Researchers Are Keeping Pig Brains Alive Outside the Body (technologyreview.com)

In a step that could change the definition of death, researchers have restored circulation to the brains of decapitated pigs and kept the reanimated organs alive for as long as 36 hours. From a report: The feat offers scientists a new way to study intact brains in the lab in stunning detail. But it also inaugurates a bizarre new possibility in life extension, should human brains ever be kept on life support outside the body. The work was described on March 28 at a meeting held at the National Institutes of Health to investigate ethical issues arising as US neuroscience centers explore the limits of brain science. During the event, Yale University neuroscientist Nenad Sestan disclosed that a team he leads had experimented on between 100 and 200 pig brains obtained from a slaughterhouse, restoring their circulation using a system of pumps, heaters, and bags of artificial blood warmed to body temperature.

Comments

Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

This type of experimentation is absolutely evil. This should not be done, even to animals. This is possibly the cruelest thing I have ever heard. Leave it to human beings to invent something that's even worse than death. Because killing isn't bad enough, we need to invent a way to put things into a literal living hell.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[sinij]

Yes, this is likely very cruel to pigs if they ever regain consciousness. Which is not given. This will also help treat trauma and organ failure patients and will save human lives.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought the opposite would be humane. Take livestock at a young age, euthanize it in the most comfortable way possible, then decapitate and keep the body alive to grow.

It's horrible, but if the alternative is a year kept packed in too small a space and having your testicles sliced off while you're awake, it's probably preferable.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[sinij]

Reading TFA:

Sestan says the organs produce a flat brain wave equivalent to a comatose state

So no, pig brains were not feeling. They were effectively shut down.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Bu, but, butt....

BACON!!!!!1!

Re:Pure filth and evil

[SJMage]

As much as I understand your exasperation, the usage of homophobic slurs inexcusable. You don't fight against oppression by perpetuating oppression against other victimized groups.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Oswald McWeany]

Yes, this is likely very cruel to pigs if they ever regain consciousness. Which is not given. This will also help treat trauma and organ failure patients and will save human lives.

I'm not falling for that. I saw The man with 2 brains. I learnt my lesson from that- I know where that leads. Steve Martin does make documentaries right?

Re:Pure filth and evil

[iggymanz]

wrong, brains were from a slaughterhouse that transform pigs into that highest and most noble achievement of being bacon, ham, chops and pork tenderloin. Brains tacos are a thing in some places, but I doubt a couple hundred brains missing from the market inconvenienced any mexicans.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading TFA:

Sestan says the organs produce a flat brain wave equivalent to a comatose state

So no, pig brains were not feeling. They were effectively shut down.

So you're saying a Futurama Trump head in a jar is right around the corner?

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha, you must be new to the neoliberal agenda. Make tolerance intolerant again, etc etc.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Oppression, LOL

I don't have to 'oppress' Vegans, they do it to themselves with their ridiculous retarded 'lifestyle choice' and the self-harm they perpetrate on themselves (and their poor children). "Call it evolution in action".

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Joce640k]

save human lives.

Good luck putting it back into a living human body...

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I love me some tasty, crispy bacon.

But this is indeed pure evil.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet when we talk about extending human lifespan or trying head swap surgery all of a sudden that's against nature and 80 years of life is enough!

Re:Pure filth and evil

[NicknameUnavailable]

I agree, and I'm of the type to believe nature exists to serve us and that virtually any form of GM is perfectly acceptable on a moral basis. This is just torture, the best potential outcome of which is a means to control the minds of people. It ranks up there with sociology and psychology on the evil scale because even the best outcome is absolutely horrible while the other outcomes are just more horrible.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have similar thoughts as you enjoy bacon? Its an animal. A subservient. I've tortured insects with a magnifying glass, so what. Hail to the King!

Re:Pure filth and evil

[NicknameUnavailable]

Bacon isn't immoral - the slaughter is quick and relatively painless and moreover necessary for our survival, that's just nature, in fact that's significantly more kind than nature. This is evil because it involves taking a thing with some degree of sentience, keeping it in a sensory-deprived state and conscious with no hope of recovery, and just poking it. Think of the screeching monkey brain experiment from the movie Transcendence, the only difference here is that you can't hear the tortured animal's cries because the tech isn't even that advanced yet. Hell, this is more fucked up than Kosher or Halal slaughter where they string the animal up by its feet and slice the throat while letting it drain out over minutes fully conscious thanks to the preferential placement of the brain in regard to reduced blood availability. The thing can't even feel its heart beating, it knows it is fucked and all it can see/feel/hear is nothingness until someone flips the switch seemingly at random to shut it off. This is sick and the "scientists" involved are just would-be psychopathic serial killers without the balls to hunt and torture something more dangerous than an animal.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[oic0]

Remember too that the brain is just part of a system. Without responses from the rest of the system it fails to feel a lot of different emotions. Stress and fear in particular require a bit of feedback from the rest of you to continue on.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

And you believe it.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[rogoshen1]

So pretend a person is in a car accident and bleeds out. A procedure like this could be done to preserve the brain while the surgeons repair the wounds..

Or while waiting on blood transfusion, or a donor organ.

Your absolutely right, this has no practical application other than pig torture and every doctor's latent desire to emulate Frankenstein.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[R3d M3rcury]

I have no mouth and I must scream.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[NicknameUnavailable]

There's nothing wrong with killing an animal for food until we find a better solution (that doesn't turn you into a walking vagina,) that's simply biology, there's a lot wrong with torturing an animal.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[sheramil]

And yet when we talk about extending human lifespan or trying head swap surgery all of a sudden that's against nature and 80 years of life is enough!

I was wondering, where's that Italian surgeon whose name escapes me, who pops up every six months and announces he's going to do a head swap operation with a different rich client? As I faintly recall, the last one was some Russian oligarch with a terminal illness.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Stress and fear in particular require a bit of feedback from the rest of you to continue on.

So how do we take the feedback off the loop?

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you. We have enough people on Death Row that could serve as worthy test subjects without subjecting animals to this barbaric process.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Joce640k]

Who knows how much physical and mental pain these brains-in-jars are feeling right now?

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Tough Love]

So those are brain dead brains?

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

It's horrible, but if the alternative is a year kept packed in too small a space and having your testicles sliced off while you're awake, it's probably preferable.

Modern animal husbandry practices employ non-surgical emasculation tools

that leave the testes in situ, by crushing and severing the vas deferens. They can be - and almost always are - used by farmhands with no veterinary training.

I've watched this procedure performed on older calves. It appears to be only briefly painful. The new steers go back to grazing 30 seconds later, and the infection rate following the procedure is nearly zero.

I have to admit the crunching sound of the tool in operation made me wince, though ...

(Posting as AC only so as not to undo prior upmods in this thread.)

--

Check out my novel ...

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on your definition of horrible.

Do you consider death due to cancerous organs to be horrible? What about death due to severe body trauma like loss of limbs or disembowelment? What about quality of life? Do you consider being trapped in a paraplegic body but living to be horrible? What about full paralysis, where you can't even communicate?

All of that would require a replacement body for me to consider it worth living through. This is one more necessary step towards that goal. Even if it currently doesn't result in an active brain.

Further, as this results in a comatose state, there is no pain to begin with. Without an active brain you are basically the equivalent of an computer's OS put into hibernation. Assuming that the brain itself or the electrons in it aren't being damaged by it.

If the I/O from the nervous system can be replicated, we'd have cyborgs. Plug 'em into a computer and you've got a real VR system. Technology has always brought risks along with the good. Which is more important? Telepresense, Cybernetic bodies for those less fortunate, and finally being able to be in the game, OR the risk that some idiot may try to lock up a bunch of people inside of a death game?

Personally, I welcome this. If for nothing else, but the fact that we may wind up really helping those who need it.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Khashishi]

I don't think it would be that horrible to experience. If they could recover brain function, I assume it would be sort of like dreaming. When your brain is disconnected from the outside world, you start to make up your own reality.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[iggymanz]

I don't bother with a moral framework for what has been natural for humans for millennia, bon appetite!

Re:Pure filth and evil

[another_twilight]

it involves taking a thing with some degree of sentience, keeping it in a sensory-deprived state and conscious

Were that the case, I'd agree wholeheartedly, but TFA states

There was no evidence that the disembodied pig brains regained consciousness.

Later, TFA states

Sestan now says the organs produce a flat brain wave equivalent to a comatose state

although that statement is made in the context that they were looking to see if an ex-vivo brain could regain consciousness. Initially they thought they had found evidence of this, then put it down to artifacts in the equipment.

So, I'm not sure I'd give them a pass just because they failed to take a brain from an animal that has died and restore it to a kind of disembodied consciousness.

without the balls to hunt and torture something more dangerous than an animal.

Um, the only way I can get that sentence to parse makes calling someone else psychopathic kind of hypocritical.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

The nazis used the same logic to conduct cruel and horrible experiments on jews on the basis it would save German lives. So really, fuck you.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[arglebargle_xiv]

Also, what if the police want their brains back? Or do they share one brain among themselves?

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

the brain doesn't have pain receptors, and since it's disconnected from the receptors in the rest of the body, I don't see how it would feel any pain. it would simply have an absence of feeling.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[rtb61]

Ahh, so I see you have never suffered from a headache. You are aware you do not really feel pain in the rest of your body, you feel that pain, in your brain. You nervous system feeds those sensations back to your brain, so only the connections in your brain to that nervous system need to be intact to feel, literally anything, from you body being onfire, to being shredded in a mulching machine, of course anything except probably anything fun. The way to tell if the brain is alive is that it is in fact functioning and not brain dead ie not functioning. So yeah, it sounds pretty cruel and probably quite a questionable experiments. Those brains likely going brain dead as a result of extreme shock, a chemical shut down. Pretty fucking insensitive.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Keramos]

Yep. All they gotta do is hook the brains up to twitter and get something at least as insightful as "covfefe" out of them, and BAM! we're in the future.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Sensory deprivation is a form of torture. Thankfully these brains were not self aware, but it's only a matter of time.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[DanAndDusty]

The brain doesn't have pain receptors.. However it does process sensations from pain..

People who have limb amputations often complain of "Phantom Limb Pain" (Yes.. Its googleable)

So Im glad the flat-line output of these brains does imply no processing, because I gather phantom limb pain is bad, I would hate to think what Phantom Body pain would feel like.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no need to save human lives. We have overpopulated the planet by quite a lot. If anything we need to reduce the human pop to 3B worldwide

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Khashishi]

It's pure speculation on either of our parts..

Re:Pure filth and evil

[alexgieg]

save human lives

Someone already mentioned the Nazis, so I give you Unit 731. Experimenting on American POWs helped save human lives!!!, so it was not only perfectly okay, pardoning the researchers was even more so, right? Right?

Re:Pure filth and evil

[david_thornley]

It doesn't really matter, but Unit 731 "logs" were mostly Chinese. There are some differences, though.

We routinely kill pigs. My last ham and cheese omelette tasted fine, and I rather suspect it involved an untimely demise for a pig. We don't routinely kill humans, and generally don't eat them afterwards.

Also, neither the Nazis nor Unit 731 cared a bit about how the subjects felt. (One Unit 731 role was to let Japanese doctors practice battlefield operations, like say amputating a limb, and they thought anesthetic would be a waste of resources.) Modern animal experiments have ethical constraints on them.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[david_thornley]

Not to mention their pets. The only way to get healthy cats on a vegan diet is to use all parts of the vegan.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[david_thornley]

Feel free to look through my posting history. You'll notice that I'm not, in fact, right-wing. I find the Democrats as a party to be too right-wing.

Veganism as a moral stance is stupid. That said, I really don't care in general what other people do to themselves, so I'm not upset with them.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[david_thornley]

Is the pig brain conscious? I got the impression that the researchers were preventing that, and were verifying with the brain waves.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[alexgieg]

We routinely kill pigs.

Killing isn't the problem. The problem is causing pain for long periods. US factory farms are particularly cruel endeavors on that side of the equation, and on the other ethical constraints on animal research provide hardly better living conditions for those used in them. That pain, and the brutality that goes into producing and maintaining it, are the aspects that need corrected, specially because it isn't uncommon for both to "overflow" into how humans themselves get treated by other humans.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

It's natural for humans to kill humans and it's been going on for a long time, just less so recently. bon appetite!

Re: Pure filth and evil

[net28573]

If anything, the researchers would perform a lobotomy of some sort and focus on keeping the tissues alive and viable outside the body. The pig wouldn't even exist after that point and it wouldn't be able to process any bodily pain either.

Re: Pure filth and evil

[iggymanz]

Wasn't aware the soldiers were eating enemy afterwards.

I'm all for self-defense too and right to bear arms, that's natural and right.

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

They definitely share, and it's usually in transit...

Re: Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

If by arms you mean guns, I hate to break it to you, but they are not natural...

Re:Pure filth and evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, I've had difficulty with this one since a discussion I had with a PHD student I knew at university. He was using up dogs in his research, which resulted in a better understanding of how to keep premature babies alive. Of course there are those who say this is not a good thing, but again, tricky... I feel on both sides of the fence on this one. Although in reality there is no fence.

I have no mouth and I must scream?

[sl3xd]

That said, there's living tissue and functioning tissue... I'm not sure this is the latter.

Re:I have no mouth and I must scream?

[hcs_$reboot]

Hawking's brain was working pretty well.

Re:I have no mouth and I must scream?

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary makes it sound like they took a dead brain and pumped blood through it. Not at all what the title said. I, of course, didn't read the article.

But we are looking at the possibility of a future in which a whole new kind of torture, more horrible than any invented before, becomes an actual possibility. Combine tech that keep a brain alive with implants that create a virtual reality for that brain...and you can make the religious myth of "Hell" an experiential reality for any helpless victim you choose.

Re:I have no mouth and I must scream?

[david_thornley]

Humans have already mastered the art of keeping other humans in extreme distress for a long time. Heck, I've heard accounts from people who had large third-degree burns, and that sounds less comfortable than most torture devices.

Re:I have no mouth and I must scream?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you net read any Iain M Banks?
Any neurological or nervous interface is a torture device, we're going there by several routes...

Futurama

[Anonymous Coward]

Already covered the ethical issues of this in detail. Nixons head must not be allowed to take over again!

Re:Futurama

[Anonymous Coward]

Came for the Futurama reference; leaving satisfied.

Re:Futurama

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Nixons head must not be allowed to take over again!

Given another Clinton/Trump choice in 2020 . . . I'll vote for the third party disembodied pig head, instead.

Re:Futurama

[Mike Van Pelt]

I'd write in Cthulhu as the lesser evil.

Re:Futurama

[neoRUR]

Next thing you know we will be talking to our meat! (go to 1:24 in video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Futurama

[Anonymous Coward]

Salty liberal detected. 8 more years, cuck :)

Horror Show

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethics, what's that?

I for one welcome

[Anonymous Coward]

our new disembodied pig brain overlords

Kramer

[XanC]

Believe me, somewhere in this hospital the anguished oink of pig-man cries out for help!

Sign Me Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

San JunÃpero, here Income. Look for me at the Quagmire -- giggity.

Dilbert ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, this weeks Dilbert seems especially relevant now.

Donovan's Brain

[magusxxx]

If people keep repeating the word 'pork', I'm outta here!

Do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll pay them NOT to do this to me when I die.

Stop making fun of POTUS!

[houghi]

Seriously. This is not funny anymore.

Re:Stop making fun of POTUS!

[ilsaloving]

What do you mean? We're talking about disembodied comatose pig brains, not.... oh.

Re:Stop making fun of POTUS!

[Anonymous Coward]

herp derp...neck yourself, #WITHHER.

Re:Stop making fun of POTUS!

[SJMage]

I don't know if you're the same AC I replied to above, I hope so, it would mean this horrible attitude is not so widespread, but I'll repeat myself just in case: NEVER use homophobic slurs, because when you do, you're only perpetuating the oppression of LGBTQIA2 people.

Re: Stop making fun of POTUS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Never? Ever?

You're living in some kinda fucked up logical loop paradox.

Re:Stop making fun of POTUS!

[Anonymous Coward]

LGBTQQIP2SAA**** check your privilege, cis-scum.

Re:Stop making fun of POTUS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it funny that it bothers you, bitch. Q: What happens when you hitch your credibility to a lying traitor like Donald Jumpsuit Drumpf? A: Then you get what you get, faggot.

Where's your proof that Donald Trump is a traitor? I think it's a given he lies (as do most politicians and most business owners), but traitor has a specific legal definition.

Re:Stop making fun of POTUS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it funny that it bothers you, bitch. Q: What happens when you hitch your credibility to a lying traitor like Donald Jumpsuit Drumpf? A: Then you get what you get, faggot.

Was going to write a thoughtful response. Instead I'll just say this: very cool.

Re:Stop making fun of POTUS!

[david_thornley]

While I can intellectually understand the argument that the people who voted for Trump got what they deserved, I don't see that those of us who didn't got what we deserved.

Next Step: Drones

[ghoul]

No need to create complicated AI chips. Just use brains from convicts.

Re:Next Step: Drones

[AntronArgaiv]

No need to create complicated AI chips. Just use brains from convicts.

But, please...not "ABNORMAL" ones

Re:Next Step: Drones

[angel'o'sphere]

A convicted decapitated abnormal Go player - who plays on AI levels - would finally be a challenge for me! /me looks around for his go books

Re:Next Step: Drones

[HiThere]

Cordwainer Smith figured that mouse brains would suffice for many uses. But I think he cheated when letting them understand English. (OTOH, he had the sliced into thin sections and, preserved somehow, not really specified. But they didn't require lots of support equipment. This wasn't the same as his "underpeople", I think I'm remembering from "The Lady that Sailed the Soul".)

Summary missing key detail

[Nidi62]

From TFA(and yes, turning in my slashdot card)

There was no evidence that the disembodied pig brains regained consciousness. However, in what Sestan termed a “mind-boggling” and “unexpected” result, billions of individual cells in the brains were found to be healthy and capable of normal activity.

So the brains are still dead. There is no consciousness, no functioning of the brain itself. All this really shows is something that really isn't a surprise: the brain cells don't die right away. Because the neurons are still dead, this is no different than keeping an arm or an organ alive outside the body. It might lead to some improvements with transplants, but until they can actually show renewed neuron activity in the brain, this idea is as dead as a slab of bacon.

Re:Summary missing key detail

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed a later bit:

However, it could also be due to chemicals the Yale team added to the blood replacement to prevent swelling, which also severely dampen the activity of neurons. “You have to understand that we have so many channel blockers in our solution,” Sestan told the NIH. “This is probably the explanation why we don’t get [any EEG] signal.”

The brains might not be completely beyond consciousness.

Re:Summary missing key detail

[Anonymous Coward]

but until they can actually show renewed neuron activity in the brain,

Just what we need, zombie pig braiiiiiiiins !

Re:Summary missing key detail

[Catbeller]

The brains are being artificially deadened by the blockers in the solution, per the article. They are probably thinking about what happens if they took those out...

No reason for a brain to die. Supply it with what it needs, and it can stay alive...who know how long. If you can feed the auditory and retinal input, you'd have something that has no haptic reality, but can still think, see, hear. Neural cybernetic links are doable.

Death as we always define it is nonsense. If the brain is alive, death doesn't come. We let the brain die when the body dies because of traditions so laser-etched into our souls that the body is the person. You don't die when your heart stops. The heart is a pump. You die when your brain dies. Sobering to think that the newly-dead person you are seeing in front of you maintains consciousness for a minute or so, in the dark and quiet we all get to greet at the end.

Re:Summary missing key detail

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: It's the data inside the brain that matters.

See also the numerous instances where someone has had their heart stop "for too long" and yet somehow be completely fine once it's restarted, only for other numerous instances of the same amount of time passing and the person is either a vegetable, or severely fucked up and will need assistance for the rest of their "lives". You know what also does that? Bit decay after cutting power to RAM. I.e. A computer.

So long as the data is preserved, you could shut it down and restart it indefinitely. The real problem is what happens when the inputs and outputs aren't hooked up when you do that. We don't know, as we've never really done it for moral and ethical reasons. But I'd imagine that done for too long, the person would go insane due to the isolation of their mind from outside stimulus.

Re:Summary missing key detail

[NoImNotNineVolt]

until they can actually show renewed neuron activity

but, as per your own quote...

billions of individual cells in the brains were found to be healthy and capable of normal activity.

Re:Summary missing key detail

[david_thornley]

Brains are, in fact, biological, and it isn't clear to me that they'd be immortal if properly taken care of outside the body.

What's novel in this research?

[Anonymous Coward]

Soviet researcher have done similar experiments half a century ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2BxGOdYm8U

Politicians

[Anonymous Coward]

So - they can keep a pig's brain alive for almost two days.

There is hope for our politicians yet.

Hmmm, Really Desgusting !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The most horrible and hideous experiment I ever heard! This guys can do better things in their life, other than playing a Mr. Frankenstein assembling organs from butchered animals in a new cyborg-esc like body.

Re: Hmmm, Really Desgusting !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The disembodied pig brains can spell better than you can.

Care Dog Meets Pee Bear: a SubGenius bedtime Story

[spun]

(Trust me, it's relevant.)

(originally published in "Bob's" Big Book of Fables for Sleepy-Heads, Simon & Schuster, 1943)

Once upon a time!

Care Dog was strolling along on a bright, sunny Summer's day. Sweet-hearted fellow that he was, he enjoyed the beautiful singing of the birds and the comforting buzz of the bees. He was on the road through Sweet-Wood Forest, with Care-A-Lot town far behind him, when quite suddenly he happened upon Pee Bear, who was sitting right in the middle of the road. That rascally Pee Bear was picking fat gray ticks off of his feces-encrusted sphinctor area, and popping them into his mouth, chewing them with a look of glee.

"Pee Bear! You shouldn't be picking ticks off your fanny and eating them!" scolded Care Dog, who was naturally concerned for the health of all the animals in the forest.

"Go fuck yourself ragged, Care Dog... with a big dick, with BIG RED STRAPS!" cursed Pee Bear, who seemed to be in quite a nasty mood. "These fucking shit-ticks are driving me crazy!" He bent over to gnaw feverishly at his own rectum. Urgent little whines of relief mingled with yelps of pain.

"B-but Pee Bear!" said Care Dog, his feelings hurt. "Those ticks are all covered with your poo-poo! They could be carrying a terrible disease! Why, you might die from eating them!"

Pee Bear stopped his butt-chewing then, and looked up at Care Dog with an expression of pure hate.

"Me and everything else in this forest is half dead already, you stupid sap! Look around you, Care Dog! This whole forest is dying, the humans of Realworld Land did it, and there isn't a Jesus-fucking thing anybody's gonna do about it. You and all your precious fellow Cute-A-Lots, and me, and everything else that lives in this forest, we're all going to die. Nothing can stop the living hell on earth that's coming -- not all the rainbows and hearts and flowers and unicorns, and pretty little tick-less baby-faced simpering liberal goody-two-shoes TV stars like you, in the universe! These festering mutated ticks on my anus -- they're but the barest glimpse of the suffering in store for you! Yes, even you, Care Dog! Your "Loving God" is about to abandon you, and your world -- and mine! -- to a fate unimagined in your most unspeakable nightmares. And for what? For nothing! So don't give me your sappy sweetie-weetie CRAP, you pathetic eunuch of a cutesy-putesy pile of shit!!! Now leave me alone and let me deal with this horrible itching in peace! -- if there is such a thing as peace in this fucked world."

Care Dog was stricken! He didn't know what to say. He knew that Pee Bear only needed a little love and understanding -- but the tormented Bear of the Bathrooms looked as if he would strike him if he said a word!

What was Care Dog to do?

But then, upon seeing the big tears welling up in the eyes of the poor Canine of Kindness, Pee Bear got a crafty look in his eye. He hung his head and apologized.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Care Dog. Can you forgive me? I'm just been in such a bad mood lately, what with these ticks and vermin eating away at my poor asshole." He smiled his sweetest sad smile at Care Dog, and shuffled his feet bashfully to show that he was sorry.

Care Dog wiped the tears away and looked up hopefully, "You... you really mean it, Pee Bear?"

"Sure, Care Dog. In fact, why don't you come closer? There's a present I'd like to give you."

Trustingly, Care Dog walked towards Pee Bear. In his childlike innocence, he hadn't even noticed that that wily Bear had extended his huge, hideous bear dick from its furry sheath. Its pointed tip glistened with a quivering drop of anticipatory "gleet." The hairy base of it writhed with fleas.

Care Dog sniffed the air. "Say, do you smell something dead, Pee Bear?" (Care Dog quickly dismissed the ridiculous, primitive urge that always made him want to find any dead thing and roll around on it. That wasn't the kind of thing that polite dogs did!)

Then he saw that Pee Bear wore a very strange expression. Why was he l

The potential implications are staggering

[Falconnan]

Admittedly, the article suggests a comatose state. However, imagine being in this state: No sensory input from any normal sources. The potential for the final state of the body to translate into a sensation of pain from any/all possible sources. I understand the goal here, and maybe at some point this would be a viable option. However, to me, this is kind of terrifying. The animal cruelty implications aren't minor, either.

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the ethical point of this is serious. Even if you could achieve human brain transplant. I mean,,,,,,the other host,,,,is or was someone else,,,how do you cope with that, the family sees their love ones walking and talking but with someone else's brain, brings me to Altered Carbon sci-fi series.

Kind of really scary

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[bigpat]

Of course the ethical point of this is serious. Even if you could achieve human brain transplant. I mean,,,,,,the other host,,,,is or was someone else,,,how do you cope with that, the family sees their love ones walking and talking but with someone else's brain, brings me to Altered Carbon sci-fi series.

Kind of really scary

Kinda really scary... but... if we can achieve some sort of economically viable cloning/body growing technology. So say growing a new body costs about the same or less than buying a new car so most people can afford it, then I think that could be on balance a good thing for society and especially for individuals whose bodies become permanently disabled well before "their time".

I think some aspect of Altered Carbon's view of a potential future are terrifying, especially if the ability to restore life in its fullest is reserved for the wealthy and a token few. We don't want to create a vampire class where the wealthy maintain their wealth and power over others simply by refusing to die while others remain poor simply because they don't live long enough to accumulate relative wealth.

If economically viable for a great number of people, then the ability to live another lifetime in a younger healthier body could really improve our existence in a variety of ways and people would always retain the option to just to live out their existing natural lifespan and be done with it.

In some scenarios it could make overpopulation worse, but society needs to adapt to the lower death rates we have already achieved with modern medicine regardless of any radical life extension that would be measured as a couple hundred years. Just random accidents and degradation of the brain itself will still cause attrition, unlike in the fictional Altered Carbon universe where it is a lot harder to die and the biological limitations of the brain are circumvented with a literary device.

Speaking for myself, I think I could go for another couple rounds of a healthy youthful life.

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[swb]

My guess is what you describe only really works with an Altered Carbon type of device to store brain contents and transfer it to a new brain.

I'd guess that the surgical complexity to actually move a physical brain between skulls makes it necessary to treat the brain's contents separately from its physical entity.

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

I share the same concerns about this type of research. I seem to remember another recent experiment where they grew mice with brains containing some human brain cells. It's not just animals though, what about artificial intelligences?

Since we can't enter the consciousness of something else, how can we be sure we haven't created something that exists in a state of constant agony?

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[Anonymous Coward]

If you stopped being a lazy bum, maybe you could afford a brain transplant too?
Sounds like you got whatever you deserved to me!

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[HiThere]

That's not clear. Admittedly my first thought was "This is something new in the way of sensory deprivation!", but on further thought I'm less sure. From what I've heard, people who have recovered from being "locked in" don't report anything dreadful. They just became fuzzy and disconnected. It's as if because they weren't receiving any messages, they just didn't think. They don't seem to have been aware that time was passing.

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[Anonymous Coward]

What fun is that? The whole point of disembodied brains in jars is that they have to think about their sins and SUFFER!

Holy f**k, I just scared myself.

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[drunken_boxer777]

Pain is transmitted by a specific kind of neuron called a nociceptor. If they aren't transmitting pain signals, then, if conscious, the brain would not experience pain. That doesn't mean it could relive the final moments over and over in sensory deprivation and experience mental anguish. Not pleasant however you slice it (no pun intended), but that doesn't seem to be the case here. The investigator stated that there was a flat EEG, and we don't have any reason to believe a brain is "thinking" without EEG activity.

(I realize this anthropomorphizes pigs quite a bit, but the ethical concerns largely focus on translation to humans.)

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[Anonymice]

You're forgetting that those brains need a body. It would neither help the masses, nor affect population levels. Unless the bodies are being artificially grown in their entirety, someone's brain is going to be sacrificed so another can be hosted.

The only ethical solution here would be for the host to already be brain-dead.

Re: The potential implications are staggering

[Anonymous Coward]

well yes... I've seen that movie too. What we need is something more along the lines of a bio printed body that could be artificially stimulated until a brain could be surgically implanted.

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[bigpat]

My guess is what you describe only really works with an Altered Carbon type of device to store brain contents and transfer it to a new brain.

I'd guess that the surgical complexity to actually move a physical brain between skulls makes it necessary to treat the brain's contents separately from its physical entity.

I think you have the notion of complexity backwards. It seems far less complicated to try and connect 31 nerve bundles in the spine and optic nerves than to map out an entire living human brain and try to make a working copy of it. The brain is very very complex. 125 trillion synapses in the cerebral cortex alone and the brain is constantly changing.

If we can ever get to the point we can repair spinal cord injuries, then we can do brain to body transplants. Somehow mapping the human brain to make an exact working copy might be mathematically impossible. And even if it were possible then it still would just be a copy made over some finite period of time.

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[Anonymous Coward]

If they aren't transmitting pain signals, then, if conscious, the brain would not experience pain

I experience phantom pain from my gallbladder that was removed. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac and can experience phantom pain of nearly anything. Hmm, my knee feels funny.. Maybe I tore something. Zomg, my knee really hurts and it's weak and difficult tow alk. Pop anxiety pill, pain goes away and can walk normally. Pain is whatever the brain wants it to be. If the brain thinks something is wrong, it will give you pain.

Re:The potential implications are staggering

[Falconnan]

Respectfully, this assertion is probably incorrect. Nociceptors are responsible for transmitting data from the body indicating damage, true. However, perception of pain takes place in the brain, and can in fact be experienced without exterior stimulation. Typically this results in some serious pain being experienced despite a lack of damage. Ask amputees. Now, usually, when the system is working it seems that the brain fills in data from multiple sources and derives that there is nothing wrong. However, without data coming in there is no source to double check. If this hypothesis is correct, who knows what you'd experience.

A bit misleading

[MerlinTheWizard]

As far as I got it, they managed to keep the brains "alive" in the sense that cells were getting nutrients through artifical blood flow. There was no sign of any remotely normal functioning of the brains though. So, outside of any ethical considerations, that's still completely pointless.

One thing to consider is that once a brain is deprived of any afferent information, its ability to function probably declines very quickly. It may be interesting for neural experimentation but that's pretty much it.

Of course, if any sort of consciousness was kept "alive", that would be something else entirely.

Sweating

[Tablizer]

Must ... Resist ... Trump ... Jokes...

In the next phase..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. will be brought out of its comatose state after establishing a brain-computer interface link to twitter.

The advances on the political front alone will be astonishing.

This is

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely not kosher

reminds me of the 90's TV show LEXX

[FudRucker]

that dragonfly looking space ship with all those brains in those containers in the back, stanley tweedle was the captain

Somewhere in Heaven...

[magusxxx]

Don Adams looks at Stephen Hawking and says, "Missed it by THAT much."

Re:Somewhere in Heaven...

[Tough Love]

Don Adams looks at Stephen Hawking and says, "Missed it by THAT much."

Stephen Hawking pretty much proved that the will to live is nearly limitless, and that a healthy body is only a small part of what we are.

Who needs New Horizons?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now they just need a suitable jar, a byakhee, and a couple speech and sensor modules and it's off to Yuggoth!

Brain, brain, brain, what is this brain?

[slew]

Just don't let this technology fall into the hands of the Imorg... Pain and delight may ensue...

Re:Brain, brain, brain, what is this brain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft. You are not Morg. You are not Imorg.

Brain And Brain

[cstacy]

In what sense are these pig brains "alive"? How do the researchers know what these discorporated brains are even thinking?

Maybe the pig brain thinks it is breathing and feels like it is pumping blood and maintaining physiologic temperate. But could it be re-circulating air, running heating plants, purifying water?

Wake me up when they can put the brain back in the pig.

A child could do it. A child could do it.

Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?

[cstacy]

This non-kosher headache nightmare will be with me for some time, Pinky.

Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?

[cstacy]

This non-kosher headache nightmare will be with me for some time, Porky. Errrr, Pinky.

Thee-a-tha-thee-a-butt That's All, Folks!

anything worth doing is worth militarizing

[roc97007]

I'd be astonished if someone hadn't wondered if pig brains could pilot a missile.

Re:Care Dog Meets Pee Bear: a SubGenius bedtime St

[sheramil]

I came here to deliberately NOT post a link to that story. With big, red straps!

Old news, russsians did this long ago...

[Faw]

...and it was all done in the 1950s. Search for Doctor Sergei S. Bryukhonenko.

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms

Check the weird stuff in youtube.

Re:Old news, russsians did this long ago...

[Tough Love]

According to some scientists who claim to have seen the experiments in the film, the severed dog head only survived for a few minutes when attached to the artificial heart, as opposed to the hours claimed in the film.

I can see the movie now;

[Chris Mattern]

"They Saved Arnold's Brain"

Re:I can see the movie now;

[Tough Love]

Only that?

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms

[drunken_boxer777]

If you've got 20 minutes, check out this video from Moscow in 1940 showing attempts to keep severed dog heads alive. Even J B S Haldane makes an appearance.

That's amazing.

[Cryptimus]

I had a good look during the recent State of The Union and I couldn't see any mechanical devices whatsoever. They must've really cracked the miniaturization problem.

John Dies at the End

[Anonymous Coward]

Korrok

Re:Care Dog Meets Pee Bear: a SubGenius bedtime St

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you put a lot of effort into that. At least you didn't choose suicide instead.

From the pig's point of view...

[Tough Love]

From the pig's point of view, being slaughtered and eaten is already pretty much the most horrifying thing imaginable. Supposing that consciousness could be restored, isn't that better than death? What's the issue here? Maybe we shouldn't be killing and eating pigs.

The big take away for me is, there's no debate at all about whether a pig has consciousness and self awareness. It hasn't always been that way.

Re:Care Dog Meets Pee Bear: a SubGenius bedtime St

[spun]

It's a story written by Paul Mavrides, you've honestly never heard of the Church of the SubGenius or Bob Dobbs? You should have gotten a copy in your Nerd Starter Pack. Sad, you are missing out on some really good comedy. Here's a link https://www.amazon.com/Book-Su...

And I Must Scream

[IonOtter]

Bad idea, folks. Very bad idea.

The patent expired 10 years ago...

[Anonymous Coward]

...what took so long?

US Patent No. 4,666,425 for keeping a severed head alive. The patent describes some rather grisly research going back to the 60's.

Hell got nothing on *that* fate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pigs are rather on the intelligent side among lifeforms. They definitely can dream and have nightmares and ask themselves "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON". Let alone feel pain. Including mental suffering.

I like eating pork. If what gets done to the pig (or other life) is no different than what a lion would do, or even causes less suffering, that's fine with me.

But this here is the most horrible situation I could imagine. It out-hells hell for me!
So until we have done it to humans and they told us it is alright, and are really sure there is nothing in pigs that wouls make it different for them, can we please not do this?!

By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no issue with this, anything to advance medicine and science and get us closer to immortality and space species the better.

For the rest of you, just pay your taxes, breed and die, cause that is your life cycle right now.

Biology still remains in the dark age ...

[fygment]

The only way our human understanding of biology has been able to progress has been by the brutalisation of living organisms. While that was understandable centuries ago in the past century (at least) there have been the tools in place for biology to take a more theoretical approach say, the development of mathematical models to explain and simulate living organisms. Yet instead biology has overwhelmingly continued to embrace crass approaches to the study of organisms using modern technology only to persist in the same observation-by-destruction methodology. What is it in the majority of biologists that makes this approach persist, that makes killing organisms or perverse experiments like the subject of this thread acceptable?

Biology isn't a science until it develops some first principles like say math or physics. Until then it is little more than butterfly collectors, mostly harmless unless you are something they take an interest in ... then your life is forfeit.

Re:Biology still remains in the dark age ...

[david_thornley]

Biology is a science. Mathematics isn't. A science is something where we find objective evidence of things, make theories, make tests and observations to try to falsify the theories, and repeat. Mathematics is something where we start with basic assumptions and make deductions from them. It's very useful as an assist in science, but it isn't science.

Physics doesn't have first principles. It has assumptions and theories. A little over a century ago, space and time were first principles. We now know there is no such thing; they're ways of looking at spacetime. Causality was a first principle. That doesn't turn out to be true on the quantum level.

Suppose we'd had incredibly powerful computers in 1900, and we programmed them to find physical laws. We wouldn't have relativity. We wouldn't have quantum mechanics. We know far more now, and physicists are still insisting on experiments, because we don't know enough.

Physics is far simpler than biology. We know a lot less about the fundamental principles of life, if they exist, than the fundamental principles of physics.

In short, the reason why biologists run experiments is that they have to, in order to learn new things..

Pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure that I saw a Stephen King movie about this.