X-Message-Number: 10390
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1998 23:35:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Electron Micrographs

In a post a few days ago I mentioned that Greg Fahy created some
consternation in the cryonics community in the 1980s when he presented
electron micrographs of brain tissue frozen with typical cryonics
protocol. 

This statement was inadvertantly misleading. I'm told that Mike Darwin,
Jerry Leaf, and Hugh Hixon had made electron micrographs approximately two
years before Greg gave his presentation, which relied in part on work done
by Darwin and Leaf. I'm sorry I didn't mention this. 

While on the subject, I have to note the response I have received to my
offer (posted here and on sci.cryonics) to send anyone a free back issue
of CryoCare Report, containing an article by Mike Darwin including
electron micrographs showing differing degrees of damage to brains frozen
with two different cryoprotective protocols. 

So far, precisely one person has taken me up on my offer. I can think of 
four possible explanations for this meager response:

1. Everyone has already seen that issue of CryoCare Report. (Unlikely.)
2. No one bothered to read my post. (More likely.)
3. Many people assume that they wouldn't know how to interpret the
   pictures (in fact, this isn't true; the accompanying text provides
   a clear explanation, and the pictures are annotated).
4. Most cryonicists really don't care what condition their brains are
   likely to be in after freezing, because they are confident that
   the damage can be fixed at some point in the future.

--CP

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