Monthly Archives: August 2022

August 3, 2022

A paper published in Nature suggests cellular recovery can occur in pigs after death.

Prof Martin Monti, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), said:

Biological death is more like a cascade of dominoes, with one event triggering the next, than an instantaneous transition. What is ground-breaking about this technology is that this cascade can be halted in some organs if only the right cellular environment and metabolic parameters can be restored. The potential implications, if this will ever be successfully translated to humans, are huge: how many more lives could be saved through transplantation each year thanks to greater organ viability?

What this technology did not do, however, was restore any form of brain network activity and any associated function. Whether this is due to brain tissues having a faster death cascade than other organs or other factors remains unclear.

What is clear, however, is that this technology is not about magically reviving dead tissue. It is about expanding the window for restoring organ function by interrupting the death cascade.

Dr Anders Sandberg, Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, said:

When blood circulation stops, cells begin to die due to lack of oxygen, and chemical changes begin that harm tissues and organ function. At normal temperature, irreversible changes set in after a few minutes. What this paper shows is that significant improvements are possible in how long after death preservation methods to keep organs alive can be started (up to an hour), and that some of the cellular damage can be partially reversed.

While the experiment was done on pigs, helping humans is an obvious goal, and the most obvious impact is on organ donation. Currently, most organ donation happens after brain death: the brainstem has permanently ceased functioning, but the body is otherwise functional. These cases are rarer than circulatory death where the heart has irreversibly ceased functioning. However, in these cases, there will be a period of no circulation before artificial circulation can be instituted and organs are likely to be damaged. The system in the paper may help overcome this problem, making more transplants possible.

Ethically, this seems to beunproblematic good news. However, further in the future this kind of method may also make treatment directly after a stroke or major trauma more effective: by saving patients that would otherwise have died, it might reduce the number of available transplants. This may still be good news, but there is a risk that it mainly preventspeople from dying rather than making them recover. There is a challenging ethical issue in determiningwhen radical life support is just futile, and as technology advances we may find more ways of keeping bodies alive despite being unable to revive the person we actually careabout. Much work remainsto find criteria for when further treatment is futile, and alsoin how to get people back from the brink.

Right now, the ethically important aspect of this paper is that it shows that the changes happening after stopped circulation can be slowed or reversed with the right treatment: there is more hope for patients in this state. Death is not an instantaneous event but rather agradual process, and we have gained a further tool to nudge it. Once, lack of breathing was regarded as a sign of permanent death, until artificial breathing merely made it a dangerous state to be in. Later, other technologies have pushed back the point of no return, first to cardiac arrest, and later to brain death. OrganExshows that there is more medical wiggle room in cases with no circulation to fix things than previously looked possible: related methods may make new forms of surgery possible. Paradoxically, this makes the futility debate harder since there is a bit more hope. However, it is better to have more options to save lives than fewer, even if hard moral choices have tobe made.

Doubtless some readers will bring up cryonics, the practice of cooling down bodies to extremely low temperatures after death hasbeen declared in the hope that future medicine will be able to revive them and repair the damage from both the terminal cause and the suspension process. This is not what OrganExis about, but the technology will doubtless be of great interest to cryonics organisations as a way of reducing the damage while temperature is lowered. One of the largest practical hurdles is the often excessivetime between circulation stopping and damage-reducing suspension procedures starting: this technique may buy valuable time. The big question about whether future revival is going to be possible remains, but at least one can improve the present practice to boost the chances.

Dr Sam Parnia MD PhD, Associate Professor of Critical Care Medicine and Director of Critical Care and Resuscitation Research, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, said:

The press release is accurate but if anything underestimates the significance of these discoveries.

This is a truly remarkable and incredibly significant study. It demonstrates that after death, cells in mammalian organs (including humans) such as the brain do not die for many hours. This is well into the post-mortem period.

Consequently, by developing this system of organ preservation (using organ Ex in humans, which is entirely feasible), in the near future doctors will be able to provide novel treatments to preserve the organs post-mortem. This will enable access to many more organs for transplantation, which will lead to 1000s of lives saved every year.

Perhaps, as important is the fact that the OrganEx method can be used to preserve organs in people who have died, but in whom the underlying cause of death remains treatable. Today, this would include athletes who die suddenly from a heart defect, people who die from drowning, heart attacks or massive bleeding after trauma (such as car accidents). The OrganEx system can preserve such peoples organs and prevent brain damage for hours in people after death. This will provide time for doctors to fix the underlying condition (such as a blocked blood vessel in the heart that had led to a massive heart attack and death, or repair a torn blood vessel that had led to death from massive bleeding after trauma), restore organ function and bring such people back to life many hours after death. As such otherwise healthy people, including athletes who die, but in whom the cause of death is treatable at any given time can potentially be brought back to life, and if the cause of death is not treatable, then their organs can be preserved to give life to thousands of people every year.

Finally, this study demonstrates that our social convention regarding death, ie. as an absolute black and white end is not scientifically valid. By contrast, scientifically, death is a biological process that remains treatable and reversible for hours after it has occurred.

For decades millions of people have reported lucid consciousness and a detailed reevaluation of all their own actions, thoughts and intentions throughout life, when on the brink of death, or after crossing the threshold of death. These recalled experiences surrounding death or so called near death experiences were often been dismissed. However, this study and others suggest consciousness may not be annihilated at the time of death. This further reinforces the need to study consciousness and recalled experiences surrounding death in an unbiased scientific manner. Scientists can study what happens to the human mind and consciousness after death and provide answers to the age old question of what happens to us all after we die through the prism of science.

Cellular recovery after prolonged warm ischaemia of the whole body by David Andrijevic et al. was published in Nature at 16:00 UK time on Wednesday 3rd August 2022.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05016-1

Declared interests

Prof Martin Monti: No conflict of interest.

Dr Sam Parnia: I donthave any conflicts. However, I do conduct other research into methods to preserve the brain after cardiac arrest.

For all other experts, no reply to our request for DOIswas received.

Read more:

expert reaction to paper suggesting that cellular and tissue function can be restored in pigs after death - Science Media Centre

Although most of the world knew James Lovelock as an independent scientist and originator of the Gaia hypothesis, he had a slightly different take. Im not a scientist really. Im an inventor or a mechanic. Its a different thing. The Gaia theory is just engineering written very large indeed, hetold theGuardianin 2020.

Regardless of labels, theres no denying the significant influence of Lovelock, whodied July 26on his 103rdbirthday. Although many of his discoveries and ideason subjects ranging from cryonics to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and climate to nuclear powerwere controversial, most gained acceptance as the world caught up.

Named for the Greek Earth goddess, hisGaia theorydeveloped with evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis during the 1960s when he was working for NASAs moon and Mars programssaw the world with its natural cycles as a living, self-regulating organism. When one cycle is knocked out of equilibrium, others work to restore balance.

At the time, many prominent scientists ridiculed the hypothesis, but it has continued to gain acceptance because it helps to explain the chemical and physical balances in air, land, and water that make life possible. It underpins much of climate science. The idea isnt that Earth is conscious of these processes; just that the cycles work together to keep the planet healthy and able to support life.

Its similar to the ways in which many Indigenous Peoples worldwide view the living Earth. Everything is interconnected. He understood that human activities that destroy rainforests and reduce biodiversity, for example, hinder Gaias ability to minimize the impacts of runaway greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Lovelock wasnt afraid to change his views in the face of evolving evidence, but he also refused to ever soften his message, something I learned from interviewing him several times.

His research revealed the effects of CFCs on the ozone layer, and he warned that burning fossil fuels was changing the climate before these issues were on most peoples radar. His electron-capture device, invented in the late 1960s, detected rising CFC levels in the atmosphereas well as pollutants like PCBs in air, soil, and waterand led to the discovery that this was causing ozone depletion. That eventually resulted in theMontreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, adopted in 1987 by all countries, thus helping the ozone layer to recover and preventing millions of cases of skin and other cancers and eye cataracts.

Like many who clearly see the environmental predicaments weve created, Lovelock wasnt always optimistic, despite his knowledge of the many available and emerging solutions. I would say the biosphere and I are both in the last one percent or our lives, he told theGuardiantwo years ago.

Lovelock, who started out in medicine, even thought pandemics such as COVID-19 could be related to planetary self-regulation: I could easily make you a model and demonstrate that as the human population on the planet grew larger and larger, the probability of a virus evolving that would cut back the population is quite marked.

He said opposition to the Gaia hypothesis surprised him: Im wondering to what extent you can put that down to the coal and oil industries who fought against any kind of message that would be bad for them.

As for solutions to the climate crisis, he advocated for technologies that havent always been popular, including nuclear energy and Edward Tellers suggestion of a sunshade in a heliocentric orbit that would diffuse a few percent of sunlight from the Earth.

However, he cautioned, I dont think we should start messing about with the Gaia system until we know a hell of a lot more about it. It is beginning to look as if renewable energywind and solarif properly used, may be the answer to the energy problems of humanity.

James Lovelock continued to work, write, and speak until his final days. My main reason for not relaxing into contented retirement is that like most of you I am deeply concerned about the probability of massively harmful climate change and the need to do something about it now, he said.

Lovelock may have left Gaia, but the knowledge he left endures and is essential to understanding our place, predicament, and future.

Read more here:

David Suzuki: Gaia theorist James Lovelock was always ahead of the times - The Georgia Straight

Posted on Aug 4, 2022 in Planet Earth, Science

Todays stories range from NASA Seeks the Science behind UFOs to The Origins of the Universe may be Hidden in the Voids of Space, and much more. The Planet Earth Report connects you to headline news on the science, technology, discoveries, people and events changing our planet and the future of the human species.

Does life on Earth have a purpose? The answer is both disappointing and exciting, reports Marcelo Gleiser for Big Think. Is the incredible diversity of species a random accident? Or does life on Earth follow a plan of becoming ever more complex? Those who think there is such a plan believe the apex of this process would, of course, be us. The answer is both disappointing and exciting, given that we are the ones asking the question.

Footprints Discovery Suggests Ancient Ghost Tracks May Cover the WestThe set of 88 prints is about 12,000 years old, scientists say, and was found in the militarys Utah Test and Training Range, reports The New York Times.

Why We Need to Study Nothing -The origins of the universe may be hidden in the voids of space, reports Paul Sutter for Nautil.us.

Chinese and US scientists build bridges with cutting-edge Hale telescope project, reports South China MOrning Post. Work to build an advanced spectrograph which will help explore distant corners of the universe is a rare example of cooperation between the two countries

With New Study, NASA Seeks the Science behind UFOs Although modest in scope, a NASA research project reflects shifting attitudes toward the formerly taboo subject of UFOs, reports Scientific American.

When Will the Next Supernova in Our Galaxy Occur? -Scientists have new tools at their disposal to detect and study the dramatic explosion of a star, reports The Smithsonian. Its been a long wait418 years since weve seen a star explode in our galaxy. So are we overdue for a bright, nearby supernova?

Earth is spinning faster than usual and had its shortest day ever, reports CBS News. Since 2016 the Earth started to accelerate, said Leonid Zotov, who works at works for Lomonosov Moscow State University and recently published a study on what might cause the changes in Earths rotation. This year it rotates quicker than in 2021 and 2020.

Gigantic jet lightning is a mystery. These researchers are solving it--The extreme electrical discharges can tower 50 miles above a thunderstorm, reports the Washington Post.

This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How Its Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years, reports The Smithsonian. The interactive tool enables users to home in on a specific location and visualize how it has evolved between the Cryogenian Period and the present.

A China-Taiwan conflict could lead to a catastrophic semiconductor shortage in the world Taiwan manufactures roughly 50 percent of all the worlds semiconductors, reports Interesting Engineering.

Horror stories of cryonics: The gruesome fates of futurists hoping for immortalityFor decades people have arranged to freeze their bodies after death, dreaming of resurrection by advanced future medicine. Many met a fate far grislier than death, reports Big Think.

How the secrets of ancient cuneiform texts are being revealed by AI--Much of the worlds first writing, carved into clay tablets, remains undeciphered. Now AI is helping us piece together this ancient Mesopotamian script, revealing the incredible stories of men, women and children at the dawn of history, reports New Scientist.

Hubbles Future in the Webb Era -We believe that we can keep Hubble doing the ground-breaking science it is known for through the latter part of this decade and possibly into the next, says public affairs officer Claire Andreoli (NASA Goddard).

Citizen future: Why we need a new story of self and society, reports BBC Future. Are you a subject, a consumer or a citizen? The authors Jon Alexander and Ariane Conrad argue that our societies need a new narrative, and it starts by ditching the stories sold by authoritarianism and consumerism.

The Crypto Market Crashed. Theyre Still Buying Bitcoin Hard-core Bitcoin evangelists are making the case that Bitcoin differs from the unstable crypto projects that sent the market into a tailspin, reports The New York Times. Cory Klippsten started issuing warnings about the cryptocurrency market in March. The digital coin Luna, Mr. Klippsten tweeted, was a scam, run by an entrepreneur with major Elizabeth Holmes vibes. The newfangled crypto bank Celsius Network was a massive blowup risk, he said.

Semiotics of dogs In all its baroque and sometimes cruelly overbred forms, the dog is a paramount symbol of both human hopes and foibles, reports Aeon. After millennia of domestication, we gave our pets family trees, and named them as breeds. They acquired an identity reflecting human projection, and symbolized our own increased focus on lineage and breeding. Lady is purebred, Tramp is a mutt.

New algorithm aces university math course questions Researchers use machine learning to automatically solve, explain, and generate university-level math problems at a human level, reports MIT News. a multidisciplinary team of researchers from MIT and elsewhere, led by Iddo Drori, a lecturer in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), has used a neural network model to solve university-level math problems in a few seconds at a human level.

North Korea-backed hackers have a clever way to read your Gmail, reports Ars Technica. SHARPEXT has slurped up thousands of emails in the past year and keeps getting better.

Curated by The Daily Galaxy Editorial Staff

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Does Life on Earth Have a Purpose to Ancient Ghost Tracks of the West (Planet Earth Report) - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel