Doctors from the Texas Heart Institute have successfully replaced a patient's heart with a device that keeps the blood flowing, thereby allowing him to live without a detectable heartbeat or even a pulse. Here's how it works:
The turbine-like device, that are simple whirling rotors, developed by the doctors does not beat like a heart, rather provides a ‘continuous flow’ like a garden hose.
Craig Lewis was a 55-year-old, dying from amyloidosis, which causes a build-up of abnormal proteins. The proteins clog the organs so much that they stop working, according to NPR.
But after the operation, with the ‘machine’ as his heart's replacement, Lewis’ blood continued to spin and move through his body.
However, when doctors put a stethoscope to his chest, no heartbeat or pulse can be heard (only a ‘humming’ sound)—which “by all criteria that we conventionally use to analyze patients”, Doctor Cohn said, he is dead.
This is proof that “human physiology can be supported without a pulse”.
With all the talk of replacing human organs with those of an animal and electronic hearts, it's surprising that medical researchers overlooked taking a trip to the plumbing section of the hardware store for replacement parts!
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you over 30-35? yes? please drop dead now. your existence is immoral and an afront of nature since average lifespan of human beings was well under 40 years just a few hundred years ago. probably a lot lower at some point.
Death is a disease. Something to be fixed/terminated
In fact fixing this problem we call death and dramatically extending human lifespans (at least 200 better 300 years) would "FIX" a tremendous number of our problems. Namely that of "consequences" Most of the uber wealthy people "do things" that are "not so good" but because the "effect" or consequences of their decisions will not be realized until after they are dead they simply do not care.
Were morphing into robots. And since we will all be mechanical in 30 years time, Google will probably take over the world and be our ruler
The native heart is visible on his chest x-ray as the mottled-white shadow in the center of the image. The device appears to have been inserted as a supplement to his poorly-contractile heart.
*All* the criteria? Not much of a doctor then if the only criterion he uses for checking for life is the hearbeat. There are other life signs you know, doc.
I completely disagree... longer lifespans will have some serious fallout in the short term, but in the long term, that's where technology is taking us (and I consider tech as part of this planet's evolution).
They'll just tax the living. Be like Glory Road.
Not True. If you judge that a heart is an organ and an artificial heart is not, then there have been mechanical hearted people for over two decades. Barney Clark received the first Jarvik heart in 1982 and survived 112 days.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/21/eveningnews/main6507572.shtml