Slashdot Mirror
'Partly Alive': Scientists Revive Cells in Brains From Dead Pigs (nytimes.com)
In a study that raises profound questions about the line between life and death, researchers have restored some cellular activity to brains removed from slaughtered pigs. From a report: The brains did not regain anything resembling consciousness: There were no signs indicating coordinated electrical signaling, necessary for higher functions like awareness and intelligence. But in an experimental treatment, blood vessels in the pigs' brains began functioning, flowing with a blood substitute, and certain brain cells regained metabolic activity, even responding to drugs [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. When the researchers tested slices of treated brain tissue, they discovered electrical activity in some neurons.
The work is very preliminary and has no immediate implications for treatment of brain injuries in humans. But the idea that parts of the brain may be recoverable after death, as conventionally defined, contradicts everything medical science believes about the organ and poses metaphysical riddles. "We had clear lines between 'this is alive' and 'this is dead,'" said Nita A. Farahany, a bioethicist and law professor at Duke University. "How do we now think about this middle category of 'partly alive'? We didn't think it could exist." For decades, doctors and grieving family members have wondered if it might ever be possible to restore function to a person who suffered extensive brain injury because of a severe stroke or heart attack. Were these brains really beyond salvage?
The work is very preliminary and has no immediate implications for treatment of brain injuries in humans. But the idea that parts of the brain may be recoverable after death, as conventionally defined, contradicts everything medical science believes about the organ and poses metaphysical riddles. "We had clear lines between 'this is alive' and 'this is dead,'" said Nita A. Farahany, a bioethicist and law professor at Duke University. "How do we now think about this middle category of 'partly alive'? We didn't think it could exist." For decades, doctors and grieving family members have wondered if it might ever be possible to restore function to a person who suffered extensive brain injury because of a severe stroke or heart attack. Were these brains really beyond salvage?
That can only end well.
Were these brains really beyond salvage? Yes, because no one knew how to restore them. In the future, who knows.
Because that's how you get zombies.
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
So the pigs are "mostly dead"! There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.
Let's re-animate his brain to help solve the murder mystery
Is this surprising to non-biologists? Cells are like machines made of chemicals. You can run electrical current through a dead frog to make its leg jump... until it finishes breaking down. Doesn't mean you could 'repair' the frog back to life.
Somebody's gonne one-up Trumpllary!
We can't go back to reasonable now!
I remember when I was a kid going to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and among other wondrous things, seeing a crickets' leg connected to a couple electrodes. You had a control for frequency and another for amplitude of the signal being sent through the electrodes to the cricket leg, and as you 'tuned' it, you'd make the let twitch in various ways. Very much a dead cricket-leg, but it was still capable of contracting the muscles, given the right stimumlus. Why should brain cells be any different? I'm not saying you can necessarily restore a previously-dead brain to full functioning, but what they describe in this article? Why not. Biology is just applied physics and applied chemistry after all, it's not like there's 'magic' involved. Besides which: 'magic' is just 'science' you don't understand yet.
Have scientists not seen zombie movies? Because this sort of stuff is often what we see in the opening scenes before something unexpected happens and the zombie apocalypse results. Time to guy buy some 22LR and breakfree I suppose.
I heard the strangest music in the dumb waiter and I just followed it down. Call it...a Lunch!
"We had clear lines between 'this is alive' and 'this is dead,'" said Nita A. Farahany, a bioethicist and law professor at Duke University. "How do we now think about this middle category of 'partly alive'? We didn't think it could exist."
Considering all the unanswered questions and unrealized questions, doctors had the gall to think "nah, we got this figured out. X is alive, and Y is dead, duh."
And these are some of the minds developing experimental drugs. Eeek.
This pig is only mostly dead.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Why can't we?
She's supposed to be a scientist, and says such utter nonsense?
Aliveness always has been a gradient! ... as examples of levels in-between.
Or did she never hear of viruses, prions, cristals.
Or seen somebody die... It takes time!
Or bog-standard different *levels* of definition for aliveness! Like a multi-cellular lifeform can be dead, but its cells by themselves can still be perfectly fine! Or even just mitochondria living and DNA and proteins doing their job in a otherwise destroyed cell!
It's not a new state between life and death; it's a new state between death and decomposition. Cells, tissues and organs have a "life" of their own and can continue "living" after the organism dies given the right conditions (as organ transplants prove).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Wow it's almost like different doctors have different specialties!
World War Oink.
Zombie pigs.
When the zombie pigs bite humans, do we get zombie humans?
Time to get me some more ammo.
the lead Scientist stated
"I was classed as a madman, a charlatan, outlawed in the world of science which had previously honored me as a genius. Now, here in this forsaken jungle hell, I have proved that I am alright!"
The mind is in the microtubules. And those, are stable molecules. If they can get the cells to work again then they will find the mind mostly intact.
Is my expectation.
I think they suspect this, also, which is why they are digging around in dead brains.
I leave it to the reader to guess where all this goes after they find the mind intact.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Doctor: "Rejoice!!! Now we can keep your loved ones (partly) alive indefinitely!!! (So we can keep making money from them indefinitely!!!) (Who cares about prolonging suffering of patients & their relatives, right!!!)"
Maybe "DO NOT EVER RESUSCITATE ME" should/must be made a legal right, that people can choose, like being an organ donor, or not???!!!
wow it's almost as if they had a century to figure out how to remove a useless organ under two inches of skin!
Oh wait, they did? Yet they still perform a medical theater show trying to find ways to avoid the simple operation?
https://psnet.ahrq.gov/webmm/c...
https://westjem.com/case-repor...
http://www.washington.edu/news...
Yeah, it's from 2001, but what happens when they miss appendicitis and fill you up with antibiotics because they decided it was something else?
Because this is how ZOMBIES are made!!!!
They're confused with the definition of death. In my opinion, the best definition comes from cyronics: Information Theoretic Death.
http://www.merkle.com/definiti...
WRT these pig brains, they're experiencing iscemic damage that may result in infodeath, but it's a slide into that vs a singular moment of death. Of course some cells still work, only 4 hours passed from loss of blood flow.
Partly alive scientists should NOT have tenure!
Don't do it Stotch! What comes out of the ground ain't the thing you put in. The Indians knew that, that's why the stopped usin' it when the ground went sour.
Or, sure, you might bring a severely brain damaged person back to life, but they'll be severely brain damaged and likely won't be who they used to be, since our conscious is an emergent property of the brain.
We think we know definitively when brain death occurs, but what if some consciousness survives for a time after that? You could be conscious of people around you talking about your death, be they surgeons or bystanders. If unusual circumstances, such as having your supposedly dead body fished out of very cold water, lead you your revival, that consciousness could be the near-death experience that some people live to tell about.
There NEVER were clear lines! Jeez! ... Aliveness always has been a gradient!
Cryonicists have been saying things like this for decades, even before the first confirmed cases of resuscitation of heart attack victims, or of drowning victims and the discovery of the "mammalian diving reflex", (which, when the back of the neck is cold when oxygen runs out, causes the metering valves in the blood vessels to stick OPEN, allowing the brain to revive if circulation is restored as much as a half hour later.)
One catchphrase: "Death is not a state. It is a prognosis." What that means is that, with current technology, you don't have the ability to restore the person to what is recognized as life before the body deteriorates into "information theoretical death" - when there is no longer the necessary information encoded in the corpse to make it possible for any conceivable technology to restore, or recreate, a living body exhibiting the pre-event personality.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I said: ... the discovery of the "mammalian diving reflex", (which, when the back of the neck is cold when oxygen runs out, causes the metering valves in the blood vessels to stick OPEN, allowing the brain to revive if circulation is restored as much as a half hour later.)
Oops! Wikipeida is your friend:
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
We are now one step closer to immortal heads in jars...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Zombie Pig...Zombie Pig...Zombie Pig doing what Zombie Pig does!
I was hoping the pig was just dead.... but noooo. They had to reanimate the brain of a pig that had been slaughtered. Let's revive the brain for a bit so it can feel the phantom pain of a missing, body. We're either working toward Zombies or Necromancy. I think we should stop in either case. On the other hand, it would be nice to be able to revive dead portions of the brain... but what if the brain damage is really just to protect the rest of the being?
Make America grate again!
Now all Trump has to do is get these babies on the voters list and they'll be as good as any Republican voter!
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
They are ex-pigs.
Now they have the souls of crows inhabiting them, and they are not friendly.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
People are all messed up in how they think about this because we are so misguided by metaphysics and religion. Consciousness is not a real thing. "You" are a story that your brain tells itself. The way your brain and body actually work have little to do with that story.
Nobody would blink an eye at restarting a machine after it was long idle and rotted parts were repaired. But when they consider it happening to a human being, they get tripped up in metaphysical stuff that isn't real.
Bruce Perens.
In the space between life and death, one of the partly-alive pigs will the final five little piggies: the little piggy that went to market, the little piggy that stayed home, the little piggy that had roast beef, the little piggy that had none, and the little piggy that went wee wee wee all the way home! All of this has happened before and it will happen again!
by Robert Kirkman
Reviving cells is a faaaar cry from reviving consciousness. Yawn.
This is amazing. After a breakthrough like this, we may be on the verge of finally understanding how the electoral college works!
Mostly dead too, like the pig. Damn, maybe i am the pig and this is just my few alive brain cellss imagining all this.
They are serving in Congress right now.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Or is too little too late for them?
In the space between life and death, one of the partly-alive pigs will the final five little piggies: the little piggy that went to market, the little piggy that stayed home, the little piggy that had roast beef, the little piggy that had none, and the little piggy that went wee wee wee all the way home! All of this has happened before and it will happen again!
Tilda Swintons got nothing on you pal.
This will go through lots of phases, including (a very long while from this) we'll be able to reanimate the cells but find that their former electrical state is too degraded to recover the person. Eventually through some laborious side channel technique we'll be able to recover that state. Some day you'll be able to do it and upload an entire graveyard of consciousnesses onto the galactic quanta-net just by thinking about a code word that is information entangled to a chain of sequences that unfold into the solution.
In the meantime, seriously you made meat twitch again. You didn't bring complex multi-cellular life back to life, you brought individual cells into some minimal form of reanimation. Given we can do that all day long with bacteria it shouldn't surprise anyone.
Is 22LR good enough for zombies? I'm thinking double aught buck.
The movies also teach that cardio is important, so I'm thinking a ten pound budget on rifle, five 10 round magazines, and 500 rounds of ammunition. Oh, the movies also teach about noise, so less noise too. :-)
So, there IS still hope for Hillary?
-Obligatory zombie comment- -Reasoned scientific response- -ZOMG!- -sigh- -Rational scientific observation- -ZOMG bacon!- -Wait, what?- -ZOMG bacon!- -OMG! ZOMG bacon!- -I know, right?- -Zombie BLT?- -Braaaiiiinnnnssss- -Braaaiiiinnnnnsssss- (Top that, George Romero! :) )
we already have plenty of humanids that dont really show much more brain activity than a dead pig....and look same too.
Reminds me of the God Emperor of Dune, whose consciousness, divided in small fragments, continued to live in the sandworms it spawned.
Every time I see this headline I read "Party Alive"...
Walt will fix Sony when he returns.
We already have a number of stories describing this phenomenon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Also, I recommend my favorite tag for this story: "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"
You think awareness comes from the hardware.
Tell me another!
... Flat Earth YouTube videos.
"I'm getting better!
"No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment."
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
Username checks out