Tuesday, June 28, 2005

reanimation, zombie dogs, and Disney

(cross postage)

My Guy pointed out this article about researchers who have found a way to revive dogs that have been clinically dead (no heart beat, brain waves, or breathing) for 3 hours.

The work was done at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Safar Center for Resuscitation Research.
Its founder and namesake seems to have been a pretty interesting guy - ( his life and his obituary)

Other work at the same institute have found a way to induce a hibernating state in mice.

Which leads to the obvious question, does this mean that we will someday get Walt Disney back? There are urban myths told that Walt Disney was put in the deep freeze when diagnosed with lung cancer. According to The Straight Dope this is not the case. Walt Disney died and was cremated. *RIP* But according to Cecil Adams other folks have banked on the cryonic dream and had themselves frozen. And perhaps it was not in vain.

It sounds like science fiction but who knows? Being able to revive people from strokes with little or no brain damage sounds like a great thing. But on speculating these kinds of projects out to their greatest reanimating potential I can't help but think that in the words of Kenny Rogers: "you've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em."

2 comments:

searchingforMrDarcy said...

Ok the picture of the wolf who is probably in a trap and about to die is so uncalled for! Grrrrrrr!
But the story is neat though. Even though I feel really bad for the dogs. Lets put ice cold saline in their brains and watch them die. Jerks.

ergo said...

I am not clear on whether the wolf in the picture is actually alive.

I hear that some med schools have a lab in which dogs die (are killed) and then resusitated by med students. An ex-boyfriend of mine refused to do it b/c he loves dogs and didn't think anything of value was learned in the experience.