X-Message-Number: 19639
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2002 09:33:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Driven FromThePack <>
Subject: detailed, cryonics-friendly story in USA Today

By writer Tim Friend at URL:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2002-07-28-vitrification_x.htm

Considering the wide coverage of USA Today, this is a
very significant article.
First paragraph:

>>
Baseball legend Ted Williams may have dreamed of a
future where he could be taken out of frozen storage
and thawed for extra innings in life. But the
real-world science of cryobiology is only stepping up
to the plate.

<<

Great close to first para...
more:

>>
But chances are there will be no at-bats for Ted for a
long time.

Mainstream cryobiologists have yet to figure out how
to freeze and thaw a single organ, although the field
is making remarkable progress using a technique called
vitrification. Organs and tissues might not seem like
much compared with bringing the dead back to life, but
there are significant medical implications.
>>


Mentions a "prominent cryobiologist" and my all-time
favorite research lab:

>>
For now, the goal of cryobiology is the cold storage
of organs and tissues destined for transplantation,
says Greg F*hy, director of research at 21st Century
Medicine in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

Heart, lungs, livers, pancreases and kidneys are all
in short supply, so biotechnology companies are
actively working at growing new ones from scratch.
When that day comes   and many experts say it could be
within a decade   biotech companies will need a way to
store their inventories. Cryobiology is the ticket.
>>

This "Tim Friend" is raelly tuned into teh cryonics
lexicon:
>>
Logic suggests freezing is the thing to do. But the
body is a small ocean trapped in the flesh   about 80%
of the body is slightly salty water. When water
freezes, ice crystals form. When you freeze an organ,
the crystals form in the spaces between cells and
wreak havoc.
>>

If there is any one word that is crucial to cryonics,
"logic" would be it....


A mention of another great cryobiologist:
>>
Brian Wowk, a physicist at 21st Century Medicine, has
discovered a couple of compounds the old-fashioned way
  by luck   that have "an uncanny ability to block the
ability of water to freeze."

At the moment, Wowk and Fahy can cool a rabbit kidney
to minus-7 degrees for about one hour, rewarm it and
transplant it as a working kidney. But the temperature
is not cold enough to achieve vitrification.

"Successfully cooling to minus-7 degrees without
injury to the tissues is allowing us to debug the fine
details of the process before we make the final big
step down" to minus-180, Fahy says.

That is as good as it gets in cryobiology at the
moment, and it was no simple task.
>>


And we come full circle at the end:

<<

As for Ted, Alcor Life Extension Foundation reportedly
has the body. Alcor has adopted Fahy's vitrification
technique, so presumably the greatest hitter who ever
lived (and may live again) will soon have a glass arm
  and body.
>>

I have not seen this article before, I think. Google
news search turned it up as being printed 7 hours ago
by USA Today.  If it gets picked up by other outlets
(and with the slow news day it looks like we have
today, I expect it will), this would be some excellent
coverage.









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