This is the overnight flight from London Heathrow to Beijing.

Flight time 11 hours,

237 passengers on board,

and one murderer there's no escape.

At 35,000 feet.

Red Eye. Stream now on ITX.

Welcome to the Guardian Long Reed, showcasing the best long-form journalism

covering culture, politics and new thinking. For the text version of this and

all our Long Reed, go to the Guardian dot com forward slash long read.

The new science of death there's something happening in the brain that makes no sense

by Alex Blasdal.

Patient 1 was 24 years old and pregnant with her third child when she was taken off life support. It was 2014. A couple of years earlier she had been diagnosed with a disorder

that caused an irregular heartbeat and during her two previous pregnancy she had suffered

seizures and fainting. Four weeks into her third pregnancy, she collapsed on the floor of her home. Her mother, who was with her, called 911.

By the time an ambulance arrived,

Patient one had been unconscious for more than 10 minutes.

Paramedics found that her heart had stopped. After being driven

to a hospital where she couldn't be treated, Patient One was taken to the emergency department

at the University of Michigan.

There, medical staff had to shock her chest three times with a defibrillator

before they could restart her heart.

She was placed on an external ventilator and pacemaker and transferred to the neurointensive care unit where doctors monitored her brain activity.

...