Acid bath

If you don't like the idea of particles being shot at your ashes, they can be dissolved in acid instead. Using a method developed at the University of Tennessee, samples of your ashes are digested on a hotplate in nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide.




Your digested remains are then processed using an "inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer" and the machine's output compared with that produced from cremains known to be genuine. The university has been analysing ashes produced by incinerating medical school cadavers to establish the range of element concentrations in genuine cremains.

Smash my atoms

Even if the "cremains" are not realistic the family may never know "It is common practice for those receiving cremains not to actually look at them, not to open the vessel," says Dr. Gretchen Potts And it has happened. The bodies sent to Tri-State crematory (Noble, Georgia) between 1997 and 2002, were not cremated, but instead, stacked in storage buildings and tossed in the woods around the crematory. Families were given mixtures of cement and dirt rather than the ashes for their loved ones.




But the power of modern physics can find out whether your "ashes" are the real thing. All that is needed is a vial of your cremains. A particle accelerator accelerates hydrogen ions and transforms them into a proton beam. The beam smashes into your ashes, which send off X-rays that identify the elements they contain.

How easy is it to fake human ashes?

Sandy's ashes or sandy "ashes". How easy is it to fake human ashes? Take a walk along the beach and you'll find lots of material to make fake cremains. A mixture of sand of other substances could be passed off as cremains.




According to Tom Bodkin, a forensic anthropologist with the Hamilton County Medical Examiner’s Office: "Those cremated remains could contain any fine powdery material like wood ash, cement, sand, soil, or concrete powder rather than actual cremains. All have a similar texture." So after Sandra is incinerated, will the urn contain Sandy or just be sandy?

Will they be my ashes?

A word of perspective; the vast majority of cremation professionals follow strict procedures to ensure your relatives will get the right ashes back. But there are a few cases where the wrong ashes were returned, and sometimes only fake ashes.




Most notably the Tri-State scandal in the USA. Such scandals are less likely, but not impossible, in the UK and Europe where cremation is more tightly regulated.

Life Gem

This young lady likes her jewelry, perhaps she'd like a LifeGem of grandad? (see inset) But there is always a cynic to piss on the parade. Mark Gershburg, director of European Gemological Laboratory (an independent laboratory that vouches for the quality of diamonds), points out it is impossible to distinguish LifeGem synthetic diamonds from other synthetic diamonds.




If that's the case, what stops LifeGems from producing synthetic diamonds from ordinary graphite, then passing them off as a bit of your dear uncle Harry? Indeed, what stops them from buying synthetic diamonds from other suppliers and reselling them to the bereaved at large mark-ups?

This site would not support this foul and baseless suspicion. LifeGem lawyers please note. In fact we would encourage the young lady to talk to grandad about becoming a LifeGem. It has been said that blue LifeGems were produced with the addition of the boron as a dopant, since the boron found in cremains is only trace element, and not sufficient colour the gem. But who cares if a bit of outside colour has been added?