Beheading as punishment is common in Sharia law. If your head gets chopped clean off, does your brain have enough remaining energy to acknowledge that it’s been cut off? The brain has enough residual energy to remain conscious for 2 to 6 seconds after decapitation. The human brain consumes 20% of the body's oxygen and relies on a continuous supply of glucose. When the neck is severed, the brain still holds a tiny reserve of oxygenated blood within its tissue, which keeps neurons firing briefly before it is completely used up.

Before and after scan results of a Brazilian cancer patient after doctors at the University of São Paulo gave him experimental CAR-T therapy in 2023. Thirty days later, his PET scan was clear. Every spot was gone. Paulo Peregrino had fought cancer for 13 years 45 rounds of chemo, a bone-marrow transplant, and still the lymphoma kept coming back.