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With an upcoming bill, Washington state might be able to start composting dead people. The bill aims to legalize composting human remains and the heat generated by natural microbes should bring the pile up to 55°C for 72 hours, which is hot enough to kill key pathogens.
The method is called “recomposting” and claims to be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than traditional burial or cremation. It involves rapidly decomposing a body and converting the remains into soil. That nutrient-rich material can then be used to grow trees, flowers, and other new life.
The alternative practice hinges on a bill that state senator Jamie Pedersen plans to introduce next month, according to NBC. It would legalize recomposting in Washington where burial and cremation are currently the only acceptable ways to dispose of human remains.
Composting was prominent in the Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle science fiction novel, Footfall. However, the discussion in Washington was initiated by Katrina Spade in 2013 while working on her master’s in architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 04 2019, @10:06PM (2 children)
The tradeoff of their design is that survive-ability is gained at the expense of spread-ability. If they evolve to spread more easily, they have to increase complexity, making them easier to destroy by natural and biological means. You pretty much have to eat a relatively large quantity of of them directly to get "infected".
We probably consume a couple of prions every day, and those few get into our system and screw up a hundred or so cells over time. The body can absorb such damage.
If they grew in complexity to toggle these trade-offs, essentially they'd be turning themselves into viruses or bacterium-like microbes.
(Score: 2) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @10:27PM
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 3, Informative) by exaeta on Friday January 04 2019, @10:39PM
The Government is a Bird