There Goes My Dream of a Viking Funeral
I don’t have any plans to die, ever. But if I do eventually eat it for some unseen reason, having my 6,000-year-old…
I Dug a Green Grave and Learned the Truth About the Dirty Death Industry
ESSEX, NEW YORK—I’m standing with John Davis in front of his grave. It was the very first grave he dug three years ago…
Contemplate Existence as You Watch the Mesmerizing Death of a Single-Celled Organism
James Weiss is a linguistic quality assurance software tester, but his true passion is studying single-celled…
U.S. Gun Deaths Reached a Record High in 2017
The number of Americans who were killed by firearms in 2017 reached a record high, according to a recent CNN analysis…
American Life Expectancy Continues to Drop, with Suicides and Drug Overdoses on the Rise
The health of the United States remains in decline, according to a series of new reports released Thursday by the…
Why Cancer Is Replacing Heart Disease as the Leading Cause of Death in the U.S.
Heart disease has long been the number one killer in the United States. But a new study out this week is the latest to…
End of the Universe, Monsters of Climate Change, and Death: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week
As we’re all essentially just killing time ahead of our inevitable death, Gizmodo this week explored death and deadly…
The Urban Legend About Scattering Human Ashes at Disney Is True, and It's Worse Than We Thought
For at least 11 years, an unnerving story has made the rounds on Disney fan blogs: people regularly scatter the ashes…
How the Universe Ends
Somewhere between a second and a millennium from now, you will die. Your body and all of its parts will cease…
American Lifespans Won't Get Much Longer by 2040, Report Finds
In case you were, for some inexplicable reason, feeling optimistic for future generations, an extensive new report is…
io9 Wants Your Short Fiction on the Future of Death
To honor Halloween (no, not that one), Gizmodo and io9 are presenting a very special editorial package focused on death…
The Current U.S. Drug Overdose Crisis Began in the Late 1970s, Study Finds
The devastation wrought by opioids in recent years is only part of a much larger drug crisis in the United States that…
An Aspirin a Day Might Not Extend Life for Healthy Older People
A daily low dose of aspirin won’t help healthy older people stay alive any longer, suggests new research published this…
The Psychedelic Drug DMT Can Simulate a Near-Death Experience, Study Suggests
Not everyone who is close to death—or thinks they are, at least—has a “near-death experience.” But those who do often…
Skyrocketing Rates of Fentanyl Deaths Led to the Deadliest Year for Opioid Overdoses Ever
More people are dying from drug overdoses in the U.S. than ever before, according to a new preliminary report released…
Russian Scientists Claim to Have Resurrected 40,000-Year-Old Worms Buried in Ice
A team of Russian scientists is lining themselves up to be the opening cast of a John Carpenter film. Earlier this…
George Jenson, Production Illustrator for Return of the Jedi and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Has Died
You may not have heard of him, but his work is far more influential than you realize.
Controversial Study Suggests There’s No Limit to Human Aging
The older we get, the greater our likelihood of dying. Or at least that’s what we thought. New research suggests…
70,000 Opioid Deaths in the US May Have Gone Uncounted Since 1999
The death toll of the US opioid crisis has been seriously lowballed, suggests a new study published Wednesday in Public…
Gastric Balloons May Have Killed 12 People Since 2016
Since 2016, at least 12 people have died worldwide soon after receiving a intragastric balloon, a new noninvasive…