The majority of us have some vague idea what will organically occur after our demise, but the rest of it seems to be a bit of a no-no, conversation wise. I know this is a strange question, but have you ever given any thought to what will become of your remains when you die ?.

Chances are, even if you have given it careful thought, based on typical western thinking, you will have arrived at one of two conclusions: burial or cremation.

To be honest, I find neither appealing. (Although this is only because I’m studying those options as a live person, rather than a corpse). Being buried under the ground or burned are things I have, quite naturally, avoided in life, and I am contemplating perhaps avoiding them in death too.

A dead human body is no different from any other dead organism. It must be either disposed of or left to break down organically. Yet the fact that this dead organism had a face and a family makes it very difficult to see it as anything other than the ‘person’ it used to be.

So, what choices can you make while you’re still healthy and sane ?. What options do you have for your corpse ?. What will you be doing after you die ?.

There are a number of ways to turn the ‘stiff’ that used to be you into something other than the contents of a pine box or decorative urn for the mantelpiece, and one of them is to turn yourself into human compost.

Simply have a scientist freeze-dry your cadaver in liquid nitrogen and then flatten it. The result is a fine, dry, odourless powder that is rich in trace minerals. This powder can be placed under shallow soil in a biodegradable container with a tree to mark the spot and to feed on the nutrients you supply.

Or, if you’d rather achieve some posthumous fame, you could help solve a murder (hopefully not your own, though) by donating your remains to ‘The Body Farm’. Located in the University of Tennessee Medical Centre, this land plot has up to 20 bodies in various states of decay in an open-air environment.

Using this ‘body farm’, trainee forensic psychologists are able to study the rate and type of human decomposition in a way never before available to science. Over 100 murders have been so far solved using this unique venture, and there are plans to expand the research to further sites in 2006.

If neither of those options tickle your fancy, you could always take 'the action hero route' and donate your body to motor vehicle safety research as a ‘stunt cadaver’. Just imagine ... you could be strapped into a car that gets driven off a cliff. Or impaled on a steering column. Or be dropped head first through a windscreen. Woo hoo !. Stunt driver !.

Still not for you ?. Well how about something a bit more glamourous ?. If you don’t have any family jewels to bequeath to your loved ones, you could always try becoming one yourself. Simply design and have made a ring or pendant with a space for a gem, and leave this to a loved one.

After your death, a laboratory can extract the carbon from your body and, using high pressure and high temperatures, can turn you into a diamond in about 4-5 months. The average human body yields enough carbon to produce a diamond of anything between .25 to a full 1 carat, which a jeweler can then fit to the item you left behind.

See ?. You can actually have heaps of fun and be very active after you die. Don’t buy into that ‘traditional’ death palaver !. Shine on, you crazy diamonds