X-Message-Number: 4487
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 20:41:30 -0400
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <>
Subject: Internal radiation

 writes:
> I haven't checked the numbers or done the arithmetic, but I have a
> vague impression that worth-while information might be obtained by
> recording the natural radiation from a frozen patient, over extended
> time.

If it requires an extremely destructive amount of external radiation
to gather sufficiently detailed information, as it appears to, then
it seems to me that it would require an equally destructive amount of
internal radiation to gather the same information.  This amount would
probably require many millions of years (if not forever, since internal
radioactivity does gradually decrease with time).

> Natural radiation, of course, is not completely non-destructive, but
> it is unavoidable in any case.

I think it is pretty much harmless over typical cryonic time scales
(30 to 300 years).  But it's not true that it's unavoidable.  Most
of it comes from potassium 40.  If the patient were to consume K-40
depleted potassium for several weeks before suspension, that should
greatly reduce their internal radioactivity.  C-14 depleted carbon
would also help, and is more easily obtained.  Not that I think either
is worth doing.


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