X-Message-Number: 1287 Subject: CRYONICS Culture cells from suspendees? Date: Fri, 09 Oct 92 14:51:38 -0400 From: I recently fetched the cryonics article from the 26 September New Scientist. The choice of presentation was obviously made by someone who thought they knew that cryonics wouldn't work and wanted to manipulate the reader into believing the same. The biologists get the last word with irrelevant arguments about what sorts of damage can be repaired now, and the rejoinder of the cryonicists that repair in the future will work much better is not examined seriously. The article would have been very interesting to me if that claim of the cryonicists were examined and then shown false (or true, for that matter); instead, the claim is juxtaposed with the hamburger-into-cow quote to discredit it by association, and then the subject changes. Leaving the rhetoric aside, there is one alleged fact in the article that disagrees with what I have heard elsewhere. The article claims that existing technology would be unable to culture living cells from a suspendee, but I vaguely remember being told that this would be possible and (shame on me) I have been repeating the hearsay without verifying it. Certainly one of the cryonics supporters in the sci.med debates claimed that it was possible. Has anyone tried? Do the existing cryonics organizations claim that live cells could be cultured from suspendees, and do they have evidence to support this? Tim Freeman Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1287