Stick around long enough and you might learn something earth-shattering.
Take death, for example.
Common knowledge (thanks to innumerable examples in hospital dramas) is that when some has suffered cardiac arrest, you take them to hospital, get them on a resuscitation machine, jolt their heart with enough electricity to power a few TVs, then everything will be OK.
Turns out we've got it all wrong....
It takes hours for the cells in our hearts and brains to die after we 'die'. "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." Turns out the body sees the cells flooded with oxygen and does the same thing when it realises cells are infected with cancer - it flicks the 'off switch' - then we really die.
So, now we may have a new range of treatment options, involving keeping a patient alive, but not breathing per se...
An amazing read.
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