Scientists: We kept pig brains alive 10 hours after death. Bioethicists: "Holy shit."

[babylonsister]

Scientists: We kept pig brains alive 10 hours after death. Bioethicists: “Holy shit.”
Scientists hooked up 32 dead pig brains to a machine to revive them. And it worked.
By Brian Resnick@[e-mail] Apr 17, 2019, 1:00pm EDT


Around 15 minutes after a mammal’s brain is cut off from oxygen, the organ is supposed to die.

Without life-giving oxygen, the cells of the brain quickly starve. Some of the cells burst open, while the chemistry of others becomes so imbalanced that their membranes break down. This frenzied spiral ends one way: in death.

It’s thought that this process is widespread across brain anatomy and irreversible. After brain cells die, they are thought to be impossible to revive.

But a stunning new finding published Wednesday in the journal Nature turns that conventional wisdom around.

In a paper that reads a bit like an adaptation of Mary Shelley, researchers at Yale University describe how they were able to partially revive disembodied pigs’ brains several hours after the pigs’ death.

more...

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/4/17/18410611/pig-brain-nature-study-revive-cell-death-brainex

[Chin music]

1. Between this and cryogenics, every billionaire in America can put themselves on ice

for a few thousand years and wake up to the new horizon. Wish they'd go to sleep now. No problemo killing off the planet bc hey, they have theirs.
Spaceships to get to Mars, only takes so many.

[hlthe2b]

2. well, it is certainly beyond cruel to those pigs, whether there is any benefit to science or not...