Cardiac surgeons have discovered two novel techniques that may improve doctors’ ability to “reanimate” hearts after the death of a donor. The other technique involves flushing a cold solution of liquid and preservatives into a heart before surgeons remove it from the donor’s body. Both methods could potentially open up new, cost-effective approaches for recovering viable hearts from donors who have been declared dead. Most hearts currently used in transplants come from donors who are declared brain dead but whose hearts are still beating. Unlike the first procedure, cold preservation here allows surgeons to transplant the donor heart into the recipient without ever needing to restart its function beforehand.