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Italian neurosurgeon appeals to billionaires to fund first human head transplant
- mei0Iesh 11y agoNotice it doesn't say the first "successful" human head transplant.
- jkot 11y agoThat is implied, otherwise first 'head transplant' would be done centuries ago by some dr Frankenstein.
- pmiller2 11y agoThis procedure has been done on monkeys in the 70's. It might not give this man any control over his new body, but at least he won't suffocate to death from spinal muscular atrophy.
- kazinator 11y agoLots of such qualifying details are not uttered, because they are assumed according to certain maxims which govern constructive conversation among rational people.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoWhere can I find these maxims written down?
- pcl 11y agoThe Hippocratic Oath is probably a good starting point, given that the guy asking for the money is a surgeon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath
- jsprogrammer 11y agoI didn't realize some still consider logic based on Greek gods.
- Impl0x 11y agoYou'd be happy, then, to note the modernized version also included in the article.
- kazinator 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle
- mrinterweb 11y agoI can't help but think of a potentially horrifying black market that preys on the young and healthy, who's clients are old and rich.
- anon4 11y agoOh, it won't be a black market. There will be lobbying and laws will be passed authorising the preservation, transport and sale of war casualties from "rogue states".
- _yosefk 11y agoAre you extrapolating from something that did happen with other organ transplants, or just assuming it would happen even though it didn't happen with other organ transplants? BTW, one big problem for a rich old guy is, it's very likely that their head is the weakest link, not the body. If the body has cancer which has metastasized, the head is not very useful. If the body has some other problem, it could probably be better solved by transplanting a single organ. And most of all, a rich guy who had all the means to care for his body is very likely to have preserved it in a nice shape but his memory is failing them, etc. etc. An old brain in a new body doesn't sound that great, really, not as a means for life extension. "Just for fun" might interest some generally healthy aging people, on the other hand; these people would be heavily stigmatized though, in all likelihood, even if they managed to get the body and were willing to take all the risks. I think it could be very useful in rare cases is the upshot.
- tuyguntn 11y agonot apples-to-apples comparison, first thing comes to my mind is Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and how it (may) hurt environment. When rich guys are saying something, others should listen, even though they are wrong - http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140117-trans-pacific-partnership-free-trade-environment-obama/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140117-trans... - http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/trans-pacific-partnership http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/trans-pacific-partnership
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- nakedrobot2 11y agoIT'S A FULL BODY TRANSPLANT NOT A HEAD TRANSPLANT :)
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- fibo 11y agoI am always surprised despite all the difficulties we have in Italy with our politicians, how many individuals open up with innovation and excelence. Aside that I hope this can save the Russian computer scientist.
- otto_ortega 11y agoThis has been done before in dogs, and it is pretty creepy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Demikhov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Demikhov. It was the base for the plot of one of the X-files movies.
- deutronium 11y agoBut that's not connecting the nervous system up
- Caprinicus 11y agoThis probably won't be either. If we knew how to do that, we would have tried it on an animal successfully first.
- tlrobinson 11y agoThe thought of a head transplant creeps me out like almost nothing else, probably because of that X-Files movie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files:_I_Want_to_Believe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files:_I_Want_to_Believe)
- atf104 11y agoThis was (for the most part) debunked on several reasonably reputable sources: http://www.businessinsider.com/head-transplant-hoax-2015-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/head-transplant-hoax-2015-4
- Sebguer 11y agoNo, it was not debunked. A bunch of news articles re-posted Kotaku UK's 'evidence. Even the article you linked states: "Kotaku UK published a comprehensive breakdown on this conspiracy theory" The Doctor firmly denied this- and is without a doubt, a real neurosurgeon.
- sixQuarks 11y agoWhat makes this cost $17 million?
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- Grishnakh 11y agoWhat we need is brain transplants. Then when we've perfected that, we need to secretly abduct various politicians and other powerful people, and replace their brains with those of better people who volunteer to take their places. Then, since the brain transplant won't be obvious, we can have a better society without these sociopaths ruining it for us.
- ddorian43 11y agoYou have to fix people in general to do that. Brain transplanting in that scenario won't actually work. Hell, many scientist don't want to do politics.
- Grishnakh 11y agoI completely disagree. You don't need a scientist to take over a politician's body, just some normal, reasonably-intelligent person who's willing to listen to others and isn't evil or corrupt. The problem is that politicians tend to be sociopaths, who as a group comprise probably about 5% of the entire population. The stupid ones go to jail, but the smart ones become politicians, CEOs, etc., because they can outcompete regular people since they don't have a conscience to hinder them. So if you replace their brains with those of non-sociopathic people (the other 95% of the population), things should improve.
- djfm 11y agoNear the end of the video it is suggested that the head transplanted onto a younger body would rejuvenate and hence it would make sense to cultivate clones of yourself and periodically transplant your head onto them to live eternally. This is both horrifying and hard to believe.
- nivertech 11y agoHow come nobody mentioned this classic soviet SciFi novel: Professor Dowell's Head https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Dowell%27s_Head https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Dowell%27s_Head