Death is the great unknown, the ultimate one-way door. No matter how much we learn about physics or biology, the mystery of death remains intact. That's why this week, io9 is going beyond the veil, to learn everything there is to know about death. What is it, why do we fear it, and what does it actually mean to be…

What do you do with a 65-foot-long coffin? Undertakers in Truskavets, Ukraine, erected what they claim to be the world's largest coffin, and now run a side business you wouldn't normally associate with funeral homes: a death-themed restaurant.

An Adam's apple a day keeps the doctor away? History is full of bizarre medical remedies, but few are as gruesome as the field of corpse medicine. Many doctors, from ancient times to modern, prescribed concoctions made of human organs, salves of human fat, and the ground-up remains of embalmed corpses to treat a host…

At what point does a person actually die? That depends on who you ask. To one person, it's the moment the heart stops beating. To another, it's when the brain enters a "vegetative" state. But a heart can be forced to keep beating; and how dead is a person, really, if she can continue to grow, develop, and even give birth …

Children's stories have been dealing with death since the days of fairy tales where the Princess doesn't wake up. And some of the most soulful depictions of death aimed at kids come from the science fiction and fantasy genres. Except, in the ever-optimistic tone of children's books, death is a mirror for how wonderful…

We recently looked at the hilarious lengths 19th century photographers went through to keep infants from jumping out of portraits. Incidentally, the long exposure times that would've ruined those baby pictures allowed camera fiends of the 1800s to stage supernatural snapshots.

You've seen Kill Bill's five-finger death punch, and watched Spock perform the Vulcan nerve grip a million times. Are these techniques merely fiction — or could someone mysteriously subdue an attacker with a single skilled blow?

We live in an era in which androids are being considered for hospice care, so artist Dan Chen has created a machine that eases the dying into the great beyond — with the brutal efficiency of an ATM.

In this week's io9 show, we delve into the science of ghosts — and the results may haunt you. We talk to author Mary Roach (Spook) about the environmental factors that could explain ghost sightings. We discuss why so many io9 readers think ghosts might exist. And we show how you can create a real-life ghost…

Wanna grab a drink with someone who's passed beyond the veil? Then we've got the perfect list of watering holes for you. We've rounded up some of the more infamous haunted gin joints (still operating today), for everyone who's looking for a paranormal drinking experience.