Depressed Metabolism

This is the fifth entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. As we have seen, Radoslav Andjus had determined a method for achieving excellent (75-100%) recovery rates in rats cooled to 0-2 degrees C by local cardiac heating prior to warming the whole [...]

Abandoned sites are found in (former) industrial areas, as highlighted in the post on the Monteponi mine in Sardinia and as photographed by Bernd and Hilla Becher, who are famous for their photographs of industrial buildings, or in cities, as highlighted in a previous post about Abandoned London Underground Stations.
And even Antarctica, although sparsely populated, [...]

Mark Samuels’ bleak novella of urban horror, In the Face of Twilight, is set in London. Living in London, and being somewhat familiar with the settings in this story, this created a unique opportunity to see what places in his book actually do exist.
What follows is a selection of photos taken of locations that feature [...]

Robert J. White is most known, or perhaps most notorious, for his work on primate head transplants. Less known, but more relevant to the practice of human cryopreservation, is his work in cerebral ischemia, hypothermia, and brain preservation. Most of White’s innovative work was published in the 1960s and 1970s. White also published a substantial [...]

This is the fourth entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. Up to this point we have discussed the groundbreaking research in the early 1950s performed by Radoslav Andjus in resuscitating rats from body temperatures between 0 and 2 degrees C. Having determined [...]

This is the third entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. Andjus and Smith were delighted that they had managed to modify Andjus’ chest-wall heating technique from using a hot metal spatula to using a focused beam of light in order to preferentially [...]

This is the second entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. As discussed previously, in 1951 Radoslav Andjus developed a simple method for resuscitating rats cooled to deep body temperatures between 0 and 2 degrees C which involved applying a hot spatula to [...]

Like Fritz Leiber and Thomas Ligotti, the setting for the weird fiction of Mark Samuels is often an urban environment. The British horror writer Ramsey Campbell describes Samuel’s stories as ‘Urban Tales of Terror’ in the introduction to Samuels’  latest collection of short stories, ‘Glyphotech and Other Macabre Stories.’

The setting for these urban tales of [...]

This is the first entry in a series about resuscitation of non-hibernating rodents from circulatory arrest at ultraprofound hypothermic and high subzero temperatures. Prior work in hypothermia began in the early 1900s, but because cardiac and respiratory arrest were observed in the animals around 15 degrees C, researchers assumed they were irreversibly dead [...]

Consumers are constantly bombarded with advice about health. Lower your cholesterol, avoid carbs, take dietary supplements, avoid Teflon, get a full body scan, etc. Such advice does not fall on deaf ears. Who does not want to remain healthy, look good, and extend life? Two other factors contribute to our eagerness to consume and follow [...]

For most of the decade one of the authors of this blog maintained another website called Against Politics to disseminate information about the theory and practice of a depoliticized society. Topics that held Against Politics together included non-cognitivism, contractarianism, polycentric law, and an emphasis on the work of thinkers such as David Gauthier, Jan Narveson [...]

Nanotechnology idea-man Robert Freitas, Jr. has published an article in the January 2009 issue of Life Extension Magazine providing a tutorial in nanomedicine and documenting its progression toward real-world application.
In “Nanotechnology and Radically Extended Life Span,” Freitas describes several theoretical medical nanorobots, such as the microbiovore, which would “act like an artificial mechanical white cell, [...]

“Buddhism and Epicureanism combat the fear of death by accommodating the emotions to the reasonable certainty of death. Contemporary immortalism (which includes projects such as life extension, cryonic suspension, and universal immortalism) argues that scientific and technological solutions to the problem of death can be found, thus questioning the inevitability of death. Buddhist, Epicurean, and [...]

According to those who research them, capuchin monkeys think only about two things: food and sex. As a result, the vast majority of their behaviors are also geared toward the acquisition of food and sex. Not surprisingly, these desires can be exploited to teach the monkeys other behaviors. However, no one has ever observed animals [...]

A recently conducted study brings a warning to technophiles who think that the facts are all that matter when informing a group of people about a new technology. The fact of the matter is that the message matters more.
In their article “What drives acceptance of nanotechnology?” (Nature Nanotechnology), the Cultural Cognition Project and the Project [...]

Esquire magazine features an article on scientist Mark Roth and his research into “suspended animation.” As the website title “The Mad Scientist Bringing Back the Dead…. Really” indicates, this is not supposed to be a detailed account of Ikaria’s recent advances in induction of depressed metabolism but a sensationalist piece on mad scientists. Although the [...]

Molecular nanotechnology pioneer and cryonics advocate Eric Drexler has launched his own blog called Metamodern: The Trajectory of Technology. This is what we can expect:

In this blog, I’ll discuss current progress in science and technology, often with a specific perspective in mind: how current progress can contribute to the development of advanced nanosystems. This system-building [...]

The Dutch psychologist Piet Vroon once opined that philosophy has lost much of its relevance because it  has lost touch with the (natural) sciences. Although philosophers associated with logical positivism and critical rationalism made great efforts to discipline the practice of philosophy by encouraging logical thinking and verification (or falsification), so far their efforts must [...]

Over the years, experimental science has developed a standard protocol for the testing of medical hypotheses using animal models which calls for the use of males only. Why? Because no laboratory scientist wants to deal with those pesky female hormones. Female hormone fluctuations are viewed as just another variable to be controlled (generally by excluding [...]