Cryonics Magazine- Fasting Weakens Cancer in Mice
- Scientists Eavesdrop Inside the Mind
- Discovery May Provide Insight into Brain Cell Aging
- New Evidence Keeping Brain Sharp and Active Wards off Alzheimer’s
- New Discoveries in Cell Aging
- Eye Trials Give Hope for Stem Cells
- How Stem Cell Implants Help Heal Traumatic Brain Injury
- Victory For Crowdsourced Biomolecule Design
- New Approach to Preventing Fatal Septic Shock
- Alzheimer’s Damage Occurs Early
- Fight Aging!
- Chronosphere
- Liquid Assisted Pulmonary Cooling in Cardiopulmonary Cerebral Resuscitation, Part 2
- Liquid Assisted Pulmonary Cooling in Cardiopulmonary Cerebral Resuscitation – Part 1
- Cryonics “Castle”
- Doing the Time Warp
- Interventive Gerontology 1.0.02: First, Try to Make it to the Mean: Diet as a life extending tool, Part 3
- Interventive Gerontology 1.0.02: First, Try to Make it to the Mean: Diet as a life extending tool, Part 2
- Interventive Gerontology 1.0.02: First, Try to Make it to the Mean: Diet as a life extending tool, Part 1.
- Fortune and Men’s Eyes
- Interventive Gerontology 101.01: The Basics
- The Kurzwild Man in the Night
Author Archives: Aschwin de Wolf
The scientific conception of the world
The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle (Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis)
Posted in Science, Society
Tagged Hans Hahn, Hans Reichenbach, Logical Empiricism, Logical Positivism, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Vienna Circle, Wiener Kreis
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Buried alive?
According to this news item the Alcor Life Extension Foundation is taking legal action against the brother and sister of an Alcor member who “denied the foundation’s request for his body and didn’t notify them of their brother’s death until … Continue reading
Posted in Cryonics, Health
Tagged Alcor, CryoCare, Cryonics, Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care, Hostile Relatives, Living Will
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You’re all alone
In ‘The Rise of Scientific Philosophy’ the logical positivist philosopher Hans Reichenbach writes: In Leibniz’s philosophy the rational side of modern science has found its most radical representation. The successful use of mathematical methods for the description of nature made … Continue reading
Posted in Arts & Living
Tagged Fritz Leiber, Gottfried Leibniz, Logical Empiricism, Logical Positivism, Mark Samuels, Monad, Philosophy of the Mind, Science Fiction, Solipsism, The Sinfull Ones, Thomas Ligotti, Urban Horror
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Whatever happened to the future of medicine
Source: ExtroBritannia Why the much anticipated medical breakthroughs of the early 21st century are failing to materialize Saturday 30th May 2009, 2pm-4pm. Room 403 (fourth floor), Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7HX. There’s no charge to attend, and everyone … Continue reading
No-reflow as a post-mortem artifact
It is common medical knowledge that after 5 minutes of cardiac arrest the prospects of successful resuscitation without neurological impairment become progressively bleak. But there is less consensus on the mechanisms of such injury. One strong candidate is what is … Continue reading
Basile J. Luyet on the instability of solidified solutions
Basile J. Luyet (1897-1974) can be considered the father of modern cryobiology. His book “Life and Death at Low Temperatures” is a classic in the field and his journal “Biodynamica” evolved into a publication solely dedicated to the study of … Continue reading
Posted in Cryonics, Science
Tagged Basile J. Luyet, Ben Best, Cryobiology, Cryonics, De-vitrification, Greg Fahy, Intermediate Temperature Storage, Low Temperature Biology, Vitrification
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Evidence based cryonics
Cryonics patients can greatly benefit from rapid stabilization after pronouncement of legal death. One fortunate feature of stabilization procedures is that the most effective and validated procedures are relatively inexpensive and easy to perform. The difference between no stabilization procedures … Continue reading
Posted in Cryonics
Tagged Alcor, Blood Washout, Cryonics, Evidence Based Cryonics, Medications, Organ Preservation, Suspended Animation
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Less wrong
Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality: Over the last decades, new experiments have changed science’s picture of the way we think – the ways we succeed or fail to obtain the truth, … Continue reading
Posted in Arts & Living, Science, Society
Tagged Eliezer Yudkowsky, Less Wrong, Overcoming Bias, Rationality, Robin Hanson
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Microvasculature perfusion failure in cryonics
Under ideal circumstances cryonics patients are stabilized immediately after pronouncement of legal death by restoring blood flow to the brain, lowering temperature, and administering medications. In most cryonics cases, however, there is a delay between pronouncement of legal death and … Continue reading
Posted in Cryonics
Tagged Cerebral Blood Flow, Cerebral Ischemia, Cryonics, Erythrocytes, No-Reflow, Sodium Borohydride
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Cryonics and transhumanism
The association of cryonics with “transhumanism” seems inevitable but is problematic. It seems inevitable because cryonics should be most attractive to people with a very positive perspective on the future capabilities of technology. Barring rapid advances in mitigating aging, cryonics … Continue reading
Posted in Cryonics, Science, Society
Tagged Anne Corwin, Cryonics, Mark Plus, Nanotechnology, Ray Kurzweil, Singularity, Transhumanism
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Avoiding Karl Popper
The philosopher Karl Popper has published on a wide variety of subjects but his most lasting contribution is his answer to the problem of induction by drawing attention to the asymmetry between verification and falsification. A theory can never be … Continue reading
Posted in Arts & Living, Society
Tagged Critical Rationalism, Karl Popper, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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DNA preservation and cryonics
Following the news that mice have been cloned from 16 year old frozen tissue comes an announcement that scientists have made advances in resurrecting the extinct Pyrenean Ibex. This does not only offer hope that someday other extinct species may … Continue reading
Posted in Cryonics, Science
Tagged Cloning, Cryonics Institute, DNA, Mind Uploading, Pyrenean Ibex
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5 dangerous ideas about cryonics
The cryonics organizations Alcor and the Cryonics Institute have taken great care to correct some of the persistent myths about cryonics. With so much widespread misinformation being circulated in the media it seems trivial to pay attention to some of … Continue reading
Posted in Cryonics, Death
Tagged Brian Wowk, Cryobiology, Cryonics, Human Cryopreservation, Thomas Donaldson
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Patrick Millard’s cryonics photography
Patrick Millard is a Michigan based artist who works with different media including photography, painting, mixed media, sound, and installation. He currently works as an adjunct professor of photography at Grand Valley State University and Grand Rapids Community College and … Continue reading
The red blood cell as a model for cryoprotectant toxicity
Various approaches are available to investigate cryoprotectant toxicity, ranging from theoretical work in organic chemistry to cryopreservation of complete animals. Because resuscitation of complex organisms after cryopreservation is not feasible at the moment, such investigations need to be confined to … Continue reading
Posted in Health, Science
Tagged Cryobiology, Cryoenzymology, Cryoprotectant Toxicity, Erythrocytes, Red Blood Cells, Vitrification
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Robert White on brain death
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Cryonics, Death, Neuroscience
Tagged Brain Death, Cryobiology, Cryonics, Robert J. White
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The healthy skeptic
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Health, Science
Tagged Dietary Supplements, Health, Life Extension, Meliorism, Science, Skepticism
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Eric Drexler launches Metamodern blog
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 … Continue reading
Richard Dawkins on fashionable nonsense
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Science, Society
Tagged Philosophy, Physics, Postmodernism, Richard Dawkins, Skepticism, Social Science
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Experiment made on the mummy
As documented in David M. Friedman’s The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever, Lindbergh and Carrel considered the human body a living machine made of replaceable parts. A major reason why Carrel was … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged Alexis Carrel, Charles Lindbergh, Death, Mummy, Perfusion, Resuscitation
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The black operating room of Alexis Carrel
From David M. Friedman’s The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever: The initial stages of these studies were performed in Carrel’s operating suite, which the two men now entered. Lindbergh had never been … Continue reading
Cryonics sets example for emergency medicine
One of the most neglected aspects of cryonics is that its procedures, and the research to support them, can have important practical applications in mainstream fields such as organ preservation and emergency medicine. Contrary to popular opinion, cryonics does not … Continue reading
Posted in Cryonics, Health
Tagged Cardiac Arrest, CPR, Cryonics, Emergency Medicine, EMS, Hypothermia, Mike Darwin, ResQPOD, Resuscitation, Vitrification
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Facing death with Epicurus
James Warren is to be complimented for writing a thorough and persuasive book on Epicurean thinking about death. In Facing Death: Epicurus and his Critics, Warren offers a detailed review of Epicurus’ view that “death is nothing to us.” His … Continue reading
Posted in Arts & Living, Death
Tagged Death, Epicurus, Ethics, James Warren, Philosophy
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Brownian motion and nanotechnology
Brownian motion started when Robert Brown looked into his microscope and observed that pollen suspended in water moved around in a continuous random motion. Wanting to rule out some “vital life force,” Brown also investigated dead things such as sand … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged Bionanotechnology, Brownian Motion, Eric Drexler, Nanotechnology, Richard Jones
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Help Kronos’ Chris Heward fight his cancer
Chris Heward past away on January 10, 2009. This post will remain here to remember Chris and his struggle against cancer. John Schloendorn, who is a postdoc at ASU’s Biodesign Institute and doing scientific research on the LysoSENS project for … Continue reading
Interview with Alcor readiness coordinator Regina Pancake
This is the second in a series of interviews with individuals in the life extension and cryonics movement. The first interview was with Cryonics Institute president Ben Best. This interview is with Regina Pancake, Alcor’s Readiness Coordinator. How did you … Continue reading
Famous preserved body parts
The website TopTenz recently published a list of the Top 10 Most Famous Preserved Body Parts. The list includes Galileo’s finger and Albert Einstein’s brain. As has been discussed on this blog before, the preservation of human brains (no matter … Continue reading
Posted in Arts & Living, Death
Tagged Albert Einstein, Benito Mussolini, Boyd Rice, Cryonics, Death, Predappio, Vitrification
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The secular case against immortality
In 2003 George Hart published an article called “The Immortal’s Dilemma: Decontructing Eternal Life” , making a secular case against immortality. Hart mainly uses logical arguments and provides a fair amount of room to address a number of possible objections … Continue reading
Death is nothing to us
The idea that death gives meaning to life is widespread but does not reflect careful reasoning, and is often a desperate rationalization of human mortality. As a consequence, life extensionists have not been at great pains to defeat “pro-death” arguments. … Continue reading
Convergence08
“On November 15-16, 2008, the world’s most dangerous ideas will collide in Mountain View, California. Convergence08 examines the world-changing possibilities of nanotech and the life-changing promises of biotech. It is the premier forum for debate and exploration of cogtech ethics, … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged Artificial Intelligence, Convergence08, Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology
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Liberty and oblivion
In 1991 the Libertarian Alliance published an article called “Immortality: Liberty’s Final frontier” (PDF) by David Nicholas. In this article the author argues that “the continuing fact of death renders all talk of liberty ultimately futile.” The author further argues … Continue reading
Antioxidant skepticism
At the blog Fight Aging!, Reason draws attention to the possibility that taking large amounts of antioxidant supplements may not necessarily be an improvement: Our biology is complex – why would we expect that successfully modifying it with chemicals would … Continue reading
Posted in Health, Science
Tagged Aging, Antioxidants, Free Radicals, Nanomedicine, PBN, Steve Harris
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