Slashdot Mirror
Mad Scientist Brings Back Dead With "Deanimation"
mattnyc99 writes "Esquire is running a a jaw-dropping profile of MacArthur genius Marc Roth in their annual Best and Brightest roundup, detailing how this gonzo DNA scientist (who also figured out how to diagnose lupus correctly) went from watching his infant daughter die to literally reincarnating animals. Inspired by NOVA and funded by DARPA, Roth has developed a serum for major biotech startup Ikaria that successfully accomplished 'suspended animation' — the closest we've ever come to simulating near-death experiences and then coming back to life. From the article: 'We don't know what life is, anyway. Not really. We just know what life does — it burns oxygen. It's a process of combustion. We're all just slow-burning candles, making our way through our allotment of precious O2 until it becomes our toxin, until we burn out, until we get old and die. But we live on 21 percent oxygen, just as we live at 37 degrees. They're related. Decrease the oxygen to 5 percent, we die. But, look, the concentration of oxygen in the blood that runs through our capillaries is only 2 or 3 percent. We're almost dead already! So what if we turn down the candle's need for oxygen? What if we dim the candle so much that we don't even have the energy to die?' " The writer Tom Junod engages in what Hunter Thompson once called "a failed but essentially noble experiment in pure gonzo journalism." If you can suspend your inner critic for a time, it's a fun ride.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_West%E2%80%93Reanimator
I don't know how I could have messed that up.
People have been clinically dead (no pulse, no breathing, would not continue to live without specific processes of intervention) and have been successfully revived. Many have gone on to live perfectly normal lives, while others have been left dead too long and their tissues suffered for it, leaving them with reduced faculties. I wouldn't call it quite as cut and dried as dead or not. We can tell when someone is really, truly alive, and we can identify conditions when someone is really, truly dead, but there are plenty of conditions where one could be potentially alive or dead (with apologies to SchrÃdinger) and that further actions will determine what state a person goes into.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Only in the USA and UK. Everywhere else, you'd be too hot to call it living.
37 deg C = 98.6 deg F. IOW, normal human body temperature. Or did I just do a whooosh?
My blog
If you'd RTFA (shocking, I know), you'd see that DARPA was interested in it as a way of preventing wounded people from bleeding out. It's already being tested on humans.
I'm so excited I just made water in my pantaloons!
The kind of life where you could be transported from the battlefield, with its limited facilities, to a large, fully equipped hospital to patch you up, then woken up. There is a reason Darpa is funding him. Many soldiers die of reasons that they would easily survive in a hospital, with access to an unlimited supply of the best doctors. (unlimited because you can simply wait in that state until the doctor has helped other patients before you.)
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Internally we are all 37 Degrees C. When someone takes your temperature, that's what they'll get as a result if you're not sick
Normal people worry me!
In TFA it mentions that
It's called Ikaria, after the island with regenerative sulfur springs mentioned by Herodotus.
You didn't read the article did ya? I understand, it was horrid. The point of this work is that apparently if you give people certain toxins, it stops cells from doing stuff that requires oxygen. Later, when they get oxygen, these processes start back up again. The reason I mentioned the brain is that, without the heart, the brain will be starved of oxygen.
How we know is more important than what we know.
They already do this by cooling - they take people down into deep hypothermia so they can do brain surgery with the circulation stopped (so there is no blood leakage, which kills brain cells) while the brain's metabolism is almost shut down (so brain cells don't die from lack of oxygen).
Not standard procedure because it's not got mainstream acceptance yet, but fairly reliable. Reserved for situations that are otherwise inoperable, e.g. deep brain anurisms.
Sad indictement of Esquire that their journoes have to write in excited-surfer-speak. But hey; it's not read for the articles.
You're doing it wrong.
"klaatu barada nikto" (boycott the remake.)