Death in the deep freeze

"I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

Woody Allen

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Imagine your body kept in deep freeze storage for hundreds of years. It sounds nightmarish, but those paying to be cryonically preserved are gambling that future scientists can bring them back from the dead. Is a second chance on life really possible? Some dearly departed have had their bodies put into a deep freeze, hoping one day medicine will have a cure for what ailed them. Critics consider the use of cryonics to bring back the dead a fool-hearty idea. It's an unproven science that faces many obstacles to success, especially in the formation of ice crystals that damage the body's cells. Cameras follow cryonicists to document the processes they employ in prepping a body for freezing. On the more practical side, scientists are making real progress in preserving individual organs for later transplantation into sick individuals.

Cryonics

Cryonics (often mistakenly called "cryogenics") is the practice of cryopreserving humans or animals that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine until resuscitation may be possible in the future. The largest current practitioners are two member-owned, non-profit organizations, the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, with 74 cryopreserved patients and the Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township, Michigan with 75. The process is not currently reversible. Cryonics can only be performed on humans after clinical death, and a legal determination that further medical care is not appropriate (legal death). The rationale for cryonics is that the process may be reversible in the future if performed soon enough, and that cryopreserved people may not really be dead by standards of future medicine (see information theoretic death). Cryonics is viewed with skepticism by many scientists and doctors today. However, there is a high representation of scientists among cryonics supporters. Scientific support for cryonics is based on projections of future technology, especially molecular nanotechnology and nanomedicine. Some scientists believe that future medicine will enable molecular-level repair and regeneration of damaged tissues and organs decades or centuries in the future. Disease and aging are also assumed to be reversible. The central premise of cryonics is that memory, personality, and identity are stored in the structure and chemistry of the brain. While this view is widely accepted in medicine, and brain activity is known to stop and later resume under certain conditions, it is not generally accepted that current methods preserve the brain well enough to permit revival in the future. Cryonics advocates point to studies showing that high concentrations of cryoprotectant circulated through the brain before cooling can largely prevent freezing injury, preserving the fine cell structures of the brain in which memory and identity presumably reside. To its detractors, the justification for the actual practice of cryonics is unclear, given present limitations of preservation technology. Currently cells, tissues, blood vessels, and some small animal organs can be reversibly cryopreserved. Some frogs can survive for a few months in a partially frozen state a few degrees below freezing, but this is not true cryopreservation. Cryonics advocates counter that demonstrably reversible preservation is not necessary to achieve the present-day goal of cryonics, which is preservation of basic brain information that encodes memory and personal identity. Preservation of this information is said to be sufficient to prevent information theoretic death until future repairs might be possible. Probably the most famous cryopreserved patient is Ted Williams. The popular urban legend that Walt Disney was cryopreserved is false; he was cremated, and interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. Robert A. Heinlein, who wrote enthusiastically of the concept, was cremated and his ashes distributed over the Pacific Ocean. Timothy Leary was a long-time cryonics advocate, and signed up with a major cryonics provider. He changed his mind, however, shortly before his death, and so was not cryopreserved.

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This site belongs to Mazalien. Maza is born in the Netherlands about 40 years ago and has studied economics in the 90's. He is very much a travel buff. He has also a hughe intrest in science and astronomy. At the moment he is working for the local municipality. If you like you can contact him at info @ mazalien.com.

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"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It's the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead." ~ Albert Einstein (1930)."

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