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South Korea is a densely-populated nation, and so has diminishing room for appropriate places to bury the dead. A law passed a decade ago even requires people to exhume loved ones within sixty years of burial. Cremation has thus become increasingly popular, and one company has responded to this change by offering to turn human ashes into small crystal beads:
Bonhyang founder and CEO Bae Jae-yul says the beads allow people to keep their relatives close to them, wherever they go. He also says stored ashes can rot, a claim denied by crematoriums. “Our beads are clean; they don’t become moldy and don’t go off and smell bad,” he says.
Bae uses ultrahigh temperature to melt cremated ashes until they are crystalized and can be turned into beads in a 90-minute process. The colors are mostly blue-green but sometimes pink, purple and black.
The ashes of one person can produce four to five cups of beads, Bae says, although the ashes of young people have a higher bone density that can yield up to eight cups of beads.
Link -via Oddity Central| Photo: AP/Ahn Young-joon
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The only certain things in life are death and taxes, and since taxes will never be fun, you might as well try to make your death into something a little entertaining. While most people are laid to rest in a coffin, buried in an urn, or scattered somewhere memorable, there are plenty of other options for your remains. Here are a few of the most unique things you can choose to do with your ashes.
A true hunter shouldn’t let death stop them from killing more animals. Fortunately, a new company named Holy Smoke is making efforts to ensure the last remnants of your physical remains can still be used to hunt down your favorite prey by incorporating your ashes into hollow-point bullets or shotgun shells. While it’s not among the suggested uses, you could also hire a hitman to use these bullets to take out your most-hated enemy, ensuring even death can’t stop you from exacting your revenge.
Image Via celest343 [Flickr]
For those people who live and breathe music, there’s no better way to be remembered than to actually become part of their favorite album. And Vinyl will allow you to press your ashes into any record you want, including your own original album. They’ll even write a song for you for an additional fee. As a bonus, you can also have your ashes incorporated into a painting that will be used as the album cover. Now that’s a rocking way to go.
Ukrainian designer Anna Marinenko has designed these elegant urns to hold your ashes and to reflect your unique spirit once you’re gone. This is a prototype for the time being but should be available soon in both silver and gold/bronze tones. Spooky!
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Remember the Star Trek casket? It appears to be no longer available, but the same company is ready to launch the sale of Star Trek Urns for fans who choose to be cremated when they reach the final frontier. Eternal Image also has bronze Trek medallions which can be attached to urns or headstones. Link -via AOL News
If you decide to be cremated when the time comes, your choice of final resting places will be much greater than if you were to be buried. Mental_floss takes a look at some of the more, hmm …imaginative ways people have stored, scattered, reused, or disposed of their ashes.
The name Fredric Baur may not ring any bells, but you know his most famous creation. In 1966 Baur invented the Pringles can so Procter & Gamble could ship its new chips without using bags. Baur was so proud of the achievement that he told his children he wanted to be buried in the iconic can. When he died in 2008 at 89, they honored his wishes by placing his ashes in a Pringles can before burying them. According to his son Larry, Baur’s children briefly debated what flavor canister to use before settling on original.
Aaron Jamison, a colon-cancer patient, expects to die in only a few months. Because of the costs associated with his care and expected cremation, he was quite worried that his wife would go into debt. So he did something he thought would solve the problem: sell ad space on his urn.
Thanks to good ol’ capitalism, he was able to raise more than his original $800 goal, as well as a pair of tickets to the Ellen show.
One advertiser is familiar: PETA bought an ad to push their agenda, even beyond the grave.
PETA will pay $200 for the space on Jamison’s urn. The ads will read “I’ve Kicked the Bucket-Have You? Boycott KFC” and “People Who Buy Purebred Dogs Really Burn Me Up. Always Adopt.”
Link – via mediabistro | Aaron’s blog
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by nmiller.
Urn-A-Matic, made from vintage vacuum cleaner parts, by Darin Montgomery
Quick, what does the word "cremation" bring to your mind? An image of spending eternity in a boring ol’ urn? Well, not anymore. Behold the new trend in the cremation industry: artistic funerary urns!
"I wouldn’t be making urns if they were just a cookie jar with a lid on top, sitting on a mantel," Knapp said. "That’s too morbid. If it’s a wacky-looking guy holding his own ashes over his head — now that lightens everything. The baby boomers all want to stand out. Even in the end, we want some whimsical receptacle for ourselves."
Jeff Spurrier of the Los Angeles Times has the story: Link | Photo Gallery
Previously on Neatorama (all the way from 2007): Darin Montgomery’s Urn-A-Matic
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Would you like to keep your departed loved ones in an urn on the mantle? How about in an urn that looks like the deceased person’s head? Cremation Solutions makes personalized urns using facial reconstruction and 3D mapping software.
