Death

Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism.^[2] Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose shortly after death.^[3] Some organisms, such as Turritopsis dohrnii, are biologically immortal; however, they can still die from means other than aging.^[4] Death is generally applied to whole organisms; the equivalent for individual components of an organism, such as cells or tissues, is necrosis.^[5] 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.^[6]

As of the early 21st century, 56 million people die per year. The most common reason is

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.^[12] However, the development of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) meant that such a state was no longer strictly irreversible.^[13] 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.^[14] Brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death.^[15] For all organisms with a brain, death can instead be focused on this organ.^[16][17] 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

There are many scientific approaches and various interpretations of the concept. Additionally, the advent of life-sustaining therapy and the numerous criteria for defining death from both a medical and legal standpoint have made it difficult to create a single unifying definition.^[19]

One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life. As a point in time, death seems to refer to the moment when life ends. Determining when death has occurred is difficult, as cessation of life functions is often not simultaneous across organ systems.^[20] Such determination, therefore, requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death. This is difficult due to there being little consensus on how to define life.

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.

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.[24] As it pertains to human life, death is an irreversible process where someone loses their existence as a person.^[24]

Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of a human's death have been subjective or imprecise. Death was defined as the cessation of

Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead;^[26] people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases.^[27] It is presumed that an end of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness.^[28] Suspension of consciousness must be permanent and not transient, as occurs during certain sleep stages, and especially a coma.^[29] In the case of sleep, electroencephalograms (EEGs) are used to tell the difference.^[30]

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)."^[31]

While "brain death" is viewed as problematic by some scholars, there are proponents of it^[who?] 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.^[32]

EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses, while certain drugs,

One view is that the neocortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness, and that therefore only electrical activity of the neocortex should be considered when defining death. Eventually, the criterion for death may be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone, given current and foreseeable medical technology.^[14] Even by whole-brain criteria, the determination of brain death can be complicated.

At present, in most places, the more conservative definition of death (irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the neo-cortex) has been adopted. One example is the

Aside from the issue of support of or dispute against brain death, there is another inherent problem in this categorical definition: the variability of its application in medical practice. In 1995, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) established the criteria that became the medical standard for diagnosing neurologic death. At that time, three clinical features had to be satisfied to determine "irreversible cessation" of the total brain, including coma with clear etiology, cessation of breathing, and lack of brainstem reflexes.[38] These criteria were updated again, most recently in 2010, but substantial discrepancies remain across hospitals and medical specialties.^[38]

The problem of defining death is especially imperative as it pertains to the

Signs of death or strong indications that a warm-blooded animal is no longer alive are:^[39]

• Respiratory arrest (no breathing)
• Cardiac arrest (no pulse)
• Brain death (no neuronal activity)

The stages that follow after death are:^[40]

• Pallor mortis, paleness which happens in 15–120 minutes after death
• Algor mortis, the reduction in body temperature following death. This is generally a steady decline until matching ambient temperature
• Rigor mortis, the limbs of the corpse become stiff (Latin rigor) and difficult to move or manipulate
• Livor mortis, a settling of the blood in the lower (dependent) portion of the body
• Putrefaction, the beginning signs of decomposition
• Decomposition, the reduction into simpler forms of matter, accompanied by a strong, unpleasant odor.
• Skeletonization, the end of decomposition, where all soft tissues have decomposed, leaving only the skeleton.
• Fossilization, the natural preservation of the skeletal remains formed over a very long period

The death of a person has legal consequences that may vary between jurisdictions. Most countries follow the whole-brain death criteria, where all functions of the brain must have completely ceased. However, in other jurisdictions, some follow the brainstem version of brain death.^[38] Afterward, a death certificate is issued in most jurisdictions, either by a doctor or by an administrative office, upon presentation of a doctor's declaration of death.^[41]

There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then "coming back to life," sometimes days later in their coffin or when embalming procedures are about to begin. From the mid-18th century onwards, there was an upsurge in the public's fear of being mistakenly buried alive^[42] and much debate about the uncertainty of the signs of death. Various suggestions were made to test for signs of life before burial, ranging from pouring vinegar and pepper into the corpse's mouth to applying red hot pokers to the feet or into the rectum.^[43] Writing in 1895, the physician J.C. Ouseley claimed that as many as 2,700 people were buried prematurely each year in England and Wales, although some estimates peg the figure to be closer to 800.^[44]

In cases of

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.^[46]

The leading cause of human death in

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 micronutrients.^[52]

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.^[53]

Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by

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.^[55] 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.^[56] 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.^[57]

In 2012, suicide overtook car crashes as the leading cause of human injury deaths in the U.S., followed by poisoning, falls, and murder.^[58]

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.^[59] Other incidents with high death tolls are the Wanggongchang explosion (when a gunpowder factory ended up with 20,000 deaths),^[60] a collapse of a wall of Circus Maximus that killed 13,000 people,^[61] and the Chernobyl disaster that killed between 95 and 4,000 people.^[62][63]

Natural disasters 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;^[64] the 1887 Yellow River flood, which killed an estimated 2 million people in China;^[65] and the 1970 Bhola cyclone, which killed as many as 500,000 people in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh).^[66] If naturally occurring famines 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, bobcats, coyotes, and other foxes as well. Young bear cubs in the Yellowstone National Park only have a 40% chance to survive to adulthood from other bears and predators.^[67]

An autopsy, also known as a postmortem examination or an obduction, is a

Autopsies are either performed for legal or medical purposes.[68] 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.^[69] Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices, and those where the body is dissected and an internal examination is conducted.^[70] Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases.^[71] Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is generally reconstituted by sewing it back together.^[40]

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.^[72]

Death before birth can happen in several ways: stillbirth, when the fetus dies before or during the delivery process; miscarriage, when the embryo dies before independent survival; and abortion, the artificial termination of the pregnancy. Stillbirth and miscarriage can happen for various reasons, while abortion is carried out purposely.

Stillbirth can happen right before or after the delivery of a fetus. It can result from

A miscarriage is defined by the World Health Organization as, "The expulsion or extraction from its mother of an embryo or fetus weighing 500g or less." Miscarriage is one of the most frequent problems in pregnancy, and is reported in around 12–15% of all clinical pregnancies; however, by including pregnancy losses during menstruation, it could be up to 17–22% of all pregnancies. There are many risk-factors involved in miscarriage; consumption of caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, having a previous miscarriage, and the use of abortion can increase the chances of having a miscarriage.^[74]

An abortion may be performed for many reasons, such as pregnancy from rape, financial constraints of having a child, teenage pregnancy, and the lack of support from a significant other.^[75] There are two forms of abortion: a medical abortion and an in-clinic abortion or sometimes referred to as a surgical abortion. A medical abortion involves taking a pill that will terminate the pregnancy no more than 11 weeks past the last period, and an in-clinic abortion involves a medical procedure using suction to empty the uterus; this is possible after 12 weeks, but it may be more difficult to find an operating doctor who will go through with the procedure.^[76]

Senescence refers to a scenario when a living being can survive all calamities but eventually dies due to causes relating to old age. Conversely, premature death can refer to a death that occurs before old age arrives, for example, human death before a person reaches the age of 75.^[77] Animal and plant cells normally reproduce and function during the whole period of natural existence, but the aging process derives from the deterioration of cellular activity and the ruination of regular functioning. The aptitude of cells for gradual deterioration and mortality means that cells are naturally sentenced to stable and long-term loss of living capacities, even despite continuing metabolic reactions and viability. In the United Kingdom, for example, nine out of ten of all the deaths that occur daily relates to senescence, while around the world, it accounts for two-thirds of 150,000 deaths that take place daily.^[78]

Almost all animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning eventually die from biological aging, known in life sciences as "senescence." Some organisms experience negligible senescence, even exhibiting biological immortality. These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii,^[79] 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.^[47] 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).^[47]

Life extension refers to an increase in

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.[83]

Researchers of life extension can be known as "biomedical

Cryonics (from Greek κρύος 'kryos-' meaning 'icy cold') is the low-temperature preservation of animals, including humans, who cannot be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future.^[85][86]

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.^[46][87]

Some scientific literature is claimed to support the feasibility of cryonics.^[88] Medical science and cryobiologists generally regard cryonics with skepticism.^[89]

Around 1930, most people in Western countries died in their own homes, surrounded by family, and comforted by clergy, neighbors, and doctors making house calls.^[92] By the mid-20th century, half of all Americans died in a hospital.^[93] By the start of the 21st century, only about 20 to 25% of people in developed countries died outside of a medical institution.^[93][94][95] The shift from dying at home towards dying in a professional medical environment has been termed the "Invisible Death."^[93] This shift occurred gradually over the years until most deaths now occur outside the home.^[96]

Death studies is a field within psychology.^[97] To varying degrees people inherently fear death, both the process and the eventuality; it is hard wired and part of the 'survival instinct' of all animals.^[98] Discussing, thinking about, or planning for their deaths causes them discomfort. This fear may cause them to put off financial planning, preparing a will and testament, or requesting help from a hospice organization.

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.^[101] 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.^[101][102]

In society, the nature of death and humanity's

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, inheritance taxation.^[109]

Suicide, in general, and particularly euthanasia, are also points of cultural debate. Both acts are understood very differently in different cultures.^[114] In Japan, for example, ending a life with honor by seppuku was considered a desirable death,^[115] whereas according to traditional Christian and Islamic cultures, suicide is viewed as a sin.

Talking about death and witnessing it is a difficult issue in most cultures. Western societies may like to treat the dead with the utmost material respect, with an official embalmer and associated rites.^[107] 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.^[119]

The origin of death is a theme or myth of how death came to be. It is present in nearly all cultures across the world, as death is a universal happening.^[120] This makes it an origin myth, a myth that describes how a feature of the natural or social world appeared.^[121][122] There can be some similarities between myths and cultures. In North American mythology, the theme of a man who wants to be immortal and a man who wants to die can be seen across many Indigenous people.^[123] In Christianity, death is the result of the fall of man after eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.^[120] In Greek mythology, the opening of Pandora's box releases death upon the world.^[124]

Much interest and debate surround the question of what happens to one's consciousness as one's body dies. The belief in the permanent loss of consciousness after death is often called eternal oblivion. The belief that the stream of consciousness is preserved after physical death is described by the term afterlife.

Near-death experiences (NDEs) describe the subjective experiences 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 flashing before the eyes, and the confirmation of cultural beliefs of the afterlife are common themes in NDEs.^[125]

After death, the remains of a former organism become part of the

Microorganisms also play a vital role, raising the temperature of the decomposing matter as they break it down into yet simpler molecules.^[129] Not all materials need to be fully decomposed. Coal, a fossil fuel formed over vast tracts of time in swamp ecosystems, is one example.^[130]

The contemporary

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.^[133]

Death plays a role in

Inquiry into the evolution of aging aims to explain why so many living things and the vast majority of animals weaken and die with age. However, there are exceptions, such as Hydra and the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, which research shows to be biologically immortal.^[136]

Organisms showing only

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.^[138][139]

Animals have sometimes shown grief for their partners or "friends". When two chimpanzees form a bond together, sexual or not, and one of them dies, the surviving chimpanzee will show signs of grief, ripping out their hair in anger and starting to cry; if the body is removed, they will resist, they will eventually go quiet when the body is gone, but upon seeing the body again, the chimp will return to a violent state.^[140]

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.^[141] 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.^[142] 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.^[141][143]

Some

A volcano, a break in the earth's crust that allows

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,[144] 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,^[145] collapse into a black hole, or turn into a neutron star.^[146]

In Buddhist doctrine and practice, death plays an important role. Awareness of death motivated

Death is part of several key Buddhist tenets, such as the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination.^[147]

While there are different sects of Christianity with different branches of belief, the overarching ideology on death grows from the knowledge of the afterlife. After death, the individual will undergo a separation from mortality to immortality; their soul leaves the body, entering a realm of spirits. Following this separation of body and spirit (death), resurrection will occur.^[148] Representing the same transformation Jesus Christ embodied after his body was placed in the tomb for three days, each person's body will be resurrected, reuniting the spirit and body in a perfect form. This process allows the individual's soul to withstand death and transform into life after death.^[149]

In Hindu texts, death is described as the individual eternal spiritual jiva-atma (soul or conscious self) exiting the current temporary material body. The soul exits this body when the body can no longer sustain the conscious self (life), which may be due to mental or physical reasons or, more accurately, the inability to act on one's kama (material desires).^[150] During conception, the soul enters a compatible new body based on the remaining merits and demerits of one's karma (good/bad material activities based on dharma) and the state of one's mind (impressions or last thoughts) at the time of death.^[151]

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.^[152]

The Islamic view is that death is the separation of the soul from the body as well as the beginning of the afterlife.^[153] The afterlife, or akhirah, is one of the six main beliefs in Islam. Rather than seeing death as the end of life, Muslims consider death as a continuation of life in another form.^[154] In Islam, life on earth right now is a short, temporary life and a testing period for every soul. True life begins with the Day of Judgement when all people will be divided into two groups. The righteous believers will be welcomed to janna (heaven), and the disbelievers and evildoers will be punished in jahannam (hellfire).^[155]

Muslims believe death to be wholly natural and predetermined by God. Only God knows the exact time of a person's death.^[156] The Quran emphasizes that death is inevitable, no matter how much people try to escape death, it will reach everyone. (Q50:16) 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.^[157]

There are a variety of beliefs about the afterlife within Judaism, but none of them contradict the preference for life over death. This is partially because death puts a cessation to the possibility of fulfilling any commandments.^[158]

The word "death" comes from Old English dēaþ, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauþuz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the "process, act, condition of dying."^[159]

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 "decedent".

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".