A Beatless Heart? See It on a Computer Rental

There is always a drive to find the perfect artificial heart. One that does not tick, does not cause clots and doesn’t wear out after a couple years. Two scientists may have solved the issue, but with a turbine powered heart that may not have a beat. You might want to look up this rather creepy news on your computer rental.

The first living proof the scientists Dr. Billy Cohn and Dr. Bud Frazier had of this device working, is a brown coat calf named Abigail. The scientists removed Abigail’s heart and replaced it with two centrifugal pumps.

"If you listened to her chest with a stethoscope, you wouldn't hear a heartbeat," says Cohn. "If you examined her arteries, there's no pulse. If you hooked her up to an EKG, she'd be flat-lined."

She’s still alive though, and in a market where hearts are extremely expensive and people are dying without them, that’s all that matters. So how do you measure her circulatory system? By all measuring standards we have today, Abigail would be flat-lined and dead—but she’s alive, playful and happy as can be.

After practicing on 38 calves, Cohn and Frazier decided to test this device on human patients, to see if it could really pass the test.

They decided to test the machine on a 55-year-old Craig Lewis who was dying from amyloidosis. His heart was so damaged that doctors estimated he had about 12 hours left to live. The two scientists used ventricular assist devices, which are just rotors that usually help a heart by whirring the blood in a circular motion. Its efficiency would allow it to work continuously with no strain.

Although long lasting and practical, the only problem will be convincing the world that you don’t need a heartbeat to live. However this has led scientists to understand why our blood flows in a rhythm.

"The pulsatility of the flow is essential for the heart, because it can only get nourishment in between heartbeats," Cohn says. "If you remove that from the system, none of the other organs seem to care much."

CPR, and EKG machines might be a thing of the past soon, and our hearts might be replaced by… better hearts. This is truly a wild idea to be seen on a computer rental, and will truly change our view on the human circulatory system.