The Relationship Between Carbon 14 and Death

The fascinating thing about carbon 14 is that we use it to date when something dies. It's not really like the moment of death it's more like the moment you stop participating in the biosphere which I guess is really the same thing. So if you died 10 minutes ago you still have a lot of carbon 14 in you. You don't get any fresh carbon 14 and so now the carbon 14 in your body is decaying and it’s not being replaced. Something that died a long time ago will have almost no carbon 14 in it whereas if you die 10 minutes ago would be very much there.