Weird science

SedyAlpha · #1 (**permalink**) 06-29-2005, 06:36 PM

Now this is just crepy. They want to try it on humans. It just gives me the willies.

Seems like a mad scientist deal to me.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117...-13762,00.html

Quote:

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.
US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.

Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.
During the procedure blood is replaced with saline solution at a few degrees above zero. The dogs' body temperature drops to only 7C, compared with the usual 37C, inducing a state of hypothermia before death.

Although the animals are clinically dead, their tissues and organs are perfectly preserved.

Damaged blood vessels and tissues can then be repaired via surgery. The dogs are brought back to life by returning the blood to their bodies,giving them 100 per cent oxygen and applying electric shocks to restart their hearts.

Tests show they are perfectly normal, with no brain damage.

"The results are stunning. I think in 10 years we will be able to prevent death in a certain segment of those using this technology," said one US battlefield doctor.

Heart · #2 (**permalink**) 01-05-2006, 05:09 PM

This is a much better article:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...2083414B7F0000

The one you've posted is filled with incompetent journalism. With a title like that of course you're going to see this negatively. Zombie dogs, ridiculous

This is actual a pretty big scientific breakthrough and it deserves more than poor journalism mixed with a flashy title to shock the public.

Quote:

Buying Time in Suspended Animation
An ability to put the human body on hold could safeguard the critically injured or preserve donor organs for transport. Does the power to reversibly stop our biological clocks already lie within us?
By Mark B. Roth and Todd Nystul

JavaBlack · #3 (**permalink**) 01-10-2006, 06:37 AM

Reminds me of the story about the radioactive mutant frogs the news kept giving 10 second blurbs about back when I was a kid. I actually stayed up till eleven just to find out it was only some frogs coming out of a pond tainted with radiation and dying on the road- a bit of a health scare. Nothing happened though.
You live in Michigan. Do you remember that one?

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