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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.
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.
That said, there's living tissue and functioning tissue... I'm not sure this is the latter.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Already covered the ethical issues of this in detail. Nixons head must not be allowed to take over again!
Believe me, somewhere in this hospital the anguished oink of pig-man cries out for help!
Wow, this weeks Dilbert seems especially relevant now.
If people keep repeating the word 'pork', I'm outta here!
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Seriously. This is not funny anymore.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
No need to create complicated AI chips. Just use brains from convicts.
**Life is too short to be serious**
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.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
(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
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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.
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.
Must ... Resist ... Trump ... Jokes...
Table-ized A.I.
that dragonfly looking space ship with all those brains in those containers in the back, stanley tweedle was the captain
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Don Adams looks at Stephen Hawking and says, "Missed it by THAT much."
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Just don't let this technology fall into the hands of the Imorg... Pain and delight may ensue...
This non-kosher headache nightmare will be with me for some time, Pinky.
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!
I'd be astonished if someone hadn't wondered if pig brains could pilot a missile.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I came here to deliberately NOT post a link to that story. With big, red straps!
...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.
"They Saved Arnold's Brain"
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.
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.
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.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
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...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Bad idea, folks. Very bad idea.
[End Of Line]
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.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.