A quick disclosure: this has absolutely nothing to do with Ashley and my dogs.
I am not entirely sure what to think about this. Apparently, scientists at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh have succeeded in re-animated clinically dead dogs. You can read more about it in this Fox News story, but the gist of the story is that they drain the blood from the dogs and replace it with a very cold saline solution that chills the tissue down to near freezing. The dogs can be kept technically dead like this for somewhere around 3 hours, at which point the saline solution is replaced by extremely oxygenated and glucosed blood, with little to no side effects in the good cases (although the bad cases have severe physical and mental problems).
At first I thought this to be a hoax, but after some more research, I found the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research website that seems to vaguely describe the program. Looks like the research is being partially funded by the Navy.
Popularity: 34% [?]
What does the Navy want with this type of technology?
And is this the precursor to having “Resident Evil” become a reality? How very disturbing.
Ashley, the article says:
“to develop the use of suspended animation to help humans who are injured in combat or crime”
Seems like if they could manage to do such a thing without serious brain damage or otherwise damage to quality of life, that it would be extremely useful in a battlefield type situation.
I am not sure that this is a big leap of faith. It has been apparent from cold water drownings and surgeries completed with the aid of heart-lung machines that cooling the body and its’ tissues sustains life past normal expectations. However, there are often quite serious side effects. I just wonder if there is really a need for this. If you can get the equipment to drain blood and infuse saline out to the victim in time to put him in a state of death, why couldn’t you get him to a trauma center just as easily? Where are Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson when you need them?
I have to say that my first thoughts were right along the same lines as ashley’s…Great “Resident Evil” is now becoming even more possible.
*sighs* Your right because that movie was so realistic that is why we have bunch of mutated monsters that are fifty feet tall stomping around Tokyo thanks to all the nuclear energy thrown around. Those movies exaggerate an unrealistic fear for entertainment value. Imagine where we would be with cures if no one tried to fight the progress of knowledge of how to heal people. Imagine how many generations would have been saved if Penicillin was developed earlier? Pumping in the cold saline could be done in the ambulance on the way to the trauma center. One of the problems is the body speeding towards death by bleeding out or other ways. Once at the trauma center they still have to go into surgery which would be less risky if they had more time. Things like this are already done in everyday life now. When you accidently cut off a thumb you ice the thumb and rush to the trauma center to have it reattached no matter how fast you get there if you didn’t ice it the thumb is gone. Thank you and I hope you all have a good day.