X-Message-Number: 21783 From: "Mark Plus" <> Subject: Australian IT article on cryonics Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 23:20:23 -0700 http://australianit.news.com.au/common/print/0,7208,6449109%5E15397%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html Grateful dead on ice Ian Grayson MAY 20, 2003 HARRISON Ford did it in Star Wars, Sylvester Stallone managed it in Demolition Man and Mike Myers made it look easy in Austin Powers. Being snap frozen and then returned to life years later - fit and healthy - is a tantalising thought. Now, people are parting with thousands of dollars in hope of achieving a similar feat. The technology involved, human cryonics, has been refined during the past 10 years. At present, there are more than 100 people already frozen, quietly awaiting the day of their return. Although shrouded in science fiction-like mystery, human cryonics is a relatively straight forward process. It's been likened to shoving a popsicle inside a Thermos flask. The first step is to remove the blood from the body as soon as possible after death. This is replaced by a "cryoprotective solution", similar to and serving the same purpose as anti-freeze put in a car radiator. The liquid is designed to protect body cells which would be destroyed when the water within them froze. The objective is to maintain the body in the same condition it was immediately after life ended. Once this process is complete, the body is immersed in a silicon oil and its temperature dropped to around minus 70 degrees Celsius over a few hours. After a medical technician checks all is well, the body is gradually immersed in liquid nitrogen and cooled to a pleasant minus 196 degrees. At this point all activity in the cells has stopped and the body is in what is termed suspended animation. It's believed that, once in this state, a body will remain in the same condition it was at death. Once completely frozen, the body is moved into a cryogenic chamber. Depending on the facility, bodies are stored in a single pod or in groups within a larger chamber. Once there, sophisticated computerised monitoring ensures the temperature remains at a constant minus 196 degrees. Leading the cryonics process is the grandly named Alcor Life Extension Foundation. This US-based organisation has more than 50 people tucked away and a list of hundreds more signed up for the service. Medical teams are on stand-by around the clock to collect bodies and take them to holding facilities at the Arizona headquarters. The process isn't cheap. Participants can choose to have their entire body frozen for $US120,000 ($187,000) or just their head for $50,000. The logic for the head-only option is that scientists will figure out how to grow the rest back in the future. The Thermos-bound faithful are banking on being brought back once cures for diseases such as cancer orways of halting the ageing process are available. The area of research to show most promise is nanotechnology, which deals with things at the molecular level. In the biological and medical fields, this means finding ways to battle disease or repair damaged organs one cell at a time. Nanotechnology scientists are working to create machines so small they can work at the cellular level. Travelling through a body thawed after years of cryonic storage, they could seek the disease that killed its owner and reverse the process. Then, or so the theory goes, it would be possible to re-start the body and the person would spring to life, albeit dazed and confused. This may sound too far fetched, but the principles are already understood and many in the industry believe it will be less than 30 years before such things become possible. Robert Freitas, a recognised authority on nanotechnology, has developed conceptual designs for nanobots - the tiny devices that will one day be injected into people. The US-based scientist has conjuredup what he calls "respirocytes", replacements for red blood cells. The little robots would do all red blood cells do now, transporting oxygen around the body and removing waste products, and a whole lot more besides. By being programmed with new information on a regular basis, these could be prepared for any new diseases that might get into the body. This report appears on australianIT.com.au. _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21783