X-Message-Number: 1966
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: cryonics: #1936-#1942
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 93 13:04:05 PST

To Ralph Merkle:

Cracking seems to be one of the major (but not the only) sources of damage 
which ANY method of repair must be able to fix. Rather than rely solely on 
a "mature nanotechnology", which MAY only come centuries from now (many a
slip between cup and lip!) if we had some way to avoid cracking, we'd also
have some way to reduce the difficulty of repair. Perhaps enough for an
IMMATURE nanotechnology.

Furthermore, although it seems likely, it's far from obvious that cracking in
a frozen brain leaves all the pieces just where they were originally, ready
to be assembled. Cracking occurs because of stresses; without closely 
examining frozen brains (not necessarily human ones!) we don't have any good
empirical data on just what the damage is. The stresses may bear especially
on surfaces we don't want to separate, like synapses; they may also cause
movement of the cracked pieces... so that the puzzle ceases to be quite so
easy to put together again.

Of course I, and I believe those working and thinking about this problem, 
would agree totally with you that whatever means of storage is chosen, it 
should be equal or very close to simple storage in LN2 when compared in terms
of likelihood of catastrophic failure, expense, and other such criteria ---
including, of course, the potential longevity of storage.
				Best and long long life,
					Thomas Donaldson
-- 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1966