Two cute, funny and curious pigs. Photo: RD-SunPhotography (Getty)
If you asked me to name the top three things I thought researchers should be spending time and money on, I’d say something along the lines of a cure for cancer, a way to end world hunger and a solution for our country’s homelessness crisis.
According to the Daily Mail, one team of scientists and researchers from Yale University have something else in mind: human immortality.
Dr. Nenad Sestan and his team of scientists are trying to accomplish the feat by decapitating pigs and then attempting to keep their brains alive outside of their bodies. So far, they have been able to keep some of those brains “alive” for 36 hours.
In all, Dr. Sestan and his team of researchers have removed the heads of some 100 to 200 pigs and then successfully resuscitated the brains after connecting them to a “closed-loop system the scientists dubbed ‘BrainEX’ that pumped key areas with artificial oxygen-rich blood to sustain life.”
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However, Sestan said that keeping the brains alive and restoring awareness are two very different things. Because of the chemicals he and his team are using to prevent swelling during their experiments, indefinite consciousness probably wouldn’t be a reality unless they changed up their process.
It sounds like scientists can technically keep a brain alive, but — at least as of right now — that brain will be absolutely worthless. In other words, they have pretty much created the equivalent to a nursing home of pig brains. Good work.
