Replying to Suspended Animation A Reality?

I would just like to say that the beginning of the article posted sounded more like a joke than anything just for the unprofessional use of language. More like something you'd read on The Onion.

Would you hear the term "Zombie dogs" anywhere but?

The rest sound legit, but the beginning just had me laughing...

Zombie dogs in the name of SCIENCE! Eerie...

Cool thanks I put "Boffins create zombie dogs" in google and found the article.. reading it now

I thought I should add the link for those who wanna read it: http://www.news.com....?name=otherside

sorry, ive lost the link, but here's part of it i saved.

Boffins create zombie dogs
By Nick Buchan of NEWS.com.au
June 27, 2005
From:

Eerie ... boffins have brought dead dogs back to life, in the name of science. SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.
Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.

However rather than sending people to sleep for years, then bringing them back to life to benefit from medical advances, the boffins would be happy to keep people in this state for just a few hours,

But even this should be enough to save lives such as battlefield casualties and victims of stabbings or gunshot wounds, who have suffered huge blood loss.

During the procedure blood is replaced with saline solution at a few degrees above zero. The dogs' body temperature drops to only 7C, compared with the usual 37C, inducing a state of hypothermia before death.

Although the animals are clinically dead, their tissues and organs are perfectly preserved.

Damaged blood vessels and tissues can then be repaired via surgery. The dogs are brought back to life by returning the blood to their bodies,giving them 100 per cent oxygen and applying electric shocks to restart their hearts.

Tests show they are perfectly normal, with no brain damage.

WTFA ( Where's the Full Article :rolleys: ) ? Can you gimme the link please? I want to read it.. rightaway
Thanks,
m^e

They dont freese them, they just lower the body core tempreture to approx 4 degree's.
no cell damage.

Did anyone actually RTFA ? (read the fluffy article, lol)

This actually works, they did it to a dog, and revived it 4 hours later.

A lot can be done in 4 hours for someone bleeding to death from a knife wound.
Someone who would normally die in an ambulance on the way to hospital could be cooled long enough to arive at the hospital, and have arteries and veins fixed.

They arnt talking about suspended animation for years, or decades, or centuries.. just a few hours.

Dont forget that most people you know would be dead, unless of course they were frozen too...

Plus it'd be gross if you got reanimated and one day found out you were dating your great great great great grand daughter or something...haha

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

To digress: You run the same risk in reverse if one were to time travel. It'd be gross if you were dating your great great great great grand mother or something

Going back to the topic, and curing diseases. Think what it would be like if suddenly we had a bunch (any amount, even in the thousands) of people from the dark ages, after being cryogenically frozen, come back to life in our day, all ready for a cure for, oh I don't know, some extinct disease like smallpox or something. Wouldn't it be rather disasterous for this sudden surge of diseased people to come back to today?

The only way to possibly prevent any epidemics would be to ensure that the cryogenically frozen person be isolated from everybody until (s)he is completely purged from any bacterial or viral infections. But you have to remember that the bacteria that was on/in the person was also frozen, and thus, preserved. So a quarantine period would be necessary.

Which reason struck you as crud? If its the "waiting for a cure to a disease" one it makes sense to me...just because if I knew I could live through years of pain then die...or freeze and wake up in 50-100 years and be cured instantly and live a healthy life...I know which I would choose

Oh and kudos on the space flight concept, that never even occured to me at all. It seems like it would indeed be a very viable solution for the whole "other planets are frickin far away" problem...assuming you could find volunteers for it

I would think space travel would be the main reason to do this. I can't see any real medical reason except for thatr same bizzare reason they give for cyrogenic freezing which always struck me as crud.

Dont forget that most people you know would be dead, unless of course they were frozen too...

Plus it'd be gross if you got reanimated and one day found out you were dating your great great great great grand daughter or something...haha

I remember talking about this in one of my highschool classes... Or maybe it was the Discovery Channel... I dunno. Anyway, the problem with the "Freezing Method" would be the fact that humans are approximately 70 percent water. Water expands when it freezes, so the cells that compose the human body expand. Imagine putting a paper cup in the freezer that is full of water. When you take it out, you'll notice that the bottom of the cup is most likely ripped. This cellular damage is what hinders successful suspended animation.

They figure if they can get the freezing process down to a perfect method, then it might be possible. Hearing the story about replacing the dog blood seems to me that they have found new ways of achieving this method, and might be on the right track. (Though I would hope that the person is unconsious when they do this )

I personally wouldn't want to be suspended for any length of time unless I had some sort of disease that wouldn't be curable through modern day methods... The reason being that I would only wake up to higher taxes, larger populations, and fatter people