Cryonics

The end of a scientific journey - started five years ago in a frozen tunnel deep below the Alaska tundra - came in January for NASA astrobiologist Dr. Richard Hoover.

It proved a long, arduous journey for Hoover and his colleagues to complete the process of identifying a unique new life form. For the life form itself, a new bacterium dubbed Carnobacterium pleistocenium, the journey to discovery took much longer - some 32,000 years.

The bacterium - the first fully described, validated species ever found alive in ancient ice - is NASA's latest discovery of an "extremophile."

"I should prefer to an ordinary death, being immersed with a few friends in a cask of Madeira, until that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country! But in all probability, we live in a century too little advanced, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection."

Benjamin Franklin wrote these words in 1773. And what if the old guy was onto something? What if life had a Skip button, like the one on your TiVo? Then you could go offline until next year, when your medication will be approved, or next decade, when your bonds will have matured, or even next century, when life is scheduled (finally!) to become perfect.

A company called BioTime shares the dream. BioTime deals in ultra-profound hypothermia, the body's last stop before freezing. Suspended animation isn't in the prospectus - yet. For the moment, this 10-person outfit is helping doctors chill their patients during heart, brain, and vascular surgery, where lower temperature translates into more available time on the operating table, less potential for blood loss, and fewer post-op complications.

Science is close to freezing, and then reviving, human beings.

Wired magazine reports that one firm, BioTime, has been regularly bringing animals such as dogs, baboons and pigs back from a frozen near-death experience.

Life After Death

“Right now, we can easily bring animals back from two hours of absolute clinical death,” BioTime Vice president Hal Sternberg said.

Wired reports that the “the astounding thing is that the animals show no signs of physical or neurological damage. Over a period of weeks, the animal returns to its cute and cuddly self.”

Sternberg expects to get the Food and Drug Administration's approval for such a process for humans within next three years.

Two boys who were clinically dead for more than an hour after falling through ice into a frozen lake in Austria have been brought back to life.

The brothers, Andreas, seven, and Christopher, nine, were under the icy water of the Schillerwasse near Vienna for at least half an hour until they were found by fire brigade divers.

Both of them had stopped breathing and their hearts had stopped.

Despite little hope that either could be saved, rescuers tried to revive them and after working for 30 minutes heard a faint heartbeat coming from Andreas. Half an hour later Christopher also started to show signs of life.

Brief discussion of the complete technical problem of cryonics, including application after cardiac arrest, and the high quality of brain preservation now achievable with vitrification.

Lemler J, Harris SB, Platt C, Huffman T, in: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, (2004, in press), "The Arrest of Biological Time as a Bridge to Engineered Negligible Senescence".

First successful application of vitrification to a relatively large tissue of medical interest.

Song YC, Khirabadi BS, Lightfoot F, Brockbank KG, Taylor MJ, in: Nature Biotechnology (2000, vol. 18), "Vitreous cryopreservation maintains the function of vascular grafts", pg. 296-299.

Forever For All - Moral Philosophy, Cryonics, and the Scientific Prospects for Immortality
Copyright 2000
By Michael Perry

First detailed discussion of the application of nanotechnology to reverse human cryopreservation.

Merkle RC, in: Medical Hypotheses (1992, vol. 39), "The technical feasibility of cryonics", pg. 6-16.

Paper showing that dogs can be recovered after three hours of total circulatory arrest ("clinical death") at 0°C (32°F). This supports the reversibility of the hypothermic phase of cryonics.

Haneda K, Thomas R, Sands MP, Breazeale DG, Dillard DH, in: Cryobiology (1986, vol. 23), "Whole body protection during three hours of total circulatory arrest: an experimental study", pg. 483-494.

First paper showing that large organs can be cryopreserved without structural damage from ice.

Fahy GM, MacFarlane DR, Angell CA, Meryman HT, in: Cryobiology (1984, vol. 21), "Vitrification as an approach to cryopreservation", pg. 407-426.

First paper suggesting that nanotechnology could reverse freezing injury.

Drexler KE, in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1981, vol. 78), "Molecular engineering: An approach to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation", pg. 5275-5278.

Follow-up paper showing partial recovery of brain electrical activity after 7 years of frozen storage.

Suda I, Kito K, Adachi C, in: Brain Research (1974, vol. 70), "Bioelectric discharges of isolated cat brain after revival from years of frozen storage", pg. 527-531.