killgrove

Oooh, if you have a chicken, you can mummify it. (Have to take off the feathers first.) Just stick it in a giant plastic bag with loads of salt. Change the salt out when it gets gooey. In a few weeks, you'll have a mummy!

When I was a kid in the 80s, my dad started something called "Family Home Evening." We'd get together and my brother and I would ask questions like "where does lightning come from?" or "does coke rot your teeth?" We'd look up info in our Encyclopedia Brittanica (ha!), and often do experiments (like putting my dad's extracted wisdom teeth in coke). So, yeah, I couldn't help but do the same with my own girls!

Bleach is great but needs to be watched more carefully. It can destroy bone. H2O2 is slower but less finicky.

I do wonder, with the ridiculous popularity of the InstantPot, when we'll see a post somewhere about how to use it to macerate a dead animal. It'd be perfect for it!

I forgot to put in the following story:

As I was leaving my lab, carrying the crockpot, my department chair saw me: "Ooh, what delicious thing are you making?"

Me: "Uhhhh, Cecilia and I are going to deflesh a raccoon this weekend."

Him: "Ew. Now I'm not hungry anymore."

Ha, thanks! (I'm the author of the post.) It's funny, I don't post to my personal blog much anymore - started it in 2007 on Blogger, and so it's definitely old-school. (Plus, I have a column at Forbes, so I tend to post most of my writing there.)