Tag Archives: Cryonics

CPR: new standards; new needs

In 2005 the American heart association revised its standards for CPR increasing the number of compressions from 80 cpm to 100 cpm, eliminating pauses for ventilation, and urging that focus be shifted to compressions (perfusion) rather than ventilation. This latter … Continue reading

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ACD-CPR & the rise of the machine?

If conventional cardiopulmonary support (CPS) in cryonics is difficult to perform adequately, and impossible to sustain for more than brief periods (30-60 min) before exhausting even a 3-man standby team, this is even more the case for active compression-decompression CPS … Continue reading

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Two useful new respiratory products

Sometime in the 1780s the French scientist Jacques Charles’s noted that  at constant pressure, the volume of a given mass of an ideal gas increases or decreases by the same factor as its temperature on the absolute temperature scale. Or, put … Continue reading

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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

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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

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Interview with Alcor member David Croft

David Wallace Croft is an Alcor member in the Dallas area where he lives with his wife Shannon and five children, Ada, Ben, Tom, Abe, and Ted.  He is employed as a Java software developer and is a part-time doctoral … Continue reading

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40,000 year old frozen baby mammoth unearthed

In “Ice Baby” by Tom Mueller, the May 2009 issue of National Geographic announces the recent discovery of a 40,000 year old baby mammoth in Sibera. She is called Lyuba, named after the wife of the Nenet reindeer herder who … Continue reading

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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

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Placing “In Case of Emergency” numbers in your cell phone

At the hospital where Linda works, nurses and other employees swap many ‘helpful hints’ via email, and one of these ideas recently circulated seemed to be a technique cryonicists could use to increase the chances that their suspension organizations would … Continue reading

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Response to Aschwin de Wolf’s ‘Evidence Based Cryonics’

In his article entitled ‘Evidence Based Cryonics’ Aschwin de Wolf unassailably argues that: “There is an urgent need to move from extrapolation based cryonics to evidence based cryonics. This will require a comprehensive research program aimed at creating realistic cryonics … Continue reading

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Jehovah’s witnesses and cryonics

When I was in New Zealand in 1999, CI Member Cam Christie told me that one of his co-workers was against cryonics because she was a Jehovah’s  Witness and her church had a position against cryonics. I recently found an … Continue reading

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Marcelon Johnson dies and is not cryopreserved

For Immediate Release, Friday, 24 January, 2009 Date: 23 January, 2009 Introduction I have been informed that Marcelon (Marce) Johnson died on 01/21/2009, was cremated, and not cryopreserved. I understand this information may come as a surprise and as a … Continue reading

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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

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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

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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

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Greg Jordan on Buddhism, Epicureanism, and Immortalism

“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 … Continue reading

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The purple prose of suspended animation

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 … Continue reading

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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

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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

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Human cryo-anabiosis

Recent advances with the use of hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide and “hibernation induction triggers” to depress metabolism in animal models have  renewed interest  in the possibility of human hibernation.  The ability to drastically depress human metabolism without the use of … Continue reading

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Cloning of frozen mice and cryonics

Japanese scientists have managed to clone a mouse that had been frozen without any cryoprotection for 16 years at minus 20 degrees Celsius. The researchers used the researchers used brain cell nuclei, and planted it into an egg of another … Continue reading

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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

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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

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My road to a possible future

My experiences with death began in 1974, when I was age 10. On Labor Day Sunday, while watching the Jerry Lewis MDA telethon, my father told me to turn the TV off. When I asked why, he said my grandfather, … Continue reading

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Promoting cerebral blood flow in cryonics patients

It has been shown that perfusability of the brain is significantly compromised after long-term (>5 min) ischemic events (the “no reflow” phenomenon). Improving cerebral blood flow after circulatory arrest is one of the fundamental objectives of human cryopreservation stabilization protocol.  … Continue reading

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BioTime’s quest to defeat aging

Unless you are a long-time cryonicist or a surgeon, you may not have heard of BioTime before. This company, recently profiled for its innovative stem cell research in Life Extension Magazine, is best known for producing the blood-volume expander Hextend, … Continue reading

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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

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Cryonics insurance provider Rudi Hoffman on “The Future and You”

Rudi Hoffman, cryonics activist and the world’s leading cryonics insurance provider, is today’s featured guest on “The Future and You:” “You can too take it with you!  How combining cryonics and insurance can let you leave your million dollar insurance … Continue reading

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Time for the rebirth of cryonics in Britain

A PDF file of this article with images is available here. “Tenderly you stroke a Nettle, and it stings you for your pains. Grasp it like a man of mettle, and it soft as silk remains.” – Old English proverb … Continue reading

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Armand Karow on Isamu Suda’s brain cryopreservation experiments

In 2007, cryobiologist Armand M. Karow passed away. Unlike many contemporary cryobiologists, Karow offered cautious support for the objectives of cryonics. In the mid-1960s, Karow served on the Scientific Advisory Council of the Cryonics Societies of America (CSA). He also … Continue reading

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Life in non-aqueous solutions

Can life exist without water? This is one of the questions that fascinates astrobiologists. The behavior of biomolecules in non-aqueous solutions is also of interest to cryobiologists and cryoenzymologists. Ice formation below zero degrees Celsius can be prevented by high … Continue reading

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