X-Message-Number: 117 From arpa!A.ISI.EDU!TKD Wed Jul 12 08:28:21 EDT 1989 Date: Wed 12 Jul 89 08:28:21-EDT From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: Re: CRYONICS #116 - Re: Risks, AIDS, Perpetuities To: In-Reply-To: Message from "" of Tue 11 Jul 89 22:05:52-EDT Message-ID: <> David: The current state of research on low-temperature nonfrozen preservation, in which cryonicists LEAD, can achieve a preservation time of about 6 hours for dogs and so probably for human beings. As for your political comments, I suppose I agree with what you say as a longterm statement, but it has very little practicality that I can see shortterm. That is, say, for the next 5 years. One point you make I very much disagree with, and that is that "public support" is needed for longterm stability. Many groups have persisted for centuries without any support from the peoples among whom they lived. The call for public support smells very like a request for approval from some group whose opinion the speaker thinks well, it is not anything practical. If we look at your strategy as a research strategy in cryobiology rather than politics (the science precedes politics) then you are proposing extensive research into long term high temperature preservation. This technique is certain to be far more cumbersome and expensive than cryonic suspension....... It's only my opinion, but the cryobiological problems of such preservation look muich HARDER than those for solid-state storage. Among the first such problems is that fact that patients would still be metabolizing. They will need food (energy) input. Since they are not biologically designed to function for long times at these temperatures, their metabolism will already be very much out of whack. Thomas Donaldson ------- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=117