Caitlin Doughty, our favorite mortician, weighs in on Viking funerals. You might like boats, and you might like fire, and you might want your corpse to set sail in a boat that's on fire, but apparently, if you do so, you will be breaking a bunch of laws. Read… 11/14/13 4:50pm 11/14/13 4:50pm

Here's our favorite mortician, Caitlin Doughty, hanging out with the simply sickening Laganja Estranja and talking death, Bette Midler, hooker makeup and what music they'd like to have played at their funerals. Read… 9/19/13 3:50pm 9/19/13 3:50pm

Did you know that about 15% of the American funeral industry is run by large corporations? "Death is a for-profit business," explains our favorite mortician, Caitlin Doughty. Corporate structure sometimes means a funeral director will try to "upsell" products to grieving families. Caitlin's advice: "Know what services you… Read… 8/29/13 5:10pm 8/29/13 5:10pm

Derek Medina, 31, fatally shot his wife, Jennifer Alfonso, in their South Miami home this morning. He then posted a confessions and pictures of her dead, bloody body to his Facebook wall. Read… 8/08/13 9:30pm 8/08/13 9:30pm

Hey, guess what? Everything you love is gonna die someday, including your parents. Now, thanks to a new app, you can guesstimate exactly how many more times you'll be able to look into the eyes of your most immediate ancestors before they are committed to dust. Cool. Great job, internet. Read… 7/22/13 7:00pm 7/22/13 7:00pm

Speaking of horrible things you would totally hope were fake if you saw them on Snopes' Urban Legends page, at around 6:30 last night a woman fell to her death from the Texas Giant, a 14-story coaster in the Arlington Six Flags as her children watched from the ground. Read… 7/20/13 2:00pm 7/20/13 2:00pm

Yay! Our favorite mortician, Caitlin Doughty, is back with a new episode of Ask a Mortician. This time, she explains miasma theory and why your loved ones don't technically need to be embalmed after death. Read… 7/03/13 5:00pm 7/03/13 5:00pm

In heartbreaking news, Oklahoma's medical examiner has confirmed that at least seven children drowned in the basement of Plaza Towers Elementary earlier today after a tornado ripped through the city of Moore, OK. In keeping with the horrific events, officials say the death toll will most likely rise. Read… 5/20/13 10:45pm 5/20/13 10:45pm

No, really. Our favorite mortician Caitlin Doughty "submits" an "audition" video, and we cross our fingers that whatever shitshow is in the works doesn't make the funeral business — or women — look bad. Read… 5/16/13 7:15pm 5/16/13 7:15pm

The U.S. Embassy confirmed yesterday that 28-year-old Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of Malcom X, was robbed and killed in Mexico City. Details surrounding the murder are still sketchy; the Shabazz family plans to fly to Mexico to claim his remains. Read… 5/11/13 12:30pm 5/11/13 12:30pm

In the new edition of Ask A Mortician, our death-obsessed friend Caitlin Doughty visits Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, GA. Read… 4/22/13 4:20pm 4/22/13 4:20pm

CaroMont Regional Medical Center (formerly Gaston Memorial Hospital) in Gastonia, North Carolina has recently adopted the new slogan "Cheat Death" as a part of a bigger rebranding. The hospital will couple with restaurants and gyms to collect the three Deathly Hallows create "Cheat Death" menus (that will only serve… Read… 4/05/13 11:10am 4/05/13 11:10am

Yvonne Brill, a rocket scientist who in the 70s invented a propulsion system to help keep satellites from straying out of their orbits like distracted puppies, died on Wednesday at the age of 88. Brill's system became the industry standard for satellites, and her contribution to the rocket science racket proved so… Read… 3/31/13 1:00pm 3/31/13 1:00pm

It was chanteuse Britney Spears who once sang, "My loneliness is killing me" — and, as is so often the case with warrior poets, her words held a certain truth. A new study out of the UK suggests that isolation and loneliness might be as important to cause of death as other common contributors like smoking and that those… Read… 3/26/13 11:20am 3/26/13 11:20am

Savita Halappanavar died in an Irish hospital last October, a full week after the 31-year-old dentist came in with back pain and was found to be miscarrying, because doctors refused to remove the fetus until its heartbeat officially stopped. Abortions are illegal in Ireland except in cases where the mother's life… Read… 2/14/13 1:55pm 2/14/13 1:55pm

Well, here's a double whammy of saddening and maddening. This past Sunday, Maria Sanchez, 26, died in her Houston home from the effects of an inoperable spinal tumor. Just four days earlier U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied a humanitarian parole to her parents, so they were unable to see their daughter on her… Read… 1/09/13 10:25am 1/09/13 10:25am

Back in the day, we used to mess with each other via poking and animated gifs on walls. However, now it's a thing to report your friend as dead and get them locked out of their account until Facebook and get around to letting them back in. Hilarious!!!11 Read… 1/06/13 9:45pm 1/06/13 9:45pm

Despite what you may have heard from the Circle Jerks, Rick Ross and the insistent warbling of Ke$ha, not all pop stars live by the motto "die young." But a study looking at the careers of 1,400 rock and pop stars — famous between 1956 and 2006 — found that solo artists were twice as likely to die prematurely when… Read… 12/20/12 1:40pm 12/20/12 1:40pm