I came across another story on News.com this morning about radio frequency identification (RFID) technology – but this one is a tad morbid: “RF-IDing the dead.”

RFID technology is already used in hospitals to keep track of live patients. However, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, RFID chips are now being placed in cadavers. According to the story, Mississippi coroner Gary Hargrove says the chips help “identify and return storm victims to their families without mix-ups. The county also injected the chips into bodies dislodged from graves during flooding.”

VeriChip, the Florida-based company who supplies the RFID chips, have faced some controversy concerning human implantation. “Some critics worry about potential civil liberties violations. Others oppose it on religious grounds.” Despite the controversy, you can’t argue with the benefits of RFID technology… after all, they last a lot longer than paper toe tags and eliminate human error.