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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."
Well, one obvious use is for open-heart surgery -- that goes a whole lot easier if you can stop the heart, and heart-lung machines aren't perfect. I think the first human trials will be volunteers who are additionally undergoing major surgery.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Personally I think the fluids would just drain out of whatever wounds you do have.
I think a better application of this technology will be for these multi-hour operations where they want to repair heart defects or do transplants, in which they currently induce hypothermic states.
Yep. And the reason that they don't get brain damaged is because their neurons aren't dying. And their neurons aren't dying because they're not metabolizing, and thus needing oxygen. The brain is in hibernation, just like the rest of the body.
Still, this is ubercreepy. Even the electrical shock at the end bit... sounds like 50s sci-fi. What's next? "The shock required is quite intense, so facilities doing this work will need to affix a lightning rod to their roof and wait for a storm..."?
What a crazy random happenstance!
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
You'd have to really know a dog well (and observe its sensory and motor skills, note its emotional stability, and have a sense of its habits) before subjecting it to this sort of process. And then you'd have to pursue the dog's regular activities afterwards and note the changes. Anyone who has lived with a bright, energetic dog can tell you instantly if the animal is "off" in some way. Just like you'd notice it in your child. Now, longer-term issues, who knows. Like, would some degenerative, trauma-induced thing (something Alzheimers-ish) kick in later? No way to know. But no matter how good your brain scans or other imaging techniques may be, these are complex animals, and long-time handler/owner could tell you if you'd dropped a couple of circuits along the way.
Why would you want to freeze someone indefinately? Let's go for a Sci-Fi answer since we're dealing with a near-Sci-Fi topic. Let's say that you've got the aging examples of some really prize breedings from a particular bloodline (I'm talking dogs here). And then, something ugly not unlike hoof-and-mouth, or bird flu starts turning in a species-specific pandemic. If I were a breeder that had been perfecting a bloodline for 50 years, I'd seriously consider taking a couple of those dogs and letting them have A Big Nap.
For a lot of breeders, they love the individual dogs, but their truly beloved "pet" is the bloodline out of which they spring. Generations (of human lives) go into creating something as unique as a specialized dog (or bull, or chicken), so ways to put them on ice for later revival once a viral or other threat has been understood (or a vaccine developed) could be very compelling.
I'd say all the same things about humans, but I'd be very Politically Incorrect at that point, so of course I won't.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Here is a video of what it looks like happening to a goldfish.
;-)
OK, not quite the same but similar and I find it somehow entertaining
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
On Sunday morning I was playing tennis with an older man I met in an online league. He was turning around to pick up a ball and he suffered a major heart attack and collapsed. His heart stopped for about 10 minutes on the tennis court while a girl from the court next to us performed CPR. He's in a coma in an ICU right now. The doctors said that stabilizing his heart is a primary concern right now, but that in the coming days discerning any damage done to his brain due to oxygen loss will become a primary concern.
One of the things the doctor told us was that they were going to actually induce hypothermia in him while he is in the ICU. Recent studies have provided evidence that doing so may limit the brain damage caused by the loss of oxygen to the brain. Of course, in his case, it was extremely important (and fortunate) that CPR was started soon after his heart stopped, thus limiting the loss of oxygen to his brain.
Hopefully studies like this will lead to more treatments which help people recover from heart failure.
Yep. And the reason that they don't get brain damaged is because their neurons aren't dying. And their neurons aren't dying because they're not metabolizing, and thus needing oxygen. The brain is in hibernation, just like the rest of the body.
So is there a temperature limit for metabolizing?
Cell death is of two kinds - apoptosis or necrosis. Apoptosis is programmed cell death (when the lysosomes break), whereas necrosis is due to cell damage - and in this case, lack of oxygen. Cells that die due to necrosis show a lower level of ATP - so it makes sense that the cell was trying to metabolize the remaining oxygen and ran out.
From here, you can see that the increase in Ca2+ ions leads to chain of events that eventually leads to necrosis. Ca2+ ions over a certain threshold inhibits the energy and respiratory processes. I guess the question is, what is stopping the neuron from trying to metabolize?
What I'm assuming is that it takes longer for the blood in the body to cool down, during which time the neurons can continue metabolizing. But when the temperature is suddenly lowered to 7C, metabolysis stops? But we couldn't just quickly lower the temperature of the body to 7C because it would take > 5 min for the blood to cool.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Interior, large hospital emergency room
...which one do you recommend?
We hear beeping sounds of monitoring devices; voices from the nearby nurse's station. The lighting is yellowish flourescent in the hallway for a sad, depressing atmosphere. It's a public hospital, so no one thought to have an interior designer make happy colors. The interior of the room is bright with white flouresent light.
POV: facing LAUREN, just inside doorway. She's just been crying and is still wearing her street clothes.
POV: LAUREN, looking into room.
ANDY has just been wheeled into the room with a major gun shot wound to the chest. The wound is covered by a washcloth and shows some blood, but not a lot. He's behind a curtain setup so only his lower body is clearly visible.
A NURSE (Asian female, early 30's) is facing away from us and is adjusting a piece of equipment.
A DOCTOR (White female, 40's) is facing away from us and illuminated behind the curtain. She's dictating into a tape recorder between probing ANDY's injuries: "Bleeding from perforation of the left thoracic cavity 8cm from center of sternum." Pause. "Fracture of the fourth thoracic rib." Pause. "Wound track and cavity visible. Left lung perforated approx. 4 cm from inner side." Long pause. "Laceration of the circumflex coronary artery. Fragment not found." Pauses tape. (To NURSE) "Get me the chest x-ray please." Starts tape and continues indistinctly.
Fade to black.
Fade back in. More people are in the room. An X-RAY TECHNICIAN (Black male, 30's) is wheeling out the x-ray machine. It's digital, so the results appear on a CRT monitor in the room. The DOCTOR and SURGEON (white male, 50 and graying) discuss the x-ray and gesture to parts of it. They are ignoring LAUREN, who is still standing in the doorway. Finally, DOCTOR comes over to LAUREN and removes her bloody gloves.
DOCTOR: Are you Mrs. Watters?
LAUREN: Yes.
DOCTOR: I'm going to explain what happened and what your options are.
LAUREN: (Bravely) ok.
Blood begins to drip onto the floor, which LAUREN doesn't notice but we do (center of frame between DOCTOR and LAUREN). NURSE puts absorbent towels onto the small pool that's forming.
DOCTOR: Your husband was shot in his chest area fairly close to his heart. The bleeding is serious and we're trying to stop it. The biggest problem is that the heart was injured and we can't repair it completely without stopping it.
NURSE comes up to both of them and stands there.
LAUREN: What does that mean?
DOCTOR: (ignoring her question) You have three options. The first option is for us to try open heart surgery. That is risky and means we have to stop the heart and use a heart-lung machine. The second option is for us to do what's called a "saline evacuation," which means we essentially put the body on ice for a couple of hours while we try to repair the heart. That's the most risky by far. The last option is for us to end treatment now.
LAUREN:
DOCTOR: I'm afraid I can't tell you that.
LAUREN: (Confused) Why not? I have no idea which one I should do.
DOCTOR: Liability reasons. (To NURSE) Come get me when she chooses.
DOCTOR leaves the room, giving the impression of indifference to ANDY's condition and LAUREN's confusion.
NURSE: Ok Mrs. Watters, you need to decide what to do now.
LAUREN: (Confused) Well what did she mean by "put him on ice?"
NURSE: It's where we take out all his blood and replace it with icewater.
LAUREN: (Dumbfounded). Doesn't that mean he would die?
NURSE: Not exactly. It's a technique they did a few years ago to save wounded army people. The heart stops but everything stays preserved and then you can restart the heart after surgery.
LAUREN: Surgery?
NURSE: To repair whatever damage there is. Your husband has a cut in his heart and they can't do anything about it as long as the heart's beating