Pentagon: Zombie Pigs First, Then Hibernating Soldiers

Around half of U.S. troop fatalities are caused by blood loss from battlefield injuries. Now, with another 30,000 troops deploying to Afghanistan, the Pentagon is pushing for medical advances that can save more lives during combat. The Defense Department’s latest research idea: Stop bleeding injuries by turning pigs into the semi-undead. If it works out, we humans could be the next ones to be zombified.

Military’s mad-science arm Darpa has awarded $9.9 million to the Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies (TIPS), to develop treatments that can extend a “golden period” when injured war fighters have the best chance of coming back from massive blood loss. Odds of survival plummet after an hour — during combat, that kind of quick evacuation, triage and treatment is often impossible.

The institute’s research will be based on previous Darpa-funded efforts. One project, at Stanford University, hypothesized that humans could one day mimic the hibernation abilities of squirrels — who emerge from winter months no worse for wear — using a pancreatic enzyme we have in common with the critters. The other, led by Dr. Mark Roth at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, used nematode worms and rats to test how hydrogen sulfide could block the body’s ability to use oxygen — creating a kind of “suspended animation” where hearts stop beating and wounds don’t bleed. After removing 60 percent of the rat’s blood, Dr. Roth managed to keep the critters alive for 10 hours using his hydrogen sulfide cocktail.

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Research is hoping to save lives of combat wounded soldiers by reducing bleeding and slowing down body functions to mimic hibernation. If this works in battlefield situations it could also be used in civilian emergency rescues like traffic accidents.

[edit on 5-12-2009 by LuFri]

This reminds me alot of Universal Soldier. If my memory serves me correctly they had been basically killed (ie blood loss) and had to be kept cool when in hibernation and had to keep injecting this syrum to cool them down. wich reminds me of the DARPA cooling glove, I think they said the determined that muscles fatigue is caused mostly by overheating and not lactic acid.

zombie pigs? is that what they spent stimulus money on?

The article mentions how one day humans could "hibernate like squirrels"-
I read a while back that we humans share the gene sequence which is responsible for hibernation with...squirrels!

It would be great if we could re awaken the sequence,not just for battle injuries,but maybe in the future we could use it for lengthy space flights.
But,
We may also get a situation where mega rich people who get old or ill will pay big bucks to be "hibernated" until a cure is found for their health problems.

Or what about "hibernation prisons-"maybe a cheaper way for the elite to incarcerate people,like the way the chinese put some prisoners into a medically induced coma.

Yeah,I'm sure our loving leaders will find many ways to pervert this technology for their own evil ends,as usual.

how about instead we dont get involved inw ars and save human and animal lives without having to rely on zombie potions and stuff.

reply to post by STFUPPERCUTTER


That would be too easy, and, it makes sence, come on now you know better.



Besides, any thing related to DARPA doesn't surprise me. Either they are one of the worlds best R&D facilities, or their propaganda would have us believe such.

Really do you think their actually will be damn zombies? Closest thing to a zombie is me in the morning before my coffee. I dig the survivalist thing, but even I think that the zombie theory is a crock of #.