Once you stop breathing in life, the brain and nerve cells require a constant oxygen supply and subsequently they will die within a few minutes. This is well known.
The next to go in your dying body will be the heart, followed by liver, kidneys and pancreas — maybe in an hour or so. Maybe less. Skin, tendons, heart valves and corneas will still be alive after one full day. White blood cells can keep going for almost three days. But what is next ?
Answer: the “twilight of death.”
A period in which your features are fading, and in which, on the other hand, gene transcription (the first step of gene expression, where a segment of DNA is copied into RNA) occurs. It could happen within hours after the individual was declared dead. It could happen to you.
Recipients of donor organs often exhibit increased risk of cancer following a transplant, and some researchers think that there could be a link between “twilight of death” gene transcription and this increased cancer risk — independent of immunosuppressants and the like.
It’s the echo of the donor’s body that’s fighting its demise — nothing else.
If the conjectural theory is correct, the surviving cells start changing their DNA in a state of blind panic in which they cause the very cancer that will occur in the host after the transplantation. And in their panic, they will obstruct the life of the new host because they do not want to save the day.
They are the very echo of the initial host —
They want to stay.
SOURCES: the Richard Harris collection.