Zombie Dogs!

[Jetgirl]

Well, they're not actually zombies, PER SAY...

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

Rest of article: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15739502-13762,00.html

I think this is fascinating, and has lots of potential applications in human medicine.

What do you think?

 

[butterfoot]

I guess this would be good if they could freeze you if you had a terminal illness until they could find a cure. Problem is storage. Where are they going to house all these people?


-cw

 

[Jetgirl]

I guess this would be good if they could freeze you if you had a terminal illness until they could find a cure. Problem is storage. Where are they going to house all these people?


-cw

You could also be frozen for really long trips.

Or, hey, if you needed a heart transplant or something and the situation was getting dire, you could just be frozen until one came available.

 

[Spinrad]

They could store them in space.

 

[Jetgirl]

Actually it was the short-term freezing that seems like it will be the most useful, for patients with serious trauma or blood loss. I know that for some serious cerebral event patients they pack the head in ice to slow brain damage from inter cranial bleeding, this could be the next step in that.


And it reminds me, I have to go donate blood -- my city's down to a 7-hour supply.

 

[Alecto]

Freezing seems like a good idea, but actual re-animation? mmmm....not sure that thats a smart idea. Especially for people

 

[stone]

the word frankenstein comes to mind... LOL

 

[Lifesaver]

Interesting. As for those planning on freezing themselves for centuries and being de-frozen when senility and disease are things of the past, don't cling on to that vain hope.
Death today is cause of so much desperation in people that every new advance is hailed as a magic potion: an universal panaceia or an elixir of eternal life; this happens regularly with genetic experiments, cryogeny, stem cells, artificial organs, etc.

I used to research into cryogeny in the past, and there are already many firms which store your dead body frozen for it to be de-frozen and brought back to life later on. If I'm not mistaken, it costs around U$40,000.00 and no need for extra upkeep costs.
There are also more economic plans: those who don't have that much money may, for a lower cost, have only their heads frozen.
But beware: once one of those firms went bankrupt and had no more money to keep the bodies frozen. Result: everyone was buried regularly.

I think people are mostly spiritually lost today, and thus death, instead of being the cause only of sorrow, is cause of complete desperation. Most people can't even think about it; many can't even think about the death of their pets.

Concerning the dogs, it would be good to see whether their memory is intact. And whether they have developed a particular taste for human brains.

 

[stone]

wow, this is for real?

i'm speechless, on one hand i think it's ok to use this technology in a battlefield situation but on the other, i think of how it can be misused comercially. If your frozen to be thawed 100 years later, how can you be certain that they won't just take over your estates and assets and just dump your body in the ocean somewhere, you know, kinda like what happen with some waste disposal contractors....???

just doesn't feel right,

 

[JimmyKoKoPop]

i'm speechless, on one hand i think it's ok to use this technology in a battlefield situation but on the other, i think of how it can be misused comercially. If your frozen to be thawed 100 years later

Let's get a bit realistic... So far, they've gotten this to 3 hours. They'll probably get it further, but a few hours is a lot different than 100 years. I think we can worry about this later.

I think people are mostly spiritually lost today, and thus death, instead of being the cause only of sorrow, is cause of complete desperation. Most people can't even think about it; many can't even think about the death of their pets.

Most is a little broad, I think. In any case, I think some people are more fearful of death because they're less exposed to it throughout their life. Used to be most people had a large number of family and friends die as they grow up, and this happens much less often today. People are just less prepared for it. I don't see a strong connection to spirituality, though I have known people who found thoughts of an afterlife and such comforting.

Most atheists I have known don't worry about death too much, though.

And whether they have developed a particular taste for human brains.

As in...

BRAINS!?

 

[Nymphalidae]

Zombie survival 101:

1. Behead your dead.
2. See #1.

 

[lawtonfogle]

now we just need to create the T virus.

 

[Hydra009]

Mmmmm...zombie dogs...

 

[psychedelicist]

If you get bitten by a zombie, you become a zombie right?

So if you get bitten by a zombie dog, would you become like a zombie-weredog? Cause that would be super.

 

[Eudaimonist]

What do you think?

Cthulhu f'tagn.

 

[ChristianCenturion]

the word frankenstein comes to mind... LOL

I was thinking more of the movie sequal "Flatliners goes to the dogs".

Interesting article Jetgirl.

EDIT TO ADD: Oh, and that was an interesting picture they chose for the article. Were they trying to go for the hype rather than science?

 

[Blackmarch]

I guess this would be good if they could freeze you if you had a terminal illness until they could find a cure. Problem is storage. Where are they going to house all these people?


-cw

the Book, "this Muddled Earth" comes to mind...


On a more serious note though, one would support such research as it could benefit near to death subjects greatly.

 

[Alecto]

What worries me about this is what about our soul?

If the body is dead, the soul moves on. What happens if the body wakes up again after a few hours? There have been near death experiences but those lasted for a few minnutes or seconds, not hours.

A body with no soul is an animal, quite simply, it runs on its base survival functions, language, ethics, behavior, none of it means anything. I would not under-go this procedure if it is indeed perfected for humans

 

[BA613]

Whoa... this article makes me want to see Land of the Dead.

 

[Jetgirl]

I was thinking more of the movie sequal "Flatliners goes to the dogs".

Interesting article Jetgirl.

EDIT TO ADD: Oh, and that was an interesting picture they chose for the article. Were they trying to go for the hype rather than science?

I don't think the picture had anything to do with the article. It was an editor going "oh look, a dog" and "oh look, some ice", and thinking it was a good idea. I'm under the impression that beagles are ususally used for experimentation.