Question: What, scientifically, happens after death?

Katherine Haxton answered on 12 Mar 2012:

When the heart stops pumping oxygen and other chemicals around the body, the cells in the body can’t survive for long so they stop working. As the energy they have stored is used up, the chemical reactions that need that energy slow down and stop. The cells start to break down and the molecules that make up the body start to break up. Bacteria start to break tissue and molecules apart. Basically bodies start to decompose which is the break up of all the structures that make the body into smaller chemicals.