X-Message-Number: 32667
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 14:44:31 -0700
Subject: Retire the destructive scan
From: Jeff Davis <>

Hi guys,

For some time I've had a beef with the notion of the "destructive
scan", so I decided to get it off my chest.  The cryonet community is
nothing if not eccentric, iconoclastic, autodidactic, and diverse, so
I have no doubt that everyone will have their own alternate and
most-certainly-better idea, and move right along without missing a
beat.  So be it.  Here goes.

"Destructive scan" is (as I understand it) a technique for "reading
out" the informational content of a brain -- encoded in synaptic
structures, neuronal action potentials, and perhaps other parametric
features.  For as long as I have heard this notion talked about, the
envisioned protocol has been the layer by layer "reading" and slicing
away of brain tissue.   The theoretical result being the acquisition
of the crucial data accompanied by the complete destruction of the
brain being read.

Stop with the destructive scan nonsense already!

There's no need to destroy the brain to "read" it.  Current scanning
techniques aren't destructive, and year by year they deliver higher
resolution.

Also, current scanners are macroscopic and scan from outside the body.
 Is there anyone who doubts that future scanners will exploit micro-
or nanoscopic agents which will non-traumatically scan the body from
within? The circulatory system -- capillary bed -- provides
comprehensive, fine-grained access to the most remote areas of the
body, and that includes the brain.  And if we're dealing with a cryo
patient, then use bots to clear the bulk perfusate from the
circulatory system and replace it with say LN2 as a heat sink and
navigable liquid medium for the bots.

You all get my point, so when addressing the need for a brain scan,
just leave out the "destructive"" part, will ya?  Please.

Best, Jeff Davis

   "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                           Ray Charles

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