New technology allows people to ‘live on’ digitally and pop cultural icons are re-appropriating death in an increasingly candid manner. Jenny Winfield identifies a more relaxed Western approach to a traditionally awkward subject.

While most people think it’s best for professional funeral arrangers to handle funerals, in most US states it is legal to care for your own dead. Now, a “personal funeral” or “home death care" movement is reclaiming aspects of death.

Facing a financial crisis, families are turning to simple ceremonies to say farewell to their loved ones, and in doing so, finding themselves liberated from the cultural taboos that surround death.

Crowned 'word of the year' by Oxford Dictionaries in 2013, the selfie has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a niche social media tag. But are selfies just a bit of harmless narcissistic fun, or is there a darker side?