LightCreatedLife Thread Science Question!

[Loss Leader]

An amazing thing has happened in the LightCreatedLife thread: We have actually stumbled upon an honest-to-goodness science question. It's biology so all you astrophysicists might as well go learn why 432 is sacred or something:

How long after a human dies can it be said with some certainty that every cell composing that body has also died?

Once the heart stops beating, how long do cells have before they are all dead? Thinking that there are some cells in the body in circulation-poor areas that are used to harsh conditions, I assume it is two or three minutes. But we'd love to hear any informed opinion.

Incidentally, typing this inquiry into the internet produced unsurprisingly useless results.

[In asking, we mean to exclude parasites or oportunistic organisms that are with the human during life and might thrive after death. We're just talking about true human cells.]

Thanks for any help.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Um. Well, since you are no longer breathing, nor have a heart beating, then no oxygen or any other nutrition is getting to your cells. No cell lives long without either oxygen, water, or nutrition. The blood is also no longer taking waste products away from cells, so those will build up fast.

Brain cells can die if deprived of oxygen for more than three minutes. Muscle cells live on for several hours. Bone and skin cells can stay alive for several days.

http://www.deathonline.net/decomposition/body_changes/heart_stops.htm

decomposition takes a little longer.

 

[Schneibster]

Hmmm. Hair and finger- and toe-nails continue to grow for days or weeks, I do believe. A rather disgusting piece of trivia, but relevant to this conversation, depending on precisely what you guys had in mind.

But as an integrated organism, there can be no doubt that minutes at most separate permanent cessation of heartbeat from clinical death, in support of Eos' assertion.

So, what precisely DID you guys have in mind? If I may be so bold without going to look myself.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

They don't grow, the skin recedes, making the hair and nails look longer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/ask_the_doctor/decompostionafterdeath.shtml

But contrary to folklore, this doesn't mean that hair and nails continue to grow after death, although shrinkage of the skin can make it seem this way.

 

[Solus]

Hmmm. Hair and finger- and toe-nails continue to grow for days or weeks, I do believe. A rather disgusting piece of trivia, but relevant to this conversation, depending on precisely what you guys had in mind.

But as an integrated organism, there can be no doubt that minutes at most separate permanent cessation of heartbeat from clinical death, in support of Eos' assertion.

So, what precisely DID you guys have in mind? If I may be so bold without going to look myself.

Just curious and to get anything worthwhile out of that horrible thread I think might have been a point too.

 

[Solus]

They don't grow, the skin recedes, making the hair and nails look longer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/ask_the_doctor/decompostionafterdeath.shtml

Is this a good or bad habit? I've begun to develop a habit where if I hear any popular claim like the one above I IMMEDIATELY treat it as suspect. There are so many things we learn as children that we never even give a second thought about as adults.

 

[Schneibster]

They don't grow, the skin recedes, making the hair and nails look longer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/ask_the_doctor/decompostionafterdeath.shtml

Ha! Excellent, thank you. Hopefully I'll remember that next time.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Ha! Excellent, thank you. Hopefully I'll remember that next time.

Happy to have helped, and not get called names for it

 

[Loss Leader]

Um. Well, since you are no longer breathing, nor have a heart beating, then no oxygen or any other nutrition is getting to your cells. No cell lives long without either oxygen, water, or nutrition. The blood is also no longer taking waste products away from cells, so those will build up fast.



http://www.deathonline.net/decomposition/body_changes/heart_stops.htm

decomposition takes a little longer.

Thanks for the link. I'm glad to have you guys.

 

[Schneibster]

Happy to have helped, and not get called names for it

Nothing is more restrictive than being afraid to be wrong.

Snopes, BTW, agrees with you.

 

[bruto]

That's very interesting. I did not realize that bone and skin cells could keep going on their own for so long.

 

[andyandy]

An amazing thing has happened in the LightCreatedLife thread: .

If Lightcreatedlife migrates to SMMT I'm going to hold you personally responsible

 

[Schneibster]

I'm assuming that would be a Bad Thing, andyandy. I'm not sure, however, how much contamination it could represent in the face of the 432 and Phi threads.

To quote one of my favorite memes, from a Silicon Valley newspaper at the time of the Chernobyl accident, "Scientists predict that the radioactive rain will have little effect on the Valley's toxic groundwater."

 

[ponderingturtle]

That's very interesting. I did not realize that bone and skin cells could keep going on their own for so long.

I am not that surprised, and it would all be very temperature dependent as well. Look how long hearts can live to be transported from donors to recipients.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

I am not that surprised, and it would all be very temperature dependent as well. Look how long hearts can live to be transported from donors to recipients.

They aren't "alive", the cold way they are transported keeps them from decomposing until they can be stuffed in another human and be brought back to life with a jolt to get them started living again.