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

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