What is the biological definition of death? I'm confussed because thousand of cells die each day, but overall the organism remains alive.
Sorry! wasnt specific. All bodily functions that acually keep you alive. BTW- how long (time not length) do they grow after death?
actually your hair and finger nails don't keep growing. But the skin on your scalp and fingers shrink giving it the appearance there of. Do you think that technically we could find the cure for death? Because death is caused by failure of the organs, usually they wear out or are damaged. So if the wearing out process could be checked death could be held at bay infinitly. Because theoretically the cells would continually reproduce but its the overall structure of the organs that fails.
no its stasis, like putting someone on pause. Although usually the people are dead when this happens o.o
yeah, i wonder what would happen if you were concsious during cryo, like all the old science fiction novels. probably be really boring. :m:
fucking cold is what it would be, if my opinion. Maybe they could give you like a movie to watch until your brain shuts down.
Sure about that? I think it's a combination of the two. It takes several days for the effects of death to fully work it's way down the structures of the body. And, the bacterial hitchhikers of our digestive tract actually thrive upon our death. They eat us. If you call ice crystals destroying your cell membranes stasis, then... I don't think they've come up with a decent cryoprotectant yet anyway. Have they? I think they're still banking on the future coming up with the means to restore the damaged cells of those frozen today. Like the future would really want to ressurect all the losers from our time. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Maybe a couple for research purposes, but I doubt they'd want all of them. Quite painful, I'd imagine. The nazi's did freezing experiments. To answer the main question (in my limited fashion as I'm not a medical examiner) I think it's brain death that is the operative factor. I saw a show on Discovery a long time ago about death. It said how the body actually lives a few days after "death" (here and there). It's the brain that's important. Specifically the autonomic functions, I should think. Heart beating, lungs breathing, etc... When the body cannot do these things on their own then you're dead. You can be kept "alive" artificially sometimes, and sometimes these people actually snap out of it eventually. Basically, there is no standard definition of dead. It's a judgement call made by a doctor. Nothing more. By the way, did you know that if you die and no one finds you for a long time, you liquify and can even soak through the floor until the downstairs neighbors actually see you dripping into their apartment. Gross stuff. Costly to repair the damage too.
Christopher Reeve lived on stem cells in a South Park episode. By the end, he was just ripping babies heads off and drinking straight from their necks... Maybe that's what vslayer's referring to... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Seriously though, maybe not immortality but perhaps longevity. Bring on the headless clone farms.
I always ask how, because I am in the stem cell field myself and I always hear this bullshit on how stem cells can magically increase lifespan or enable the cloning of organs. In fact it is just propaganda used for grant applications and press releases.
So you're saying that headless clone farms are a fantasy? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! What about spinal cord damage. I've heard that stem cells might allow nerve cells to fuse back together. I have seen research on bad hearts. Injected it with stem cells and a few weeks later or however long it may have been. The damage to the heart was practically wiped out.
Not sure, I'm tryin to remember where I saw this at. Was it in a magazine or on tv...? I imagine that they probably didn't really specify. I'll try to find it, though.
