News, Events, etc.

Interesting (I think) blog read from Richard Conniff (the author of House Of Lost Worlds: Dinosaurs, Dynasties, And The Story Of Life On Earth) in the Straits Times:

The funeral industry has endeavoured lately to give cremation a rosy environmental glow. There's lots of talk about recycling lightly singed titanium implants. In Redditch, England, the heat generated in a local crematory from the fat of the dearly departed now gets piped over - I'm not making this up - to warm the water in a town swimming pool. But the typical cremation still produces a disturbing mix of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. And somebody always gets stuck with the ashes.

Anyway, the full blog articles is here.

The ABC's news site makes mention of a coffin-making community group has popped up in Tasmania's north-west, allowing people to make their caskets dirt cheap. The Community Coffin Club meets once a week at the Ulverstone Community Shed, where mentors help people make coffins for themselves and their family.

The CCANSW extends a warm welcome to its lates member, Norwalk Precast Burial Systems Pty Ltd,  makers of Norwalk Pre-Cast Concrete Burial Vaults, Pre-Cast Mausoleums and Modular Mausoleum Components.

What exactly is a body farm? Professor Shari Forbes explains what happens when people donate their bodies to science.

Hidden deep in the Blue Mountains is the Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research, a research facility run by UTS. It’s commonly shortened to AFTER, but many know it by another name: the body farm. It’s here where leading scientific researcher professor Shari Forbes spends most of her time surrounded by decomposing dead bodies. Morbid, yes, but fascinating both to science fiends and CSI fans.

TIME (US) reports one out of every two Americans chose cremation over burial in 2016. According to newly released industry figures, the first time the cremation rate reached 50% in the U.S.The nation's embrace of cremation marks a dramatic change from previous decades. In the 1970s, the cremation rate was just 5%. It rose to 27.1% in 2001, but has nearly doubled in the years since. Last year the U.S. cremation rate was 50.1%, according to the Cremation Association of North America (CANA), and in 2015, cremation rates outpaced burial for the first time.

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