Science
What Happens to Your Body After You Die: The Stages of Decomposition
Within minutes of your last heartbeat, your own cells begin dismantling your body from the inside out. Enzymes that spent a lifetime building proteins reverse course and start dissolving tissue. Within 24 hours, bacteria that lived harmlessly in your gut begin consuming organs they were never meant to touch. Decomposition is not decay in the casual sense — it is a tightly sequenced biological process that forensic scientists can read like a clock, estimating time of death from temperature gradients, insect populations, and the chemistry of soil beneath a body.