Scientists have created "zombie pigs"

[Ihavewaffles]

Where is your god now?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1099-1

Zombie pigs? Scientists restore partial function in hours-dead animal brains.

Published time: 17 Apr, 2019 23:53

Dead pigs’ brains have been partially revived in a study that upends established wisdom about what happens when we die, raising serious ethical questions even though researchers claim the brains never regained consciousness.

Disembodied pig brains subjected to an experimental preservative procedure showed some restored cellular and molecular function and even some synaptic activity, researchers discovered, observing these “signs of life” ten hours after the animals had been killed. The brains of ordinary pigs, taken from a slaughterhouse, were cleansed and cooled, then pumped full of a chemical cocktail designed to slow their deterioration, and the results – published Wednesday in the journal Nature – are striking.

“This is not a living brain, but it is a cellularly active brain,” Yale University neuroscientist Nenad Sestan told NPR, adding that the researchers were able to preserve tissue and cell structure and reduce cell death in addition to restoring vital neurochemical functions like glucose and oxygen uptake.

Researchers burned through hundreds of dead pig heads over a six-year period working to develop a technique – which they’ve christened BrainEX – to keep the brains supplied with oxygen, nutrients and other chemicals intended to halt their deterioration, because they were determined to study the organs in their original form. Previous experiments had already shown viable cells could be removed from brains hours after their owners were pronounced dead, but “once you do that, you are losing the 3D organization of the brain,” Sestan pointed out.

Despite researchers’ claim that the reanimated pig brains showed none of the electrochemical signals associated with consciousness, they deliberately made an effort to avoid “waking up” the brains. “It was something the researchers were actively worried about,” bioethicist Stephen Latham said, explaining the researchers had a plan of action in place to shut down the experiment immediately with “anesthesia and cooling” should the pig brains get too excited.

Specifically, a drug that dampens or blocks neuronal activity was included in the preservative solution because researchers thought the cells would be better preserved if their activity was minimized. But individual cells, cleansed of the solution and tested for electrochemical responses, appeared to be quite active, and even in their pharmacologically-dulled state, the preserved brains showed “spontaneous synaptic activity.” Researcher Stefano Daniele admits “we cannot speak with any scientific certainty” as to whether consciousness could be restored to the brains without the blocker, since “we did not run those experiments.”

Even without answering the consciousness question, the Yale experiment turns current science about “brain death” on its head, placing the practice of extracting organs for transplant from brain-dead patients in question – as well as current protocols regarding the handling of (possibly revivable) dead tissue from humans and animals alike.

[Elegiac]

You want the T-Virus? This is how you get the T-Virus.

[Dark-Zarupia]

And so begins the zombie apocalypse.

Good riddance.

[Reaper0329]

This topic made me think of those undead pig things from Drustvar, and I'm not okay with that.

[Kumorii]

More pig! Mooooore pig!

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Um god raised people from the dead all the time, so I guess he’s working on pigs now?

[Ihavewaffles]

"You are not prepared!" -Illidan

I am not..unless resident evil 2 on my steam wish-list gets a discount soon, I will not be prepared. Maybe the movies have some clue how to deal with zombie pigs? It's outside my expertise...I think i'll probably die..

I need to play zombie games...playing wow for 14 years has not prepared me at all, I have no idea how to conjure up chain-lightning, frost bolts n such..

[Celista]

Good, it is time. I shall go prepare my chainsaw.

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Um god raised people from the dead all the time, so I guess he’s working on pigs now?

Usually a bad idea to state religious ideas as fact.

[Soot]

Where is your god now?

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1099-1

Zombie pigs? Scientists restore partial function in hours-dead animal brains.

Published time: 17 Apr, 2019 23:53

Dead pigs’ brains have been partially revived in a study that upends established wisdom about what happens when we die, raising serious ethical questions even though researchers claim the brains never regained consciousness.

Disembodied pig brains subjected to an experimental preservative procedure showed some restored cellular and molecular function and even some synaptic activity, researchers discovered, observing these “signs of life” ten hours after the animals had been killed. The brains of ordinary pigs, taken from a slaughterhouse, were cleansed and cooled, then pumped full of a chemical cocktail designed to slow their deterioration, and the results – published Wednesday in the journal Nature – are striking.

“This is not a living brain, but it is a cellularly active brain,” Yale University neuroscientist Nenad Sestan told NPR, adding that the researchers were able to preserve tissue and cell structure and reduce cell death in addition to restoring vital neurochemical functions like glucose and oxygen uptake.

Researchers burned through hundreds of dead pig heads over a six-year period working to develop a technique – which they’ve christened BrainEX – to keep the brains supplied with oxygen, nutrients and other chemicals intended to halt their deterioration, because they were determined to study the organs in their original form. Previous experiments had already shown viable cells could be removed from brains hours after their owners were pronounced dead, but “once you do that, you are losing the 3D organization of the brain,” Sestan pointed out.

Despite researchers’ claim that the reanimated pig brains showed none of the electrochemical signals associated with consciousness, they deliberately made an effort to avoid “waking up” the brains. “It was something the researchers were actively worried about,” bioethicist Stephen Latham said, explaining the researchers had a plan of action in place to shut down the experiment immediately with “anesthesia and cooling” should the pig brains get too excited.

Specifically, a drug that dampens or blocks neuronal activity was included in the preservative solution because researchers thought the cells would be better preserved if their activity was minimized. But individual cells, cleansed of the solution and tested for electrochemical responses, appeared to be quite active, and even in their pharmacologically-dulled state, the preserved brains showed “spontaneous synaptic activity.” Researcher Stefano Daniele admits “we cannot speak with any scientific certainty” as to whether consciousness could be restored to the brains without the blocker, since “we did not run those experiments.”

Even without answering the consciousness question, the Yale experiment turns current science about “brain death” on its head, placing the practice of extracting organs for transplant from brain-dead patients in question – as well as current protocols regarding the handling of (possibly revivable) dead tissue from humans and animals alike.

I think like with absolutely every piece of science news, media is overreactiong, misconstruing and misrepresenting what it actually is.
The pig brains aren't active, they're not alive. They've only managed to make the cells in said brains get active again.

There is so, so much that needs explaining about this. And there's without a doubt no way you could actually revive someone with this. Your cells start to decay instantly upon your death. Reviving a decaying person, just let's assume it would be possible, would without a single doubt have MASSIVE problems tied to it due to cellular decay and degradation. You might be reviving a body, but not the person. Know what I mean?

Of course, within 1-2 hours you might be able to save a person. If we had the means. But without properly restoring them correctly, we could be reviving vegetables.

[cuafpr]

gamers all over have spent their lives prepping for this.........

[Ihavewaffles]

Good, it is time. I shall go prepare my chainsaw.

But what if its a swarm of small zombie piglets?

[cuafpr]

I think like with absolutely every piece of science news, media is overreactiong, misconstruing and misrepresenting what it actually is.
The pig brains aren't active, they're not alive. They've only managed to make the cells in said brains get active again.

There is so, so much that needs explaining about this. And there's without a doubt no way you could actually revive someone with this. Your cells start to decay instantly upon your death. Reviving a decaying person, just let's assume it would be possible, would without a single doubt have MASSIVE problems tied to it due to cellular decay and degradation. You might be reviving a body, but not the person. Know what I mean?

Of course, within 1-2 hours you might be able to save a person. If we had the means. But without properly restoring them correctly, we could be reviving vegetables.

*reviving zombies. ftfy

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Usually a bad idea to state religious ideas as fact.

You can’t have really missed the joke right?

[nyc81991]

Life is essentially biological machines, it's only a matter of time before we figure out how to turn "dead things" back on and "death" the way we know it becomes a thing of the past. Religion is irrelevant.

[Celista]

You can’t have really missed the joke right?

Didn't come across as a joke.

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But what if its a swarm of small zombie piglets?

That would make me sad. But I also am now wondering what zombie bacon tastes like.

[Soot]

Life is essentially biological machines, it's only a matter of time before we figure out how to turn "dead things" back on and "death" the way we know it becomes a thing of the past. Religion is irrelevant.

I think we still need to find some way of renewing cells, even if we can revive it wouldn't mean anything if we revive something that won't fix itself properly. And if we can regenerate cells, we might be able to extend life or prevent death entirely instead.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Didn't come across as a joke.

Clearly god must be working on raising pigs then.....

[Zantos]

You missed one key part

This is not a living brain, but it is a cellularly active brain,

They revived cells within the brain, not the brain itself. Its still very far off from a zombie pig in any sense of the word. The only question is, would they be a zombie or a ghoul?

[BlackBoss]

How is anything in this story anything "zombie"?

[Unholyground]

Except without nano technology dead cells are not going to stop decaying. Give it like 50 more years.