X-Message-Number: 3840
From: 
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 1995 16:50:39 -0500
Subject: SCI. CRYONICS. misc.

1. Mae and I will be in the Phoenix area Feb. 15-25. There will be someone
here to handle phone calls and mail, but the e-mail will not be read during
that period.

2. Michael Price (#3812) had some questions about the CI sheep head
procedures, and Thomas Donaldson expressed some dissatisfaction with the
amount of detail in CI research reports.

(a) We have published our work and the Ukrainian reports of their repetition
and extension of the work. The Ukrainian reports stand on their own; we have
left nothing out (except that in the IMMORTALIST we printed only selected
photos) and anyone who wants further detail on the Ukrainian work can either
request it directly from the authors or wait for journal publication, which I
believe will be forthcoming in due course. Anyone who wants a full set of
photos (glossies, about 100 for the first head) may request them, and if the
demand is appropriate we will supply them.

(b) Concerning the earlier work we did here ourselves on the sheep heads, we
cannot at present offer to supply detail additional to what we have
published. This is partly because of time pressure and partly because our
record keeping was not as complete as that in the Ukraine. If it ever appears
that this gap is important, we will fill it.

(c) Partial quick answers to Mr. Price's quesitons: 

We tried ramping up glycerol concentration at various rates, but found the
best results with immediate perfusion (one pass) at 75% glycerol. That does
not necessarily mean that ramping up per se is worse--just that it was less
successful in the context of our particular methods. The Ukrainians copied
our methods to the best of their ability, in order to confirm our results or
not (and our results were confirmed and extended). I can't comment usefully
yet on what other factors may have contributed to lack of cracking, besides
the slow temperature changes; further projected work by Dr. Pichugin may
illuminate this. He will also try various ways to reduce osmotic pressure
problems to which Mr. Price refers, problems which manifest themselves
especially after attempted washout of the glycerol.

3. Joseph Strout has suggested some useful animal experiments, and asked
whether cryonics people might be able to do them. At      Cryonics Institute,
in-house research has not been done with live animals, and probably will not
be. We might consider funding or helping to fund such work, if it seems
important enough, and of course assuming that animals are handled humanely. 

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society



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