Yesterday, I came across a bizarre story in Discover Magazine about gene ACTIVATION with cell death. Yes, you read that right.

It turns out death is more nuanced than we thought. Scientists found dormant genes can come to life hours or even days after the organism dies.

The reason for this activation is unclear. One hypothesis is that the genes turn on when the regulating or inhibitory chemicals are removed. Some of the genes that are activated after organism death are cancer genes. So the removal of inhibition makes sense.

Post-mortem gene activation, coupled with the study at Yale, partially bringing back pig brains from death, has me scratching my head. I’m interested to learn more.