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The Badain Jaran Desert occupies parts of China and Inner Mongolia covering an area of 49,000 sq. kilometers making it the third largest desert in China. Although not a lot of people are familiar with this desert, outside China, it is known for having the tallest stationary dunes on earth. Some of these dunes have been measured to reach heights of more than 500 meters. Badain Jaran has an extremely arid climate with an annual precipitation between 50-60mm. Nearly 40-80 times of the precipitation gets evaporated away before it falls as rainfall.

In 1647, construction workers carrying out repairs on the Church of Saint Andrew in the small city of Venzone, in the province of Udine, Italy, accidentally broke open a tomb in the churchyard. Inside was found the perfectly dried body of a man who appeared to be of average height and possibly rotund during his living days. His body had now shrunk to only 33 pounds, or about 15 kg. But curiously, it hadn’t decomposed.