Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Speaking Of Zombies...

Anybody see this story? "Scientists Raise The Dead In Dog Experiments."

Zombie dogs. Just great. As Adam well knows, the creepiest part of the Resident Evil movies for me was the zombie dogs. Pass the shotgun.

All kidding aside, this is pretty cool. At the very least, this is short-term suspended animation, which could prove very halpful in handling trauma cases. Assuming the treatment could be simplified, triage of mass casualties could mean sticking some victims in the freezer instead of having to let them die. One thing I would like to know that wasn't really addressed here - is there any brain damage? That would be the big hitch.

4 Comments:

At 8:26 AM, Blogger Nathan said...

Time for another good idea, bad idea...I can't believe these people are thinking of using this in a battlefield setting. Hmmm, let's see...a guy's shot full of holes, maybe we should pump him full of ice, cold Mountain Dew...I mean saline. Oh look, now we have Mountain Dew dripping out of his wounds. Dang it, this guy's leaking! Anyone got some super glue?

 
At 11:10 AM, Blogger Tyler Farrer said...

Two things. This process delays brain damage, but the dogs needed to be revived after two hours to be effective. Other experiments have been done on mice using hydrogen sulfide gas (rotten egg smell) to induce hybernation. The mice could last much longer without ill effects. They pulled them out after six hours of exposure without a problem. I think if I were going on a deep-space mission, I would rather take the gas then risk waking up a zombie.

 
At 3:20 PM, Blogger Tyler said...

Nate - but cold saline - or Mountain Dew - would be easier to come by than blood.

Tyler - quite right. This is only good for short-term suspended animation. But in terms of trauma and battlefield medicine, that would be enough. Just enough time to evacuate the patient to a better facility.

Hydrogen sulfide, eh? I'll have to read up on that. What little I know about is that it is a very dangerous poison, when encountered accidentally.

Adam - but who wiull lead your zombie army.

 
At 10:16 AM, Blogger Tyler said...

Um - I'm not eating anything you give me ever again.

 

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