A ‘third state’ beyond life and death has been discovered by biological researchers – a breakthrough that could ‘redefine legal death’.

The “third state of existence” in biology is when the cells of a dead organism continue to function, after the death of the organism.

The teachers Peter Noble of the University of Washington in Seattle and Alex Pozhitkov of City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, California, investigated the remarkable ability of cells to exist in new forms after an organism’s death.

The breakthrough

According to the Dailymail, the researchers discovered that, paradoxically, after the death of the organism, its cells acquire new capabilities that they did not have when the organism was alive.

Specifically, after the death of the living being, some cells – when provided with nutrients, oxygen, bioelectricity or biochemical elements – have the ability to transform into multicellular organisms with new functions.

If more experiments with cells from dead animals – including humans – show that they can enter the “third state”, this discovery could “redefine the legal death” of a human, say biologists.

In 2021, researchers in the US found that cells from the skin of dead frogs were able to spontaneously adapt into multicellular organisms called “xenobots».
These organisms showed behaviors beyond their original biological roles – using their cilia – small hair-like structures – to move around the environment.

Other scientists have also discovered that human lung cells can “self-assemble” into tiny multicellular organisms – the “human bot” – that can move around their environment, but also repair both themselves and the injured nerve cells around them.