Best-selling author and mortician Caitlin Doughty has answered one of the most enduring questions of our time: Do funeral homes dissolve our dead loved ones in acid?

"A woman called in to say that her 92-year-old mother had arranged for cremation for herself in advance, but had since heard that funeral homes are dissolving bodies in acid," Doughty says. So are they going to dissolve mom in acid? "The answer is 'no' unless she's, like, a mafia kingpin or something, in which case ... maybe?"

If you've ever been curious about the process of cremating bodies in lye — called alkaline hydrolysis — then this ABC News story and the video below will be useful to you.