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China Medicine

Chinese Doctor Performs Head Transplants On Mice 203

An anonymous reader writes: Xiaoping Ren, a Chinese surgeon, has performed roughly 1,000 head transplants on mice since 2013 and says that monkeys are next. Some of the mice have lived as long as a day after the operations according to Ren and he hopes to have similar success with primates. With $1.6 million of funding so far, he says, "We want to do this clinically, but we have to make an animal model with long-term survival first. Currently, I am not confident to say that I can do a human transplant."
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Chinese Doctor Performs Head Transplants On Mice

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  • by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @01:50PM (#49862315)

    The immune response would have to be serious.

    if you have two genetically identical mice then swapping their heads should be more viable.

    The interesting thing in so far as humans would be doing the same thing.

    Forget the ethics for a moment. Lets say you got a clone of yourself... doing a head swap would be less of a big deal than grabbing some random other person and doing a head swap with them.

    • by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @02:10PM (#49862417)

      The idea of "new bodies for old" is an old one in fiction and in science. This was explored in some dramatic detail in Lois McMaster Bujold's stories of "Miles Vorkosigan". Old people would have a clone made, the clone raised in foster care until mature enough to support a full grown brain, and then the brain transplanted. Raising the clone required raising them to at least puberty, to support the brain and mature nervous system of the transplant candidate, and they were certainly sentient beings being sacrificed.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07, 2015 @03:08PM (#49862685)

        The thing everyone always ignores is that no matter what, eventually your brain dies. Whether in you or after you've been uploaded to a computer or another brain or what have you. And when that happens *THAT* you is dead. *YOU* still experience the pain of death. YOU still cease to exist. There is something out there with your memories and thoughts, but they are not you any more than a photo album or journal is you.

        • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 07, 2015 @04:26PM (#49862989)
          The thing that everyone like you always ignores is that no matter what, cells are always dying. Constantly! Even brain cells! And then they get replaced by other cells! But that doesn't mean you cease to be you.

          Will it be easy to transfer a person to a new body, new brain, or an artificial brain? Heck no. But I can see no reason why, given advanced enough technology, "I" must die in order for "me" to live on.
          • I'd suggest reading some David Lewis and Saul Kripke. This topic of who is the real "you" has been elaborated upon in fantastic detail :)

          • Neurons in the cerebral cortex are never replaced, or added to, from the time we are born.

            Many (perhaps more than half) cardiomyocyte heart cells in a septuagenarian are the ones she was born with.

            A part of you has always been in the current state of things. 75 to 120 years mostly well-lived is more than enough for me.

          • by Eloking ( 877834 )

            The thing everyone always ignores is that no matter what, eventually your brain dies. Whether in you or after you've been uploaded to a computer or another brain or what have you. And when that happens *THAT* you is dead. *YOU* still experience the pain of death. YOU still cease to exist. There is something out there with your memories and thoughts, but they are not you any more than a photo album or journal is you.

            The thing that everyone like you always ignores is that no matter what, cells are always dying. Constantly! Even brain cells! And then they get replaced by other cells! But that doesn't mean you cease to be you.

            Exactly this!

            That thought came to my mind a while ago. Eventually, our whole brain replace itself but we never cease to be, well, ourselves. Even though it's a generally accepted concept in /. community that our mind is our brain (and not our soul or anything religion related), it's mind blowing to think that I'm still myself even if our brain replace itself every 7 years (or 10 depending on the research). Or is my being is slowly disappearing to be replaced by perfect copy of myself and the memory of my pa

        • by Megol ( 3135005 )

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]

          We animals are always dying when it comes to our individual cells however still the collection of cells (including absorbed microorganisms and bacteria) is still alive.

          BTW why would one experience any pain if one knows that one is dying? Sedation and pain killers removes that.

          • by azav ( 469988 )

            > BTW why would one experience any pain if one knows that one is dying?

            Did you forget the phrase, "want to", in your question above?

        • by ranton ( 36917 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @04:59PM (#49863093)

          The thing everyone always ignores is that no matter what, eventually your brain dies. Whether in you or after you've been uploaded to a computer or another brain or what have you. And when that happens *THAT* you is dead. *YOU* still experience the pain of death. YOU still cease to exist. There is something out there with your memories and thoughts, but they are not you any more than a photo album or journal is you.

          This is very easily solved as a concept, although the implementation will obviously be insanely difficult. As another poster mentioned, your brain cells are constantly dying already. You still feel like you probably because it happens so gradually. So the answer to replacing your brain is the same; do it gradually. Conceptually you would be hooking your brain to a helmet filled with electronics that slowly replace your brain functions. At the end of the process your brain is completely electronic and you are still you. This is the theory anyway.

          If you consider this scenario to be the same as you experiencing death, then you have already died perhaps hundreds of times in your lifetime so far.

          • The thing everyone always ignores is that no matter what, eventually your brain dies. Whether in you or after you've been uploaded to a computer or another brain or what have you. And when that happens *THAT* you is dead. *YOU* still experience the pain of death. YOU still cease to exist. There is something out there with your memories and thoughts, but they are not you any more than a photo album or journal is you.

            This is very easily solved as a concept, although the implementation will obviously be insanely difficult. As another poster mentioned, your brain cells are constantly dying already. You still feel like you probably because it happens so gradually. So the answer to replacing your brain is the same; do it gradually. Conceptually you would be hooking your brain to a helmet filled with electronics that slowly replace your brain functions. At the end of the process your brain is completely electronic and you are still you. This is the theory anyway.

            If you consider this scenario to be the same as you experiencing death, then you have already died perhaps hundreds of times in your lifetime so far.

            Which part of the brain holds your conscious self?
            There is no scientific explanation for the phenomenon of consciousness - no theory about how it arises, not even a definition of what qualifies.
            You cannot transfer consciousness without know what it is and how it works.

            • by stjobe ( 78285 )

              There is no scientific explanation for the phenomenon of consciousness - no theory about how it arises, not even a definition of what qualifies.

              There are several scientific theories - multitudes even - about what consciousness is, how it arises, and what qualifies [wikipedia.org].

              You should also try studying some philosophy; philosophy of mind [wikipedia.org] has been the subject matter of thousands of books, theories, discussions, and theses all the way back to Plato.

            • by ranton ( 36917 )

              Which part of the brain holds your conscious self?
              There is no scientific explanation for the phenomenon of consciousness - no theory about how it arises, not even a definition of what qualifies.
              You cannot transfer consciousness without know what it is and how it works.

              Obviously science has not progressed far enough to know how to model the human brain in a computer, or else we would probably be doing it already. So I guess I concede that we can't transfer the human brain yet, but I never said we could. But it is silly to believe we won't figure this out eventually. I would be surprised if it takes us 50 years.

              I was only responding to the idea that if you transfer your brain to another medium, the old you dies. This is potentially true, but very unlikely. People can lose

              • Obviously science has not progressed far enough to know how to model the human brain in a computer, or else we would probably be doing it already. So I guess I concede that we can't transfer the human brain yet, but I never said we could. But it is silly to believe we won't figure this out eventually. I would be surprised if it takes us 50 years.

                I was only responding to the idea that if you transfer your brain to another medium, the old you dies. This is potentially true, but very unlikely. People can lose large portions of their brain without dying, and if those portions were replaced with synthetic computing devices I don't think anyone would think the old them has died.

                That "replaced bit-by-bit" shit doesn't even fly at car auctions. There's no chance in hell society would accept a fully-replaced human as the original.

                • by ag0ny ( 59629 )

                  Obviously science has not progressed far enough to know how to model the human brain in a computer, or else we would probably be doing it already. So I guess I concede that we can't transfer the human brain yet, but I never said we could. But it is silly to believe we won't figure this out eventually. I would be surprised if it takes us 50 years.

                  I was only responding to the idea that if you transfer your brain to another medium, the old you dies. This is potentially true, but very unlikely. People can lose large portions of their brain without dying, and if those portions were replaced with synthetic computing devices I don't think anyone would think the old them has died.

                  That "replaced bit-by-bit" shit doesn't even fly at car auctions. There's no chance in hell close-minded idiots like me would accept a fully-replaced human as the original.

                  FTFY

            • Which part of the brain holds your conscious self?

              The part which does not understand the Force, of course.

              "I suggest you try it again, Luke. Only this time, let go your conscious self and act on instinct."

            • by ag0ny ( 59629 )

              Which part of the brain holds your conscious self?
              There is no scientific explanation for the phenomenon of consciousness - no theory about how it arises, not even a definition of what qualifies.

              Consciousness is an emergent property of having a bunch of neurons together. Get enough neurons interacting and processing sensory data, and you get consciousness.

              You cannot transfer consciousness without know what it is and how it works.

              Bullshit. You only need to know how individual neurons work in order to produce

            • by doug141 ( 863552 )

              You cannot transfer consciousness without know what it is and how it works.

              I respectfully disagree. A lot can happen by accident. It even gets called a name sometimes: 'serendipity.'

          • by Prune ( 557140 )
            And this is the trick: continuity is a core aspect of the experience of consciousness; otherwise, this scenario is identical to killing the original and "activating" the cloned mind.

            One thing that could throw a kink into the scenario, however, is the possibility (albeit, IMHO, less than even) that some core aspects of consciousness are encoded as quantum information, in which case it cannot be cloned (by the no-cloning theorem [wikipedia.org]). Some hints that this may be the case are to be found in recent experimental r
            • by Prune ( 557140 )
              Whoops, I mixed up the order of the links. [1] is just Bandyopadhyay's commentary that links his experimental results to those theories of consciousness.
        • The thing everyone always ignores is that no matter what, eventually your brain dies. Whether in you or after you've been uploaded to a computer or another brain or what have you. And when that happens *THAT* you is dead. *YOU* still experience the pain of death. YOU still cease to exist. There is something out there with your memories and thoughts, but they are not you any more than a photo album or journal is you.

          The me that got up this morning is not exactly the same me that went to bed last night either, and yet I am still me.

          At the point where something is simulated with 100% accuracy it is no different than the original.

        • True, but if you've got too fat to get out of bed, then having a fitter, slimmer, maybe 'ripped' body on stand-by could be useful (even if the body was the same age as your head). Likewise if you get injured, or have some localised disease or whatever.

          I wonder what the psychological effects would be? I mean, I'm very used to my body - if I got a new one, would I miss the old one? Would I look at myself and think "who's that!?"? What about when gettin' it on with the Mrs? Would it feel like someone else was

      • and they were certainly sentient beings being sacrificed.

        They were "sentient" cause the story demanded it.
        There is no reason why a jar-grown clone would need to be anything other than completely brain dead.
        Hell... If they can be grown to a full healthy adult in an artificial womb - make the clones anencephalic.

        And then there's that whole bit where people don't give a flying fuck about what happens to their clone's ass when their own ass is on the line.
        I for one wouldn't care. Hell... I'd club my own clone-self to death with a garden dwarf if necessary.
        Though it w

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          You can do all that now without the clones. Make some kids and keep them locked away until you need their parts. Kill any that wouldn't be a good match and make some more. I'm not sure if you can keep them brain dead because the human body needs to move around, get exercise, and bumps help keep your bones strong. You wouldn't want a heart that is only strong enough to keep you alive when you're asleep.

          Luckily that's illegal in most of the world. But free free to move to where it isn't and start your ow

        • Oh... And to any of those Fuckers for Ethical Treatment of Clones out there...
          My clones come with a contract on their ass.
          Clone leaves the storage without my consent - its head explodes.
          It leaves the storage WITH my consent but without my immediate medical need - there's money in an account out there for anyone who blows its head off.

          I do think it would be unethical to use perfectly good organs to save the life of people like you. You are nothing but a parasite, and society is better off without you.

        • My clones come with a contract on their ass. Clone leaves the storage without my consent - its head explodes.

          So you admit you would murder a sentient being.

        • > There is no reason why a jar-grown clone would need to be anything other than completely brain dead.

          There's not currently any technology, or hope of technology, that can produce muscle tone and muscular reflexes to stand, walk, speak, or handle tools without actually doing the activities. So there are many reasons to give the clones basic human activity. A sodden mas of undeveloped muscle tissue, wrapped around inexperienced or developed organs and undeveloped bone, would require ongoing medical issues

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Also, calling it successful because some lived for a whole day is not what I would call successful. Oh, the operation was a success but the patient had the bad manners of dying... Obviously you don't have it all in hand or they would go on living.

    • by azav ( 469988 )

      Nice to have spare parts around, isn't it?

  • by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @01:50PM (#49862317)
    that we're moving into "Island of Dr. Moreau" territory?
    • I was reminded of Typhon and Piaton from Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle.
    • by Grishnakh ( 216268 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @02:31PM (#49862511)

      Doubtful IMO. While there have been quite a few sci-fi stories and movies about clones being used for organ harvesting, I really think we're going to figure out before long how to grow replacement organs without a clone. There's already a lot of work being done on this, and I think they already are doing significant work like this with artificial skin. This is what all this stem-cell research is all about, after all: being able to grow things quickly and easily, whether it's a replacement eyeball or liver or heart, or some artificial meat so you don't need to kill animals to enjoy a burger.

      And think about it: why would you want to wait 20 years for a clone to grow to maturity so you can harvest its organs for yourself so you can live longer, when you could just grow yourself a new heart (without a host body at all) using stem cells, in just a few weeks or so?

      Not too long after that, we're going to figure out many more rejuvenation therapies, and aging will simply be another disease to be fought against and eventually eradicated. You won't need to do a head transplant, because you can just have some pharmaceuticals (possibly including some nanites) injected into you periodically and maintain your age at 25 indefinitely.

      • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday June 07, 2015 @02:36PM (#49862527) Homepage Journal

        And think about it: why would you want to wait 20 years for a clone to grow to maturity so you can harvest its organs for yourself so you can live longer, when you could just grow yourself a new heart (without a host body at all) using stem cells, in just a few weeks or so?

        Let's just take it a step further: stem cells seem to just know what to do if you can deliver them to the site. What if you had a treatment that would kill off old cells, and direct stem cells to the proper locations efficiently? Why bother growing a new body when you can just repair the one you've got?

        • Exactly. After all, it's pretty easy for us to grow a new body right now: just fertilize an ova and let it grow. Nature has no problem growing bodies relatively quickly, it just isn't as good at repairing existing ones for some reason. Eventually we're going to figure out how that growth stage really works and use it to our advantage.

          • Nature is pretty good at repairing bodies, but different species put more or less energy into repair. Mice last months. Many birds last a few years. Some parrots can live over a hundred years. Some tortoises and whales can live to over 200. Several species do not exhibit increasing mortality with age, meaning that they are effectively immortal but for disease and accident.

            • Several species do not exhibit increasing mortality with age, meaning that they are effectively immortal but for disease and accident.

              Which ones are these?

              I think we're going to get to that stage before long, thanks to the availability of medical technology.

              • Several species do not exhibit increasing mortality with age

                Which ones are these?

                Sharks do not age in the same sense that people do. But they also don't stop growing, so it becomes increasingly difficult for them to find enough food to sustain their body. Wild great white sharks can live for more than 70 years.

                Koi (ornamental carp) have been known to live more than 225 years [wikipedia.org].

                An aspen tree in Utah [wikipedia.org] is believed to be more than 80,000 years old, and weighs more than 6000 tonnes. Although it has hundreds of trunks, they are all connected to the same root system, and constitute a single or

      • Thing is, everything deteriorates. Bones, organs, skin. So you can either do a few hundred transplants, or one.

        • Thing is, everything deteriorates. Bones, organs, skin.

          The problem is, they don't have to. There's lots of organisms where they're completely able to rejuvenate themselves on a regular basis. A good example of this is lizards which regrow their tails: their tails are easily pulled off, as a defense mechanism, to let them escape predators. The tails grow back relatively quickly, with no scarring, cartilage, skin, and all. Young children heal skin wounds pretty quickly and easily in humans. Some (simpler

      • Not just organs - we're even starting to grow limbs in a lab [washingtonpost.com].
      • The current edition of Smithsonian magazine has a great article on organ growing developments (and brain things, quite awesome).

        Skin grafting is coming along and there are several people with bladders grown from their stem cells (taken from their bladders I believe).

        Per the article, there's a lot more activity in this area that I would have expected. Per person organ regeneration is the goal.

    • No, more like Face/Off.
    • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      You got something against GMO?

  • Now we know which nightmare many people will share tonight.
  • Vladimir Demikhov (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So he's transplanted a bunch of heads. Do they have control of the body, or is this functionally the same as what Vladimir Demikhov [wikipedia.org] did ages ago?

    (also, this [youtube.com])

  • A day? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @02:04PM (#49862371) Homepage Journal

    Some of the mice have lived as long as a day after the operations according to Ren and he hopes to have similar success with primates.

    Maybe he should try to have his patients survive more than one day, before moving up to primates.

    • Re:A day? (Score:5, Funny)

      by azcoyote ( 1101073 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @02:15PM (#49862435)
      Maybe if he just keeps stapling the monkey head onto a new body once a day, the head will be able to live a long and horrifying life.
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      Don't worry, by the time the study actually gets approved, they will have given monkeys human rights and they'll have to use tax evaders or Christians.

    • by CODiNE ( 27417 )

      It's possible that larger bodies can handle the strain better and heal from the surgery with greater survival times. More and larger blood vessels to work with as well as larger nerve clusters to try and connect would be easier to work with.

      • by mikael ( 484 )

        Connecting bone together is relative easy using Titanium implants and scaffolding. Skin and muscle tissue will eventually mesh together using just stitches. Blood vessels can be reconnected using microsurgery. The really hard part is reconnecting spinal cord nerves. When any critter is born, the first thing that is formed is a neural tube which is the basis of the brain and spinal cord. Then every block of tissue then specializes into what part of the body there is. With the spinal cord there is something t

  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by pushing-robot ( 1037830 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @02:06PM (#49862387)

    We'll be able to give our decrepit MPs and congressmen new, healthy brains!

    • I should think working with worms [wikipedia.org] would be easier. IIRC all you have to do is cut them in half and they regenerate.

      Think about that next time you take the time out of your busy day to vote.

    • We'll be able to give our decrepit MPs and congressmen new, healthy brains!

      That's a mighty strong assumption you got there...assuming they had brains to begin with.

      • That's a mighty strong assumption you got there...assuming they had brains to begin with.

        Not really, it's only assuming there's room.

  • One day? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Culture20 ( 968837 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @02:06PM (#49862389)
    How about switching to another species after you get the lifetime close to half of normal. These aren't fruit flies.
  • HEAD transplant? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Deadstick ( 535032 )

    Sounds more like a BODY transplant to me...

    • And comatose patients who have been pronounced brain dead but whose bodies are unimpaired could wake up and walk again if they received a functioning new head.

      Rather not. Its a body transplant, not a head transplant. Yes, the bodie's immune system will (or will not) attack the head, not the head's system the bodie's, but the head has the brain, and that's where most of the thinking is.

      I guess in some years we'll figure out how to transplant heads, and perhaps one day we will have the possibility to grow brainless clones that have a computer controlling all the low level functions, to grow into an age they can recieve their new head. I guess this will rule out lot

  • Why even bother? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nyder ( 754090 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @02:52PM (#49862609) Journal

    I can't understand how head transplants are even helpful in the real world. I can understand limb transplants, livers, kidneys, but heads? How often does someone lose their head and there is another head ready to take it's place? Seems to me like this is one thing that will almost never have use for anything practical if it's even possible.

    • How often does someone lose their head and there is another head ready to take it's place?

      If only there were some sort of search engine which, if you inserted the phrase "yearly deaths by head injury" you might found out that "Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability in the United States [cdc.gov], contributing to about 30% of all injury deaths.1 Every day, 138 people in the United States die from injuries that include TBI. [...] TBI contributed to the deaths of more than 50,000 people [in 2010]." And that's just the USA; sadly, most of the world's humans have pretty crap hea

  • by meerling ( 1487879 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @02:56PM (#49862631)
    "Some of the mice have lived as long as a day after the operations according to Ren and he hopes to have similar success with primates."
    Really? He'd better get survival rates down to something close to normal lifespans before he moves up to primates or he's an idiot.
    I wonder if he's even bothered to look at the old Soviet attempts at this. With that short "survival" duration, I highly doubt it.
  • Which according to Woody Allen's book "Without Feathers" is "a mythological beast with the head of a lion and the body of a lion, though not the same lion."

  • I call shenanigans (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pesho ( 843750 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @03:12PM (#49862701)
    How is this physically possible? 1000 transplants in under three years! This is more than one serious microsurgery per day. An article in WSJ says he leaves the brain stem of the acceptor along with the so that it can control breading and hearth beat. This would mean that he is just connecting the blood vessels of the donor head to the circulatory system on the acceptor, without connecting the nerves. This seems more feasible to me, but hardly warrants the bombastic headlines. Does anybody have a link to an original research paper?
    • by Hadlock ( 143607 )

      If you can dump your 80 year old brain in a healthy 18 year old body, I would imagine a good number of people would take that option over death, at least until they sort out the whole "connecting the brain to the central nervous system" problem.

      • by KGIII ( 973947 )

        I can dump something into a healthy 18 year old body but it is not my brain. Hyuk Hyuk...

    • Well, the first couple of them will probably have been quite short, so he could well have done a few dozen a day the first couple months.

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @03:42PM (#49862793)

    We all know Ron Popeil is the inventor of the technology that lets heads survive separate from their bodies...

  • The mind makes us who we are, so wouldn't this be a body transplant?
    • The mind makes us who we are, so wouldn't this be a body transplant?

      [citation needed]

      Plus, who's to say the "mind" is exclusively in the head?

  • Wait a minute... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by no-body ( 127863 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @04:05PM (#49862903)

    "Despite the mind-blowing possibilities", "ground breaking" - ????

    1000 Mice killed with a 0 success rate and primates next.
    1.6 Million funding so far - more to come, as it seems.
    What is the actual benefit, how many humans would be able to take advantage of such a procedure at what success rate and which result?

    Just for reference, the much hailed CPR has a success rate of - depending where one looks - 6 or 10 % and of those, half have maybe a halfway liveable life, the other half will be tied to an artificial reparator working against their native breath rythm for the rest of their remaining life, not considering remaining mental capacities.

    If it really happens that someone gets injured to bad that a new head would be adequate - or, the other way around, the body is wasted and a replacement could be helpful (?)... is this worth it?

    All sounds pretty much sick to me. Some ego trip of doing something somebody has never done and wasting living creatures en mass for this.
    Maybe a mandatory mental health check should be done on a couple of individuals running those projects before start. Seems basic respect for life in general is missing here.

    • by Megol ( 3135005 )

      "Despite the mind-blowing possibilities", "ground breaking" - ????

      1000 Mice killed with a 0 success rate and primates next.

      I get the feeling you'd call those mice living 1 week, 1 month or one year would count as failures to you. But we still do medical procedures to improve life quality even if it only get a human say one month extra time and consider that a success.

      It is possible that doing the operation on primates may have better results as many of the critical blood vessels etc. are larger and thus easier to attach. But this is obviously still something deeply experimental.

      1.6 Million funding so far - more to come, as it seems.
      What is the actual benefit, how many humans would be able to take advantage of such a procedure at what success rate and which result?

      Just for reference, the much hailed CPR has a success rate of - depending where one looks - 6 or 10 % and of those, half have maybe a halfway liveable life, the other half will be tied to an artificial reparator working against their native breath rythm for the rest of their remaining life, not considering remaining mental capacities.

      So you know shit about CPR, the results of it and

      • by no-body ( 127863 )

        So you know shit about CPR, the results of it and the working of respirators. Why should we listen to you?

        Sure - a "We" person, how cute - here you go, Mr. or Ms. "We":

        http://www.radiolab.org/story/... [radiolab.org]
        in there:

        A chart of doctor responses from the Precursors Study:
        http://www.wnyc.org/i/raw/1/Ga... [wnyc.org]

        and from there:

        http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/20... [kevinmd.com]
        Now we see a huge Japanese study of more than 400,000 people who experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, published in the JAMA on March 21, 2012. Approximately 18% of those who were administered CPR and epinephrine did achieve spontaneous circulation but fewer than 5% survived 1 month and fewer than 2% survived 1 month with good or moderate cerebral performance.

        Maybe you are watching too much TV?

        http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/... [nytimes.com]

        keep trying...

  • I think I'll get a second opinion from Dr. Stimpson J. Cat.
  • by MarkTina ( 611072 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @06:46PM (#49863473)

    You dismantle the neighbourhood cats and dogs to make yourself a Labrapussy and they chuck you in the nut house .. but if I was a "Doctor" I'd be praised for my work!

    Unfair!!!

  • Or something like that. There was one of those creepy "you won't believe dis shizit" shows on history channel or Discovery or one of those others a few years ago that I downloaded... It had a warning about disturbing content before each episode. In one of the episodes, it talked about a doctor several decades ago who tried head transplants on monkeys. Of course, they died a day later at the most as well, and the situation was described as being terrifying for the apes or monkeys because they'd be paralyzed

    • Found it. It was a show called "Dark Matters: Twisted But True", the neurosurgeon's name who performed these operations was apparently Robert Joseph White.
  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday June 07, 2015 @07:25PM (#49863629)

    Translates roughly to "we have no clue how to do this right".

  • I dunno, these made in China head transplant mice only come with a one day warranty.

  • Well Stimpy, is the head dead yet? (with apologies to Don Henley)
  • We can have mice with attractive heads!

    Sick and tired of catching unattractive mice in my traps.

  • "Currently, I am not confident to say that I can do a human transplant."

    He considers it a success when the mice live for "as long as" a single day? He's really going to blow his budget in a hurry on primates if he can't even get his mice to live very long.

Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"

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