Two pig heart transplants succeed in brain-dead recipients | Hacker News Reader

Two pig heart transplants succeed in brain-dead recipients

reuters.com

24 pointsprostoalex15 comments

this prompted the disturbing idea of using brain dead bodies like used cars, to be refurbished, parts replaced and put on the lot for a living responsive brain to transplant into. eventually these would be a clonal caste; genetically engineered to be brain dead, but living bodies for the elite and ancient brains.

>> but living bodies for the elite and ancient brains.

Why only for the elite? The more we clone the cheaper it gets(i.e like on computers). I would definitely love to have some spare parts. What is the problem if the clone is brain dead or even brainless?

it seems "borg like". we really are at a major cross roads if we persist as a species, we will very soon be able to sidestep biological rules, for example why transplant into a human body, why not a gorilla, or a tiger, etc.

if we had a farm of receptacles, we could transplant a living brain from an infirm, or boring ugly body to something cool, or powerful.

when you become close to immortal doing this there is only room for so many, so it would have to be kept to a smaller group than say 8 billion humans.

It's interesting to see this drive, for transplanting one's consciousness or whatever into another medium according to the notion that doing so would constitute some form of immortality and that thereby something desirable would be achieved or become possible, compromise on the medium. To give up that the medium could be an entirely synthetic structure in favor of it being a biological one seems to illustrate that sidestepping of biological rules is in fact a temporary extravagance and inherently parasitic.

I think there is enough space and if we consider space exploration there is infinit space. Just count the stars.

The main issue is that most of the people are working for short term goals due their limited lifespan so that's why the world is so broken.

As far as your example with the transplant from an "infirm" or "ugly" body goes I find it absolutely the right thing to do. Just like people choose different clothes they could choose different bodies. Why would anyone want an ugly or faulty body?

People can donate their bodies to science after they die. It's a noble thing to do, albeit a bit unsettling.

Most of the time, no. There are generally far more bodies offered than needed. I was surprised by this when my brother asked about it (for his future dead body) when we were preparing for a loved ones funeral. Perhaps it's different in some areas -- I live in Southern California (US, not Italy). But you're right, it a generous thing to do.

I knew a doctor at a major US academic hospital and she told me how a lot of the cutting edge transplants (arms, face) start to skirt the line from “patient care” to “this will be amazing for my career”.

Patients getting hand transplants that start to fail and the patient gets a lot of “let’s just try something else”. Some patients end up dropping out and getting limbs amputated despite being a successful transplant because the QOL drops so much with the medication, constant tests and disruption to their lives.

I wonder what the lifespan of a old brain by itself is. I'd rather die of natural causes than degrade into alzheimers no matter how much money I had

Not much more than the lifespan of the brain+body. This is because of aging: risk of death follows the Gompertz distribution, which is worse than exponential.

Or, another more intuitive way to put it: brain diseases are already a leading cause of death among the elderly. (Stroke, Alzheimer's, senility, some cancers, arguably accidents/falling, etc.) So even if you evade heart disease completely, it doesn't buy you all that many years before another thing gets you.

But how many of those brain diseases would occur if the brain's support system - the rest of the body - was not deteriorating?

Sleeves in the parlance of “Altered Carbon”.

I’ve not read the book but started the Netflix series, some nice ideas but I was just a bit too revolted by the casualness of people being killed.

Sounds almost like an reincarnation but without the brain and with the heart of a pig.

More seriously: great news.

I wonder what fraction of people are sad that pigs are being sacrificed for this, as a stop-gap measure for alternate technologies, presumably (naively, deludedly presumably, perhaps).

I'm already sad about the way bacon is made. This is way better than bacon.

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