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There's a corner of the internet where YouTubers read strangers' obituaries. Why?

"It's quite a tasteless pursuit, but it seems as though it's a pursuit driven by desperation, like they are casting around looking for ways to make money online," WIRED reporter Kate Knibbs said of the YouTube obituary pirates.
Searching the name of a recently deceased person can bring up a flood of these YouTube obituary videos.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

More and more Americans are choosing cremation

Apr 18, 2023
That may in part be because of cost — cremation tends to be less expensive than burials — but also because of the creative creation remains market. Loved ones have options to create jewelry, paperweights, tattoos, even fireworks, from cremated remains.
Thomas Demarczyk/iStock / Getty Images Plus

For kids who lost parents to COVID, the financial consequences compound the emotional toll

Jun 9, 2022
Losing a parent can have long-term financial implications for children.
Aidan (left), and Julius Garza (center), lost their father, David (right), to COVID-19 almost two years ago.
Courtesy Margaret Garza

Probate court cases rise as people die from COVID without wills

Oct 12, 2021
In Texas, probate court judges say they are trying to manage a huge increase in cases, with families left to sort out a loved one's affairs.
Graciela Correa Morales died of COVID-19 at 72. She hadn't drawn up a will before her death, so her family is trying to figure out what to do with her belongings and assets.
Gabriel C. Pérez/Texas Standard

Funeral services in the age of COVID-19: "You have no idea what it's like"

Apr 3, 2020
The things that can make funerals cathartic aren’t possible right now.
Due to a surge in deaths caused by the Coronavirus, hospitals are using refrigerator trucks as makeshift morgues. Above, medical workers remove a body from a refrigerator truck outside of the Brooklyn Hospital on March 31.
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

What happens when a body is donated to science?

Oct 27, 2017
The growing industry of body part sales.

For public good, not for profit.

Can harvesting young blood help the aging process?

Jul 24, 2017
At least two companies have started doing human trials.
William Hartnell (1908 - 1975, center) stars as the doctor alongside Dracula and Frankenstein's monster in "The Chase," an episode of the long-running television series "Doctor Who."
Clive Limpkin/Express/Getty Images

Prince refused to be a commodity

Apr 21, 2016
Yale professor Daphne A. Brooks talks about the musician's life and legacy.
Prince performs at the 10th Anniversary Essence Music Festival at the Superdome on July 2, 2004 in New Orleans, Louisiana.  
Chris Graythen/Getty Images

How doctors die

Jan 19, 2016
In facing death, and making preparations for it, doctors are showing the way for others.