Resurrection

An article in Der Spiegel describes a genuine medical miracle. Under full anaesthesia, pigs and dogs are bled nearly to death--the blood is collected and kept warm--and their veins are filled with a saline solution cooled to just above freezing. Then the pigs hearts are stopped by electric shock.

Wait an hour.

Then begin pumping back in the warm, oxygen-enriched blood, and use electric shocks to re-start the heart. The animals come back to life over a few hours, with no detectable neurolgical damage. The animals perform just as well on behavioral tests as they did before! Preliminary animal trials report 87% success. This number will significantly improve as the trials continue.

Human trials are set to begin in 18-24 months. The idea is to save patients from bleeding to death during surgery, to give the doctors time to finish their work. It's a form of suspended animation... but if the heart stops dead and no blood flows in the brain, and then they come back to life--that's resurrection.

Forget about cloning. Now we're really playing god.