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Zombie Dog, Meet the Lazarus Pig

On the heels of the Zombie Dog article, Wired brings us the tale of 78-6, a 120 pound, pink Yorkshire pig which was kept in suspended animation then revived:

Long the domain of transhumanist ~~nut-jobs~~ [visionaries], [cryonic] suspension may be just two years away from clinical trials on humans (presuming someone can solve the sticky ethical problems) ... Tests on other subjects – and postmortem examinations of brains – have revealed no cognitive damage from the procedure, but Alam will nevertheless stick around until 78-6 gets back on her feet...

Along with Zombie Dog, this brings us another step closer to the day when death will come in two variants: de-animation, and final death* (or the type of death from which you just can't be brought back, like a plane crash).

(*Note: The term "final death" was coined -- I believe -- by James L. Halperin in the book The First Immortal.)

To this valiant pig I would like to say "Welcome... to the woooorrrld of tomorroooooowww!" Or at least the world of two hours later.

Thoughts?

Published Thursday, July 13, 2006 11:30 PM by gnorb

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	Anne wrote on July 14, 2006 12:13 AM Awesome. There is nothing inherently freakish about the fact that hey, if you carefully slow down the metabolic processes of a biological organism and carefully speed them up again, you'll be able to achieve suspended animation at some point. I like seeing things that at least admit that the transhumanists are sometimes right. :) Even if they do keep using the "nut-job" moniker.
	EmbraceUnity wrote on July 14, 2006 2:24 AM Wired doesn't normally scoff at transhumanists, in fact they were one of the original media outlets that nurtured early transhumanist thought. Maybe this is the writer's way of admitting we were right though
	gnorb wrote on July 14, 2006 6:47 AM AP: I'm guessing the writer (and maybe the editor) was either going for shock value, was brand new to the subject, or both. (I'll put my money on the "both" option.) For example, in addition to "nut-jobs", the original article (incorrectly) used the term "cryogenics", as opposed to "cryonics", which in this case reflects on both the writer and the editor.
	Simon wrote on July 14, 2006 8:21 AM Gnorb, nice find, but the link doesn't work. An extra http// in there. Thanks!
	Mr. Farlops wrote on July 14, 2006 10:01 AM AP, I think the "transhumanist nut-jobsH^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^visionaries" dig was sort of an in-jokey kind of thing. It was sort of like, "Yeah, we know the stuff they talk about is far out, but it all seems to have this curious ring of inevitability about it." (To use AK Dewdney's espression.) The dog and the pig experiments are definitely something to point uninitiated skeptics towards but, I'm really more interested in experiments involving new cryoprotectants to further reduce tissue damage from freezing. The less work the nanoscopic cell repair machines have to do the better.
	gnorb wrote on July 14, 2006 10:21 AM Simon: Fixed. Mr. Farlops: Wired wrote "nut-jobs". I, summoning editorial authority and the power of Grayskull, struck it out and inserted "visionaries".
	EschewObfuscation wrote on July 14, 2006 4:46 PM Did the title make anybody else think of Alastair Reynolds?
	Astromancer wrote on July 14, 2006 10:08 PM The first useful application for cyrogentic suspenion techniques is anaesthesia. There are many operations were suspending the patient's life process for a longish time would vastly reduce the damage done by the operation. We could be seeing a total shift in what we mean by the word "inoperable." Cyrogenic suspension makes whole ranges of surgeries doable because the patient will live and live without the equivelent of fourty or fifty stokes.
	EmbraceUnity wrote on July 15, 2006 3:17 AM Mr Farlops and gnorb, Yes, maybe some of the writers at Wired were originally weirded out by the transhumanists among them, and now they are finally coming around. Though it does seem that this one is still rather new to transhumanist-related subjects. I am just glad this is getting the media attention it has been. This article made it to both Slashdot and Digg.
	Gnorb.NET » Blog Archive » Le Linkage #7 (Trackback) wrote on July 18, 2006 12:02 PM PingBack from http://www.gnorb.net/le-linkage/20060718/le-linkage-7/

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About gnorb

Norbert 'Gnorb' Cartagena is a writer currently working in the computer and housing industries. He has been working in and focused on open source projects, news, and information since 1999. He spends spare moments reading, exercising, and blogging. You can find some of his writings at Gnorb.NET.