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U.S. Scientists Create Zombie Dogs
Alex_Ionescu writes "U.S. scientists have managed to revive dead dogs to life, by using a technique similar to cryogenation, in which the dogs' blood was drained and replaced by a cold, saline liquid. A couple of hours, their blood was replaced, and an electric shock brought them back to life with no brain damage. The technology will be tested on humans within the next year."
"Damaged blood vessels and tissues can then be repaired via surgery." I think this means gunshot wounds etc.
Also, the article has "Although the animals are clinically dead, their tissues and organs are perfectly preserved." followed immediately by "Damaged blood vessels and tissues can then be repaired via surgery." So, which is it?
They were refering to the use of this in medical emergencies. Put someone into this state, work on the damaged tissue with no bleeding or time crunch, then revive when they are fixed.
I'm more interested in knowing who the hell is going to volunteer for this procedure...
Do you Gentoo!?
The Russians did the same thing in 1940.
There was a good summary of this technique as well as the hydrogen sulfide method in an article in Discover last month. This appears to be a very hot (no pun intended) topic in experimental medicine.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
This is a follow-on to an article in Scientific American this month. Interestingly enough, the article concluded that cells stay viable just fine in very high or very low oxygen environments. It's the transition stage that causes all the damage.
Hence the reason for injecting saline -- it takes the oxygen-carrying blood out of the tisses almost immediately, which is what you want to do. The SA article authors said this seems a little extreme to use in humans, and I agree. They've had some success with mice using Hydrogen Sulfide, I think, mixed in with air. Also, surgery for animals that are "dead" brings in a whole new line of specialties that we haven't developed yet. This is going to be a fascinating area to watch, imo.
The Tuskegee airmen and the Tuskegee syphilus study aren't the same thing! (Although both refer to the same place).
The evil government experiment was the Tuskegee syphilus study. They told residents of Tuskegee that they would receive free syphilus treatment and then treatment was withheld so the effects of syphilus could be scientifically documented and studied.
I do not know if any of the Tuskegee Airmen (the only black squadron -- or the first, I don't remember -- in WWII) were in the study also, but they are not the same thing at all.
Some better links are here, here, and here.
Here's the peer-reviewed journal article: Nozari et al. - Suspended Animation Can Allow Survival without Brain Damage after Traumatic Exsanguination Cardiac Arrest of 60 Minutes in Dogs (institution subscription may be required...)
Underwater for 45 minutes and made a full recovery. Water was obviously very cold.
Sweet informative mod.
See here:
1
http://www.aemj.org/cgi/content/abstract/7/12/134
---- Go ahead, mod me down, I'll just post it again and you lose your mod points.
From what I recall, during drowning or suffocation, brain damage occurs in humans quite soon (10 minutes?). How is it that this process negates the lack of oxygen to the brain, allowing no damage to occur?
The 10 minute limit is for slow suffocation at normal temperatures. Two things happen:
- First, many of the tiny valves controlling the distribution of blood in the brain capilaries shut, trying to route the remaining oxygen to the neurons controlling things like breathing and heart rate.
These valves are tiny muscles, which, once contracted, require power (from metabolization) to reopen. Let them be oxygen-starved for too long - about ten minutes - and they get stuck closed. Then, even once oxygen is restored, the blood remains cut off to the areas they control. (It does no good to raise the blood pressure to try to force blood past them: You'll blow the plumbing before they leak. Massive stroke.)
- Second: As with the muscles, the neurons have continuous chemical reactions going on that cause damage that must be cleaned up by active, powered, systems. Turn down the oxygen while leaving the temperature up and the cleanup systems fail while the damage mechanisms continue. (Firing the nerve uses up additional power, making the problem worse.)
Let this go on for more than half an hour or so without turning the air back on and the damage gets ahead of the nerve's ability to repair it - causing cell death. That ruptures the cell and releases a glutamate - which tends to force other nearby nerves to fire, consuming their resources and speeding their death, in the "glutamate chain reaction". This easily gets started in regions of the brain fed by still-shut-off plumbing. But with enough glutimate dumped it can spread to nearby areas that have adequate oxygen - because it's not adequate to keep ahead of the massive firing and cell exhaustion.
The first mechanism sets the normal time limit. But the second is the final catastrophe.
But diving sets up a condition much like suffocation upon resurfacing: Swimming underwater pressurizes the gas in the lungs, and the organism can remain active for some time before it starts to run out of oxygen. But then it takes time to get back to the surface - and the lowered pressure on the ascent causes oxygen levels in the blood and tissue to crash. Not good.
Evolution came up with a workaround: The "mamilian diving reflex", so called because it's characteristic of all mamals - happened a LONG time back.
When the reflex detects a deep dive (cold on the skin - especially on the back of the neck, I think), it modifies the valves' reaction to overall oxygen shortage: Instead of shutting off blood to "unimportant" (for respiration) parts of the brain, it causes ALL the valves to OPEN. Then if they stick they stick open. This risks speeding respiratory failure. But once (if) oxygen is restored, it allows it to reach ALL the brain. Get oxygen back before the cells start dying (after a half hour or so) and they all get the power they nead to clean up and get on with life.
So if you drown in COLD water you can be breathing-stopped for a half-hour or a bit more and still be restarted with no long-term brain damage.
This treatment seems to extend on that: Flooding with cold saline will activate the diving reflex, sticking the valves open. Then the rapid oxygen loss will shut down all energy-driven metabolism - both the repair and some of the damage-makers.
Meanwhile, the deep cooling of the tissue (to essentially refrigerator temperatures) will slow the other damaging chemical reactions, just as refrigeration slows meat spoilage. (It IS slowing meat spoilage! And 7C is about 45F, close to the 40F recommended for refrigerator settings.) This is probably the main factor in getting past the half-hour limit on cold-drowning.
Separate storage of the blood allows the replacement fluid to be optimized to cool the rest of the body at a more rapid rate than could be accom
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Actually, puppies will frequently practice coprophaghy as well. In rabbits, it's common due to them waiting for the bacteria in their gut to render digestable what they couldn't assimilate the first time around. Captive rabbits provided with a generous supply of food, will rarely ingest pellets.
That having been said, baby iguanas eat the feces of adult iguanas in order to acquire the symbiotic bacteria which enable them to digest their food.
As uncommon as it is to find coprophagic bacteria in carnivores and omnivores, it's very common among herbivores.
Ok, that's been my essay on animals which eat their own crap. Dogs - yeah, I don't know why they do that. Dogs will frequently ingest CAT crap with giddy abandon. I don't have any idea if that's a nutritional thing or what.
That having been said, I'd rather deal with a crap-eating dog which will take orders, than an aloof cat which just stares at me blankly. I've already got an iguana, which will basically just do whatever it wants to anyway - and it's a lot cooler to look at than a cat.
My 229 is all the Sig I need http://thegunwiki.com/