Depressed Metabolism

The biggest obstacle to the acceptance of cryonics is medical myopia; the idea that someone who has been pronounced dead by contemporary medical criteria will still be considered dead by future criteria. Advocates of human cryopreservation strongly argue against this. There are few things more discomforting than the idea that medical professionals of the future [...]

There is a growing literature that discusses the technical aspects of revival of cryonics patients. The following list of the published literature was compiled by Ralph Merkle and Robert Freitas and published as an appendix of their article on molecular nanotechnology in Cryonics Magazine 2008-4:
Robert C.W. Ettinger, The Prospect of Immortality, Doubleday, NY, 1964
Jerome B. [...]

Today is the second anniversary of Depressed Metabolism. As of writing, this website has close to 200 feed subscribers. On an average day the website has 150 unique visitors, which is an encouraging increase in traffic since our last update. This is even more remarkable in light of the fact that new blog entries with [...]

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2:7
For breath is life, and if you breathe well you will live long on earth.  – Sanskrit Proverb

In the Beginning…
Since the beginning of modern resuscitation over [...]

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 (ACD-CPS) using the ResQPump (formerly the Ambu CardioPump). Even in the conventional medical setting of [...]

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 is welcome.
Speaker
Mike Darwin has 30 years experience in cutting edge medical research. Co-founder of the Institute for [...]

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 research models. It will also require vast improvements in the monitoring and evaluation of cryonics [...]

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 disturbing shock to many people, especially those who loved and knew Marce, as I did. I thus feel [...]

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 just involve an optimistic extrapolation of existing science but can set the standard for these [...]

Contrary to popular opinion, in cryonics the blood of the patient is replaced with a cryoprotective agent to reduce freezing, or more recently, to eliminate ice formation altogether through vitrification. This procedure requires surgical access to the circulatory system of the patient to wash out the blood and replace it with a cryoprotective agent. But [...]

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
Nearly 20 years ago Alan Sinclair successfully undertook to establish a cryonics facility in the UK. The [...]

A PDF file of this document is available with images and structural visualization of various sugars.
D(+) lactose monohydrate is the principal sugar in mammalian milks. The monohydrate part is easiest to explain; it simply means that the lactose molecule has one water molecule attached to it. This is important because some chemicals can have a [...]

The blog dw2-0 reports on Mike Darwin’s recent ExtroBritannia talk in London:
“Mike Darwin made the same connection at an utterly engrossing UKTA meeting this weekend…. He spoke for over two hours, and continued in a formal Q&A session for another 30 minutes….
….The most poignant part was the description of the people issues during the [...]

From: ExtroBritannia
Cryonics: Why it has failed, and possible ways to fix it – with Mike Darwin
The next ExtroBritannia event is scheduled for Saturday August 2, 2008; 2:00pm – 4:00pm.
Location to be announced asap.
Lead Speaker: Mike Darwin, President of Alcor Life Extension 1983-1988, Research Director 1988-1992. Described by Wikipedia as “Second only to Robert Ettinger [...]

After legal pronouncement of death, cryonics patients benefit from rapid stabilization to protect the brain from injury. The most fundamental intervention is induction of hypothermia. Unlike other interventions such as cardiopulmonary support (CPS) and administration of neuroprotective medications, induction of hypothermia is an intrinsic part of cryonics. Unfortunately, surface cooling with ice is not a [...]

One argument that is often raised in favor of “field vitrification” (or vehicle based vitrification) is that it will reduce the time of (cold) ischemia and eliminate the harmful effects of remote blood washout and transport of a patient on water ice to a cryonics facility. A related argument is that field vitrification will eliminate [...]