X-Message-Number: 14464 From: "Marta Sandberg" <> Subject: Does sharks grow old? Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 14:21:47 GMT Hello, Let me introduce myself. My name is Marta Sandberg; I have been cryonicists for many years and have a contract with CI. My husband is already frozen and stored with CI. About six months ago I subscribed to CryoNet. So far I have been contented with just reading and absorbing. Now I have a question. When reading cryonics literature I've occasionally come across references to sharks and some crustaceans that apparently don't age, or at least don't suffer from old age. Is this true? What scientific references can I look up? This question has a very practical significance to me. Because I am the only 'cryonic widow' in Australia, I have received a certain amount of media attention. To give the best account of cryonics that I possible can I am trying to collect simple, quick, verifiable fact to give to reporters. For example, "By now there are enough children born from frozen embryos to fill a small school. That proves you can freeze and revive a very small human being. But when you try to freeze a fully-grown person you get so much freezing damage that you need to do a lot of repairs them before you can think about reviving them. We don't know how to do that ... yet. Cryonics is about buying the time to let medicine catch up with your problems." I would like to be able say something similar about reversing old age. Maybe "We know that aging isn't inevitable because sharks don't suffer from it. Once we figure out how they do it we can copy their tricks." But do we actually know this? Before I close, I want to say a big Thank You to Alcor for their Scientific Advisory Board. These are well known names with solid reputations. Simply the fact that they are on the side of cryonics establishes the legitimacy of cryonics and I can turn the tone of an interview from 'grief stricken widow taken in by con-men' to 'heroic woman makes a brave and intelligent choice'. This is particularly useful for prerecorded TV interviews. Even if the reporter have not heard of these people there is always a technician who understands fuzzy logic and Bart Kosko, or who admires Marvin Minsky or Ralph Merkle. Once I have mentioned the names on the Scientific Advisory Board I let the reporter and the technicians get together in a huddle and then I wait for a respectful and chastened reporter to continue the interview. Thank You Alcor - and the brave people who are willing to publicly support cryonics - as you have made my job easier. Marta _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14464