X-Message-Number: 6604 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: Lazaroids,bodies,and brain vitrification Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 23:26:40 -0700 (PDT) Hi again! 1. To Mr. Elgort: believe it or not, there really are substances called lazaroids, and they MAY (as of the last time I looked, and I try to look frequently) help survival of our brain. (This area is one I try to look at in my newsletter PERIASTRON). 2. Even for neuropreservation patients, it's normal to take samples of other tissue and store them also; furthermore, a head contains much more than simply neurons. It should be possible to not only make your head grow another body, but also make the glands and physiology of that body at least as close to your own as that of a twin. I therefore do not expect to be revived with different feelings, etc --- though I would most certainly agree that our feelings are major things we want to survive. So far as I understand our problem with suspensions, however, it is our MEMORIES which may be hardest to preserve and recover. (Brain vitrification would go very far towards solving this problem of preserving memories). And finally, some comments on brain vitrification: First, if I understand Greg's ideas, once developed, brain vitrification itself would be comparatively cheap. The problem lies in finding an adequate solution which will allow us to take the head down to a temperature low enough for really long-term preservation (centuries) without freezing. Not only that, but once somebody has done it with ONE solution, others should be able to find other solutions which will do the same or even better. (Once it's widely known something can be done, it's easy to get money to do it again!). Though we will probably be able to patent that one solution, I doubt very much that we will be able to patent the mere idea of brain vitrification: it's been around in cryonics and cryobiology for at least as long as I've been involved (since the early 1970's). The key idea of vitrification goes way back to the 1960's, when Farrant showed he could get very good preservation of muscle tissue. I don't aim to denigrate work on that idea at all: it's one thing to have a basic theoretical idea, and quite another to actually bring it to fruition --- in many cases, the overwhelmingly major part of the job. HOWEVER, there is one added technology which may (at least for a while) be much more expensive, and also needs to be worked on for very practical reasons too. OK, let's suppose we know how to vitrify heads. And our solution freezes if we take it down to liquid nitrogen temperature, but can preserve a head for centuries so long as we keep it at -150 deg C (I picked this number out of the air, the exact number isn't important). LN is very convenient and cheap, not least because caring from patients frozen in LN does not involve continuous supply of power, or any kind of complex machinery or electronics. At the same time, so far no one has found any SAFE chemical which will work just as well at the somewhat higher temperatures needed for vitrification. Sure, there are fine lab refrigerators that will maintain such a temperature for as long as they get power and don't wear out in any other way..... (If I understand rightly, the normal lifespan of a lab fridge is 10 years max). What we will need is some engineering work to find out a better form of STORAGE, too. I would say that this issue is really crucial to the cost of vitrified storage; not only that, but some kind of passive system, which maintains the right temperature WITHOUT continual power input, very likely WOULD be patentable. Years ago, before the cryonics community got involved both in legal questions and stupid fissiparous activities, Cryonet had some discussion of possible ways to do this. For the problem of organ transplantation, such means of storage are far less crucial (no one plans to store kidneys for 200 years just in case someone then needs them for a transplant). I would say that this problem is one which very much needs solution for the sake of cryonics. The first thing to do, of course, is to work out how to vitrify brains. And those who need suspension might be kept in the proper refrigerators, at least for a while. But we must still solve this latter problem, too. I say this not to denigrate research on vitrification, but to explain how the problem of safe really long term storage looks to me --- and yes, I feel sure that this storage problem will be solvable. If any money is left over after solving vitrification, this is the next problem to tackle. And depending, it may be wise to start on it once the vitrification problem comes closer to success. I hope to amplify on these points in the upcoming issue of PERIASTRON (the editorial in the front). There's more to be said, certainly. But we should not think that all will be chocolate and roses once we know how to vitrify brains. Long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=6604