Polish scientists are launching what they say will be the world's largest scientific study of Egyptian mummies. The Warsaw-based project will examine 42 mummies, looking for clues to ancient diseases, the mummies' former occupations, and even whether the corpses were left-handed.

Though Egypt's mummies are perhaps the most famous, cultures around the world have found creative ways to preserve their dead.

Here are a few of world's mummies, including some you may not have heard of, and their strange path to pseudo-immortality.

Ireland is known for its fairy tales of leprechauns and sprites, but it turns out there's something even stranger hiding out in the mists—bog bodies.

Bodies thrown into the bogs of Ireland hundreds of years ago are preserved by