Death - so much for conventional wisdom!

Read an interesting article on some research whose findings are really rather astounding.

That death is not a “passive extinguishment”, but rather a triggered biochemical event; That that the body doesn’t stop working. Rather that it stops itself from working.

Source: msnbc
But if the cells are still alive, why can't doctors revive someone who has been dead for an hour? Because once the cells have been without oxygen for more than five minutes, they die when their oxygen supply is resumed. It was that "astounding" discovery, Becker says, that led him to his post as the director of Penn's Center for Resuscitation Science, a newly created research institute operating on one of medicine's newest frontiers: treating the dead.

Biologists are still grappling with the implications of this new view of cell death—not passive extinguishment, like a candle flickering out when you cover it with a glass, but an active biochemical event triggered by "reperfusion," the resumption of oxygen supply. The research takes them deep into the machinery of the cell, to the tiny membrane-enclosed structures known as mitochondria where cellular fuel is oxidized to provide energy...”Something throws the switch that makes the cell die."

It is perhaps a sad reflection of the paradox that is life that while some are looking for ways to keep the heart ticking ever longer, others seek to pull the plug at the earliest convenience.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/20/futile.care.ap/index.html
Emilio, who had been on a respirator since December, was believed to have Leigh's disease, a progressive illness which destroys brain functions. His mother had fought in court to continue his medical care while doctors, saying there was no hope of recovery, sought to remove him from the machines keeping him alive.