Posted on 06/22/2016 10:46:20 AM PDT by Theoria
The discovery that many genes are still working up to 48 hours after death has implications for organ transplants, forensics and our very definition of death
When a doctor declares a person dead, some of their body may still be alive and kicking – at least for a day or two. New evidence in animals suggests that many genes go on working for up to 48 hours after the lights have gone out.
This hustle and bustle has been seen in mice and zebrafish, but there are hints that genes are also active for some time in deceased humans. This discovery could have implications for the safety of organ transplants as well as help pathologists pinpoint a time of death more precisely, perhaps to within minutes of the event.
Peter Noble and Alex Pozhitkov at the University of Washington, Seattle, and their colleagues investigated the activity of genes in the organs of mice and zebrafish immediately after death. They did this by measuring the amount of messenger RNA present. An increase in this mRNA – which genes use to tell cells to make products such as proteins – indicates that genes are more active.
Noble’s team measured mRNA levels in zebrafish, and in brain and liver samples from mice at regular intervals for up to four days after death. They then compared these with mRNA levels measured at the time of death.
As you might expect, overall mRNA levels decreased over time. However, mRNA associated with 548 zebrafish genes and 515 mouse genes saw one or more peaks of activity after death. This meant there was sufficient energy and cellular function for some genes to be switched on and stay active long after the animal died.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Democrats will of course seize on this news to justify their people voting after they die.
“See? They’re still alive! They’re just metabolically challenged!”
Walkers?
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Colorado, Oregon, North Carolina, Virginia... These States are having lots of registration Drives in graveyards = Ectoplasmic Democratic Party is putting on a push
He’s ‘NOT’ dead, Jim.
they can have my mRNA from my cold dead hands... er, wait... my hands are getting warmer...
i’m feeling better
Ouch !
“After death, hair and nails continue to grow, but phone calls start to taper off”
- Johnny Carson
CC
Makes sense. Just because the overall organism shuts down doesn’t mean that the systems of the whole organism stop working immediately.
I have heard that Morticians talk to the bodies as they embalm them because the hearing is still believed to be intact for a while.
These genes are pining for the fjords!
Must be grant application season. I guess none of these overpaid geniuses have ever beat a snakes head to a bloody pulp and watched dead snake wriggle and jerk until it stops...or maybe aborted fetuses.
I had a Buddhist monk once tell me that death occurs in stages, of up to 7 days.
I knew a girl who was in training to be a cosmetician / hairdresser for a mortician. Her first day, as a cadaver was rolled past on a stretcher, it sat up and burped. The girl screamed, but the funeral director said the corpses burp and fart all the time, nothing to worry about.
He told her that if one ever says, “Excuse me,” then the cadaver’s relatives would probably want their money back.
Sounds like gramps after a few beers.
In Star Trek they bring back the dead in several episodes......
Love, Miracle Max
btrl
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