X-Message-Number: 1287
Subject: CRYONICS Culture cells from suspendees?
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 92 14:51:38 -0400
From: 


I recently fetched the cryonics article from the 26 September New
Scientist.  The choice of presentation was obviously made by someone
who thought they knew that cryonics wouldn't work and wanted to
manipulate the reader into believing the same.  The biologists get the
last word with irrelevant arguments about what sorts of damage can be
repaired now, and the rejoinder of the cryonicists that repair in the
future will work much better is not examined seriously.  The article
would have been very interesting to me if that claim of the
cryonicists were examined and then shown false (or true, for that
matter); instead, the claim is juxtaposed with the hamburger-into-cow
quote to discredit it by association, and then the subject changes.

Leaving the rhetoric aside, there is one alleged fact in the article
that disagrees with what I have heard elsewhere.  The article claims
that existing technology would be unable to culture living cells from
a suspendee, but I vaguely remember being told that this would be
possible and (shame on me) I have been repeating the hearsay without
verifying it.  Certainly one of the cryonics supporters in the sci.med
debates claimed that it was possible.  Has anyone tried?  Do the
existing cryonics organizations claim that live cells could be
cultured from suspendees, and do they have evidence to support this?

Tim Freeman

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