BigShinyThing

‘Zombie Dogs!’ screams the New York Post in typically hysterical fashion (free subscription required). However, the headlines mask what is a hugely exciting advance in medical science.

Scientists at Pittsburgh’s Safar Center for Resuscitation Research succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death. They developed a technique in which the subject’s veins are drained of blood and filled with ice-cold salt solution. The animals are considered to be clinically dead as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or blood activity. Three hours later, their blood is replaced and they are brought back to life with an electric shock (maybe the NYP has a point). Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, say the Safar Center.

The use for humans would not be to create an army of zombies, but to put subjects in this suspended state for long enough to perform life saving surgery. A few hours would be enough to save the lives of battlefield casualities and victims of stabbings or gunshot wounds, who have suffered huge blood loss. According to one doctor involved in the trial, “The results are stunning. I think in 10 years we will be able to prevent death in a certain segment of those using this technology.”

The news makes all those cryogenically frozen folk - like Walt Disney (maybe)- look less silly after all.