|
Night of the Living Dead Dogs
|
Posted By:
buba
Jun 28, 2005
|
from wired -- Jenny McKeel : Scientists have successfully reanimated dogs after three hours of clinical death. The folks at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research drained the canines' veins of blood and filled them up with an ice-cold salt solution. The hounds were declared dead, but their tissues and organs were preserved. Three hours later, the researchers replaced the blood and jolted the pooches back to life with an electric shock. Tests showed they were perfectly normal, with no brain damage. The idea is that the macabre technique could one day help save human lives. "The results are stunning. I think in 10 years we will be able to prevent death in a certain segment of (patients) using this technology," said one U.S. battlefield doctor.
|
Comments
Nettie
in Perth, Western Australia
Member
|
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 | 07:07 AM
That's interesting...
I just can't see how they could do that without some sort of cell damage. I mean, isn't that what's stopping them with cryogenic freezing? |
bubah
|
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 | 07:22 AM
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-13762,00.html |
Fusion_Geek_42
in San Diego
Member
|
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 | 06:41 PM
One of the local news channels here in San Diego ran a blurb about it last night; I don't remember which one, as I tend to surf quite a bit. I agree with Nettie that the idea sounds pretty cool, but both the news blurb and the article Bubah posted left me kind of miffed nobody bothered to quantify what they meant by "perfectly normal" as it pertained to the dogs' state after being revived.
Are we to assume these dogs displayed the same kinds of temperament and personality traits they had prior to the procedure, or were they written off as "normal" simply because they had resumed their standard biological functions? I mean, we're talking several hours of clinical brain death here; one would naturally assume there would be SOME kind of repercussions associated with that, y'know? I'd really be interested in finding out how that aspect of the experiment played out...
Then again, maybe I'm just barking up the wrong tree; I did watch "Pet Sematary" again fairly recently, so maybe I'm just having a King-induced moment here... |
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
Member
|
Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 | 06:15 AM
I don't understand how that works. |
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
Member
|
Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 | 07:18 PM
What the hell is the deal with the evil picture? This looks like a bad place to look for science news, as they seem to want to sensationalize it. There's nothing zombie about these dogs, unless as Fusion Geek suggests they recieved brain damage.
And who the hell uses the word "boffins?" |
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
Member
|
Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 | 10:18 PM
Nettie,
I think the damage you're referring to comes from the H2O part of blood freezing, expanding, and causing irreversible damage to veins and arteries. If this Saline solution that's placed into the biologic doesn't freeze (due to salt content) then the expansion and damage wouldn't take place the same way as in crogenics. Not certain on that it's just my laymen's guess. |
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
Member
|
Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 | 10:20 PM
Also don't forget that when H2O freezes it forms crystals that are VERY sharp as well... hence the irreversible damage to the blood / oxygen delivery system of most animals. |
Lydie
|
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 | 12:34 AM
They were using ice-cold water, but they weren't freezing anything. And the cell damage is a result of the fact that water expands when it freezes, causing cells to rupture. (Put a tomato in the freezer if you want to see what would happen for yourself.) Some animals, however, have a sort of antifreeze in their blood that prevents this, so they can freeze during the winter, thaw in the spring, and be fine.
The thing that I have trouble believing is that the brains of these dogs were fine without oxygen being delivered to them for three hours. Usually ten minutes without O2 means you're either dead or a vegetable. |
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
Member
|
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 | 12:51 AM
Gee thanks Lydie...
For posting almost exactly what I had already said just two hours earlier...
Also Lydie, I take exception to your statement of... "Some animals, however, have a sort of antifreeze in their blood that prevents this, so they can freeze during the winter, thaw in the spring, and be fine." As the term anti-freeze implies that it prevents freezing. Although you are correct in that lots of animals do hibernate with success, this hibernation is only a major slowdown and comes no where near the freezing mark. Internal body temps of these creatures is still quite high compared to freezing temperatures.
I do agree with you on your point of doubting that a brain can go that long without O2 and be fine. But, perhaps there's something about freezing the tissue that prevents damage. If the entire cycle (O2 use, depletion, replinishment, repeat) if frozen in place... then the resulting damage from cells depleting and not replacing the O2 might be halted as well. |
Maegan
in Tampa, FL - USA
Member
|
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 | 09:34 AM
The dog in that picture did not look NORMAL to me.
What is a boffin? I thought I read about them in the book , "The Hobbit". |
Scott
|
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 | 12:18 PM
Mark/Jen, there's no reason to take offense, Lydia obviously didn't mean her post as an attack.
And "boffin" just means a scientific expert. |
lol
|
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 | 12:27 PM
cant wait until they start doing it wth ppl. zombies rock |
Smerk
in to mischief
Member
|
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 | 06:47 PM
Maegan, I though that dog looked more like a wolf...in any case it looked really pissed off! |
Mark-N-Isa
in Midwest USA
Member
|
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 | 08:50 PM
Scott,
No offense taken nor did I take it as an attack... because I could care less. My point was, and still is, that people should READ the thread they're about to post in before they post! That way you can avoid posting the exact same thing someone else has ALREADY stated. Otherwise, you end up with a mile-long thread that just says the same five things about a hundred times over... |
Citizen Premier
in spite of public outcry
Member
|
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 | 11:26 PM
Scott, the problem is people don't read the thread and just post anyways, so we just get a really long thread with people saying the same things again and again! |
Fusion_Geek_42
in San Diego
Member
|
Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 | 01:51 AM
I agree with Smerk in that the "dog" in the article's picture looked more like a wolf, or at the very least a coydog/dogote hybrid.
I got the impression the picture was more someone's social commentary on the experiment than an actual photo of the dog in question. For what it's worth, the photo that went with the tv news story I saw showed a white Chihuahua (sp) with what looked like a serious case of cherry-eye, and a black Labrador |
tomahawke
|
Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 | 09:11 PM
Hey, whoa, wait just a damn minute . . . . . the article says that "the saline solution is replaced with fresh blood" . . . . . . so, where the hell do they get that stuff, from another living dog? 'Cause, you just know that the blodd that was removed is not fresh anymore . . . . |
monsterboy
|
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 | 02:09 AM
I kind of assumed the "fresh" blood was the removed blood, oxygenated. Would be more practical, they wouldn't have to worry about contamination, typing, or anything. I could be wrong, but I don't see why they'd do it another way. |
DFStuckey
|
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 | 01:47 AM
There is a big hole in this whole story, and it's not just the blood business ( well spotted tomahawke); Where's the Sulphur Dioxide SO2?
The only animal that drops below -4 degrees Centigrade and lives is a fish that lives under the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica and it's entire body is suffused with SO2 in Glycol solution. A recent article in Scientific American, which collated the latest mammals hibernation research, shows that the prescence of SO2 in tissues prevents ice crystallising as sgharps by triggering chemical chnages in the cells that make the crystals a slightly different shape. This is how, if anyone remembers seeing it, some bats can sleep for weeks at subzero temps in caves as shown in one of David Attenbouroughs shows; They warm up every few days to go and take a whizz to clear ammonia byproducts from thier bodies. In this sleep, their metabolism is near enough to clinically dead.
Inducing this state may indeed be possible, as several of the reported experiments in the article showed; But it requires that the organism being "frozen" has some cirulation, and that they have a slow but full heartbeat. This article quoted here sounds like either a garbling of the procedure by a journalist ( Quite probable, I hope you agree 😝 ) or a fabrication based on the actual research.
Such hibernative suspension would be incredibly useful for accident victims, though. |
Ruspir
|
Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 | 02:34 AM
I think the SO2 is needed when the blood does freeze, in order to prevent the ice crystals from damaging the body. Since the saline solution doesn't freeze, there's no need for SO2.
I saw a television show on Discovery about a frog who would freeze to death every winter, but thanks to a type of sugar in its blood stream, very little ice would form in its blood stream. Then, in the spring, it would thaw out: the heart would start beating first of all, and supply blood and oxygen to the rest of the organs before they tried to operate without. (here's a site about the wood frog<a )
href="http://www.pbs.org/safarchive/3_ask/archive/qna/3274_j-n-kstorey.html">wood frog</a>
so apparently it doesn't matter for the frog that its brain gets no oxygen for a whole winter. I think in order for the brain to be damaged due to lack of oxygen, it has to be trying to operate. If it's not doing anything, then it seems to be alright. I guess you would need to kill the guy before his heart stopped pumping blood to his brain.
So, as far as I can tell, it's possible to use this method to bring something back to life. I am a little confused though as to how this could be useful for battlefield medics. It seems like the leading cause of death on the battlefield would be loss of blood. If you can't prevent this loss of blood, how can you prevent loss of saline solution? |
DFStuckey
|
Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2005 | 10:57 PM
Ruspir, it was my understanding the SO2 triggered a lot of cellular changes to reduce oxygen requirements , but that may be true about the saline.
As for battlefield practice, I suupose the idea would be to cool the body and make the flow of blood reduce in order to halt or reduce bleeding and in addition stabilise the victim until they can be operated on. Certainly in Viet Nam, more casualties survivied by applictaions of stabilising techniques than any other innnovation - Leading to a survival rate 10 times greater than in the Korean conflict. |
|
Note: This thread is located in the Old Forum of the Museum of Hoaxes.
|
