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After Death, Hundreds of Genes Spring Back to Life
Two surprising studies reveal new information about what genes do after death. Slashdot reader gurps_npc writes:
You think your body stops after death, but up to two days later certain genes may turn on and start doing stuff for another two days before they give up the ghost. We are all zombies for up to four days after death.
Gizmodo reports that in fact "hundreds" of genes apparently spring back to life. "[P]revious work on human cadavers demonstrated that some genes remain active after death, but we had no idea as to the extent of this strange phenomenon."
Gizmodo reports that in fact "hundreds" of genes apparently spring back to life. "[P]revious work on human cadavers demonstrated that some genes remain active after death, but we had no idea as to the extent of this strange phenomenon."
Germs will be germs.
The death of suppression genes allow some of the surpressed to activate post mortem. But to no end. They die soon.
There was female mortician who had sex with dead male who got erection (this is common the erection part), she got pregnant.
What's that article beside click-bait?
"previous work on human cadavers demonstrated that some genes remain active after death" What does mean "remain active" with regards to genes? For all that I know (and I own a Biology major) genes just "stay there" (more or less) for RNA to make use of them so, what this does mean? That supressing factors, as they are supressing no more after death, allow for some genes to be expressed after death? What a surprise! I don't mean the details not to be worthnoting as I'm not aware too many time/money has been thrown towards that target but that the general assertion is of little surprise. We already knew death is not an event but a process (despite all legal interest in the contrary).
Ahmad, you forgot again to use the new weekly encryption algorihm. I told you many times you have to do "git pull" every Saturday before sending communications otherwise the sleeper cells can't decrypt the message.
One more screwup like this and you're going back to AK-47 polishing duty.
lucm, indeed.
Didn't gizmodo just up and die a company's dead, like, go bankrupt? It's a zombie news article on a zombie site!!!1!
After death soul must prepare for a big trip, no wonder.
Though the individual dies, the life "virus" (DNA, genetic material) leaps from host to host. From what I've seen and read, it seems that the individual's behavior and its life and death itself are designed, by the "virus", to maximize the health and size of the herd. In that context, it could well be mechanisms are then activated to quickly break down the individual body back into its components for re-use, which maximizes herd health in some way.
However, that could be driven to maximize not merely the population of the individual's species but the overall presence of life itself, from its most minute forms and larger. Again driven by the desire of the underlying "life virus" to maximize the incidence of lifeforms, for whatever reason.
Sometimes, after you turn your computer off, activity does not immediately cease! There are various thermal adjustments which continue to happen for hours after power down! Sometimes random electrical signals can be sent for no apparent reason!
Seriously, the human body is a complicated chemical plant without centralized control. Some stuff keeps happening. Other stuff doesn't. Big deal.
The cells in our bodies remain capable of being awoken long after we stop breathing. This is why organ transplant works. It may be possible to awake the dead. We just don't know how. But I think we need to look into it because it would make a lot of things easier including surgery.
What's that article beside click-bait?
Being that Gizomodo is a part of the Gawker shithouse - it's all clickbait all the time.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If they are registered Organ donor the body is kept on a life-support machine to keep the body functioning even though the person has died. The Organ is removed as quickly as possible. As soon as the life-support machine is turned off the body is taken away before it begins to leak. The local town hall, is informed of the person's name and date of birth and the day and time they died. Relatives never recognise their family member they always say he is she looks totally different. To stop any surprises we quickly wipe down the face with a chemical wipe and try to tidy the hair if the relatives insist on seeing them. The muscles in the face become loose and if left for too long the muscles in the face begin to tighten up making the eyelids rise slightly so you can just about see the eyes and the teeth begin to show. Obviously nobody should see a relative when the muscles begin to tighten because they should be in a mortuary. When the muscles tighten around the mouth it gives an appearance that the person is being aggressive or about to say something bad. And that frightens people. The undertakers will make everything look pleasant. There are many genes in the body functioning after a person has died they are closing down dying. The bacteria in the stomach and the anus are still functioning.
Considering we're not really a unitary being, but more or less a hundred million separate entities living in a staggeringly complicated symbiosis, is this really a shock?
Complex systems don't just "stop" on a dime; there's energy distributed through the system that ultimately will be used locally before local processes stop.
Obviously, the 'independent' organisms within us continue to operate after death - bloating, decomposition, etc. How different is it if some of our own more-dependent bits keep cycling until they're "empty"?
-Styopa
Here is the pre-print article:
http://www.biorxiv.org/content...
While a lot of Slashdotters might see the summary and say, "Duh!", it is a largely unexplored area of biology. Since "Biology" literally means "the study of life", it shouldn't be surprising that not too much time is spent on what happens after death.
A simple explanation for some of the changes in gene expression probably relates to the fact that the organs are no longer working together to keep the organism alive. Furthermore, cells within an organism are in competition for the increasingly scarce resources (oxygen since lungs aren't inhaling, heart isn't circulating blood, and nutrition as well), and activate stress genes.
As for the genes involved in cancer, well, a simplified view of a cancerous cell is a cell that has lost it's ability to communicate with it's neighbors. Not something that is needed if you are going to compete with them.
As the cellular systems decay, there is probably lots of random stuff going on. Normal feedback pathways don't work. It's impossible to predict. But there is not really a reasonable mechanism for evolutionary selection for these processes so even the ones that make sense (like stress reaction or immune stimulation) are just vestigial precesses. Not interesting.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
If you are dropped into a volcano I doubt your genes will be springing back to life.
Things unexpectedly activating is usually due to a virus that goes by the common name of systemd.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We inherit a vast majority of our genes and genetic patterns from our archaic forebears; in humans, many of these older systems are turned off, in effect. This is not news. What use these genes may have had in extinct life forms hundreds of millions of years old is open to question, as is the potential evolutionary usefulness of reusing simple cellular material. In other words, single-cell organisms or those made up of semi-specialized groups of cells may have used these genes to "come back to life" if and when external conditions allowed. If the presence of these inactive genes in modern animals causes no ill evolutionary effect, they may remain in our DNA, doing their work after the possibility of evolutionary change goes away in biological death.
In a sense, biological death may precede biochemical death by quite a long time.
No cremation, embalming, or autopsy for me until a week has past.