X-Message-Number: 2604
From: T.Freeman
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Problem with Cryonics
Message-ID: <>
References: <2jjrfr$>
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 1994 02:31:25 GMT


In article <2jjrfr$>  (Steve 
Petersen) writes:

     I heard that cryonic suspension has some problems.  It damages
   skin cells.  

Kind of like the ad for Topol (sp?) tooth polish.  Actor inhales from
a cigarette, exhales through a handkerchief, which is left a
disgusting shade of yellow.  The actor says "... and imagine what
cigarette smoke could do to your teeth!".  (My point is that he is
disregarding what the cigarette smoke does to your lungs, which is
much more damaging.)

The damage to brain cells represents a much larger barrier to
reanimation than does the damage to skin cells.  Skin does not carry
much information about who we are; burn victims who have skin replaced
with skin grafts are more-or-less the same person afterward as before.
So in principle a new crop of skin cells could be grown if even a little of
it survives.  If we ever figure out how to manipulate gene expression,
new skin could be grown from any surviving cell.

On the other hand, with present technology, there is some ice crystal
formation in the brain when a person is frozen.  Cryoprotectants are
used to minimize this, but there is enough to make it likely that some
reassembly will be required to piece things together.  There's reason
to hope this might be possible, but it isn't certain.  Check out
_Engines of Creation_ by Drexler for a sketch of how this sort of
thing might be done.

   Not too recently a woman who payed to have her body
   frozen ran out of funds some years after her body was frozen.
   (This info was taken from "The Great Mambo
   Chicken")  

I read that but I don't remember it very well.  I guess you're
probably talking about the Dora Kent affair.  Check out the FAQ.

To get the cryonics  FAQ, check out old messages in the sci.cryonics
newsgroup or the news.answers newsgroup, or send mail to
 with the subject line "CRYOMSG 0018", or use
anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu to fetch all files in the directory
pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/sci/cryonics.

     Have any animals been re-animated?  I think I heard a rumor
   about a dog once.

Dogs have been recovered from 4 degrees C, but not from liquid
nitrogen temperatures.  I believe sperm and fetuses and so forth can
survive being frozen to that temperature with the right preservation
technique.  There's more in the FAQ.
--
Tim Freeman <>    
Do you call yourself free?  I want to hear your ruling idea, and not
that you have escaped from a yoke.  -- Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche

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