10 Not-So-Grim Uses for Your Dead Body

Check out 10 interesting ways your dead body can be used after you are gone.

There is no rule that when you die, you have to be buried in a box or stashed in an urn on a mantel. Take a look at 10 things that can be done with your body after you die:

Number 10: Become a crash test cadaver. What better way to test the effects of a car crash on a human body than to actually use one? Scientists say an embalmed corpse produces better results and it is much cheaper than using the standard dummy mannequins that can reach costs of up to two hundred thousand dollars a piece.

Number 9: Send your body on tour. Body Worlds is a touring museum display that showcases the human body in various poses and environments. Bodies are preserved and arranged into a position through a process called plastination, which infuses a corpse with a reactive polymer rubber silicon.

Number 8: Become part of a fireworks display. Talk about going out with a bang. Heavens Above Fireworks will arrange a fireworks display using your cremated ashes or you can just have them make a few self-fired rockets you can set off at home.

Number 7: Be transformed into a speeding bullet. Along the same lines as fireworks, you can have your ashes loaded into a bullet, like London's Joanna Booth did with her husband's ashes. She and about 20 friends spent the day shooting animals with the 275 cartridges produce from his ashes.

Number 6: Donate yourself to the Body Farm. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville studies the decomposition of human remains on their 1.3 acres of land scattered with over 1,000 individuals. This is the largest collection of human skeletons in the U.S., but don't plan on visiting -- no tours of this site are offered.

Number 5: Be transformed into a shining diamond. A company called LifeGem will take your cremated ashes and press them into a diamond your loved one could wear. If your ashes are planned for something else or you decide to be buried, a lock of hair will do the trick, too.

Number 4: Be shot off into the final frontier. Offering four different packages, Celestis will take your cremated remains on a space mission and launch your ashes into orbit or deep space. If you just want to take the ride, you can have your remains returned to Earth after the spaceflight.

Number 3: Start a forest. Bios Urns are made from coconut shells, peat and cellulose and contains the seed of a tree. Mixed with your ashes, you can be transformed into a tree of your choosing and stay green....literally.

Number 2: You can get married. If you are lucky enough to die in China, in certain parts of the country, 'ghost marriages' are performed between two dead bodies so you don't feel lonely. The practice has been outlawed for a while now, but if you try hard enough, you should be able to find a dead spouse in some rural areas.

Number 1:Help heat a city. The city of Helsingborg, Sweden acquires 10 percent of its home heating energy from using their local crematoriums. "They have figured out a way to replace conventional boilers by harnessing the heat produced in their intense fires." So grab a cup of coffee and snuggle up with a good book next to the heater.