These Synthetic Dogs Can Bleed, Breathe, and Die

Tampa-based medical technology firm SynDaver has recently announced their newest creation: the SynDaver Synthetic Canine, a synthetic dog complete with tissues, organs, and life cycles of a real dog.

These creepy abominations were designed not to replace man’s best friend with bleeding robotic simulacra, but to give veterinary students a safe outlet for practicing surgeries on hyper-realistic dummies so that they no longer have to turn to abandoned dogs. These macabre skin jobs (or is it fur jobs?) even come with simulated illnesses such as tumors or lesions, and can even be manufactured with foreign objects embedded in the dog-droids’ stomachs. 

As of now, vet students often rehearse operations on dogs recruited from local shelters, and since vet students aren’t perfect, sometimes these shelter dogs die as a result of botched surgeries. If widely adopted by veterinary schools, the SynDaver Synthetic Canine, despite being the stuff of nightmares, could potentially save thousands of animals’ lives every year.

SynDaver labs already creates synthetic human dummies for doctors and military medics to train with. According to the company’s website, these synthetic cadavers are as close to the real thing as one can get without operating on an actual human:

Our SynDaver™ Synthetic Human bleeds, breathes, and employs hundreds of replaceable muscles, bones, organs, and vessels which are made from materials that mimic the mechanical, thermal, and physicochemical properties of live tissue. This validated technology is used to replace live animals, cadavers, and human patients in medical device studies, clinical training, and surgical simulation.

The company claims that the proprietary materials used in the construction of these synthetic cadavers are close to the actual chemical compositions of real tissues. Typical engineering materials, they argue, are inadequate for simulating real living tissues. While the company does not disclose the exact materials used, they claim that their synthetic tissues have similar levels of water, fiber, salts, and even thermal and electric conductivity as real tissues.

SynDaver has launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds and pre-sell the $28,500 (US) canine creepshows. For a $150,000 donation, the company will give a lucky donor his or her very own synthetic human for..well, whatever it is people do with hyper-realistic bleeding dummies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHgiBOutcyo&index=1&list=PLkkEKE1W7Y3L1J_puetOcpd7AIT9iosLL