Why Dead body’s floats on water
Vismaya c p
Do you ever think about why dead body’s float on water…
Immediately after death, the tissue starts to decompose by the action of some bacteria. As a result of metabolic activities by bacteria many gases like carbon dioxide, Hydrogen sulphide, Methane etc are released inside the body resulting the inflation of the body like a balloon Here the volume of the body increases, resulting in the decrease of density. As the density of the body is less than that of water it starts floating. The building up of these gases in dead body can take up several days depends upon many factors.
Why do some bodies float facing up while others floats facing downwards?
The parts of the body that contain more bacteria bloats faster when compared to other parts of the body tends to rotate upside down with arms and legs hanging below the body. This occurs because the head, arms, and legs can only drape forward from the body. Most of the dead bodies tend to float this way.
Upside down
If the body has small limbs the dead body is likely going to float facing up because short legs and arms create less drag. While the body floats the gases get released and the body sinks again. As decomposition continues more gas gets accumulated and the body again floats. During this time the body might be evenly bloated and there will be more chance of floating facing up
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Check your knowledge
The gases released inside the dead body due to decomposition by bacteria causes inflation of the body like a balloon As a result, Volume increases and the density will decrease. As the density of the body is less than that of water it starts floating
As the volume increases density decreases
methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide