely stay at the bottom to be consumed by the bone-eating snot flowers, which usually eats whale bones but would probably make an exception in this case.”
Being inside an elevator that drops to the bottom floor
Work or live above the first floor?
If the elevator you’re taking suddenly drops before stopping, your “organs may keep falling even though your body has stopped,” Doherty revealed.
The best way to avoid this rather nasty ending is to lie flat on your back, spreading the G forces evenly through your body.
We dare you to try that one at work.
You should also note that the mechanics of the elevator will have a significant impact on whether you survive a failure.
If the shaft fits snugly enough, a pillow of air below the car should provide some cushioning.
“Crossing your fingers is also a good idea,” Doherty said.
Death by neutron star
A neutron star has several times the mass of the sun compressed into a sphere the size of a city.
If you ever find yourself falling into one, there are actually a few ways you might die.
You’ll probably be killed by radiation. But if the star is quieter than usual, you might get some time to free fall.
If your head is pointed toward the neutron star, it will be tugged toward the star much more strongly than your feet and you will be swiftly ripped apart.
But it gets worse.
Neutron stars are strong magnets.
According to Doherty, this means that human atoms will be “distorted into thin cigars and all the bonds between atoms that make up the molecules in your body are broken so you become a plasma-shaped human cloud that is tidally stretched and pulled into the star where you impact the surface and generate lethal gamma radiation.”
Don’t leave your hand in a particle accelerator
A scientist suffered horrific injuries after sticking his face in a highly radioactive particle accelerator.
Anatoli Bugorki paralyzed his face and nearly died from poisoning, suggesting that sticking any part of your body into the much stronger Large Hadron Collider could be fatal.
Jumping through the center of the Earth
It’s a classic physics homework problem, but jumping through a hole in the Earth is one of the worst ways to go.
If you were to dig a hole from pole to pole and travel through it in a plastic tube, you’d start cooking as you traveled through the center of the Earth.
The middle of our planet is hotter than the surface of the sun, after all.
There’s also the air crush problem, Doherty explained.
“The pressure and density of the air starts out doubling every 15,000 feet of depth (3 miles) so after 10 doublings at 15,000 feet and 30 miles, the air is as dense as water and you sink no further.”
In other words, you’d probably die miserably alone, hungry and stuck in a plastic tube — a fate that will sound familiar to most commuters.
Magnets could bungle your brain (sort of)
Magnets have been proven to cause frogs to hover, but also cause their molecules to tear apart.
Just like frogs, water in our bodies is diamagnetic (molecules can be pulled or repelled using a magnet).
No human has been killed by a magnet yet — but that’s only because a strong enough one doesn’t exist.
Bonus round: Things that won’t kill you
Losing your head seems like an obvious way to die.
But Doherty and Cassidy have met two people who survived after suffering nasty head accidents.
One man was missing 95 percent of his brain and still had an IQ of 126, Doherty claimed, and another named Phineas Gage survived having a 3-foot-long steel rod pass through his head.
Lack of sleep won’t kill you either.
You might lose muscle and cognitive function, but it returns after a good night’s sleep.
Reviewed and Reposted by BAKKACIMA.
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