X-Message-Number: 2036 Date: Sun, 28 Mar 93 17:45:47 -0800 From: Subject: CRYONICS Trans Time newsletter THE TRANS TIMES Life Extension through Cryonic Suspension Volume 2 Number 1 February 1993 Gibraltar Building Status Report By Carmen Brewer TRANS TIME director and property manager I thought it was about time to give a report on the building located at 165 Gibraltar Court in Sunnyvale CA that TRANS TIME and some members of the American Cryonics Society bought about nine months ago. The first five or six months were very difficult and we feared that we might not be able to hold on to the building, as some of the owners seemed unable to come up with their share of the monthly expenses, such as mortgage payments, utilities and many repairs. It was a great disappointment to realize that it would be difficult if not impossible to lease the building to other tenants if cryonics patients were to be stored there; people were reluctant to have their business in the same building with a cryonics operation. We had hoped to make this lovely building in a 2.2 acre park-like ground a home for cryonics, a home where we could hold meetings and bring visitors, where clients would be proud to visit and would feel good about being stored in this pleasant location. Between the difficulties of leasing part of this large building to help with the enormous expenses, and the problems some of the owners had in cooperating with each other, it soon became apparent that it would be impossible to go on with the dream of making this lovely building into a home for cryonics. But that is the past; let us move on now to January 1993. We have rented both the first and third floor for a total of $7,500 per month which takes care of our loan payment plus some of the expenses. Just recently we signed a short term lease for some space on the second floor for storage only, at $900 per month. We are actively offering the building for sale and/or lease. We are having some interest lately, and it is my hope that we can sell the building very soon so all the investors get their money back with maybe a small profit. It was an adventure that unfortunately did not turn out the way we had hoped, but we certainly have learned a lot and we will be more careful in the future. Let's not forget and even be proud that some of us cryonicists tried bravely against great odds to buy a beautiful new $1,250,000 home for our company, clients and patients. We hope to sell this building very soon so that TRANS TIME can move on to find a new home. One possibility is that TRANS TIME can move to Berkeley and share with BioTime the building that it currently occupies. We could cooperate with them in building a state-of-the-art laboratory and operating room, and we would greatly benefit from always having the research and suspension team on hand. Research Update by Hal Sternberg, Ph.D. Our small animal research continues to provide clues to improved cryonic suspension procedures. Several recent experiments using the BioTime Cryogenic solution confirmed previous studies that slow freezing and dehydration is necessary to protect the circulatory system and reduce vascular damage. Additionally, a series of other experiments confirmed that slow perfusion is superior to fast perfusion with respect to the degree of dehydration obtained using the Cryogenic solution. These experiments suggest that flow rates in the perfusion of humans should be restricted. A hamster was perfused with increasing concentrations of the BioTime Cryogenic solution. The hamster was frozen for two days, including overnight at -20 degrees C. The animal was thawed slowly and reperfused with blood. A photo of the reperfused hamster brain is included. The brain is its normal whitish color. The circulatory system appears to be intact, and is not leaking blood. This contrasts with the glycerol- preserved brain: in the upper hemisphere, the blood vessels are destroyed or closed, while in the lower half they are leaking. Studies are currently underway to improve the Cryogenic solution and protocol further. We are testing new additives and freezing/thawing regimens. In these experiments, hamsters are submerged in a cooling bath whose temperature is computer- regulated to hold temperature to within 0.1 degrees C. TRANS TIME Director Stephen Kehrer wrote a program to control the freezing rate. The cooling bath temperature can be varied with time; thus animals can be frozen at desired rates and maintained at desired temperatures. Studies are underway to determine optimum conditions. Electronics engineer Tom Umble continues to make progress on the construction of a diathermy device. Tom has built the device into the casing of a standard microwave oven. It can use 0 to 3000 watts of power and generate a wide range of radio wave frequencies. The energy can be pulsed and amplitudes modulated. Theoretically this may allow more uniform and rapid warming. We will study optimum thawing procedures upon completion of its construction. [PHOTO OMITTED] Reperfused hamster brain after cryoprotection with BioTime Cryogenic solution and freezing to -20 degrees C. [PHOTO OMITTED] Reperfused hamster brain after cryoprotection with 3.6 molar glycerol solution and freezing to -20 degrees C. [AQ NOTE: Since the above was written, Hal has perfused hamsters with glycerol solutions, in which the brain afterward looked as good as with the BioTime solution. To date, the reproducibility using glycerol solutions has not been as good as with using BioTime solution.] The Funding Problem: Neural Nets to the Rescue? by Peter H. Christiansen, M.Div. In the December 1992 TRANS TIMES, Art Quaife discusses funding requirements for long term cryostasis and concludes, quite correctly in my view, that in the long run equity investments are superior to so-called "conservative" investments such as Treasuries, CDs, etc. Meanwhile, the December 14 issue of Barron's featured an article by a professional money manager reporting that Neural Network Programs are now in the process of revolutionizing investment management and that means equity investments will soon become even better. A neural net is a parallel-processing system that can be run as a simple software add-on alongside a PC-based spreadsheet to extract meaning from fuzzy or unclear data. Neural Network Programs appear to mimic the way the human brain works in generalizing from experience, although they often find patterns in murky and complex fogs of information that humans are unable to decipher. While the design of these networks is fairly simple, the behavior they become capable of after having been trained is sometimes quite surprising. Their workings appear to resemble what Bucky Fuller called "intuition." A few examples: ASCI of Los Angeles has "trained" a neural net to detect submarines with 95% accuracy. The North American Radar Air Defense system is using a neural net to determine if objects in the sky are threatening or non- threatening like birds. Mortgage lenders are using neural nets to mimic the decision- making process of human loan officers. The trained nets far surpass any human loan officers in making profitable loans and in refusing bad loans. Insurance companies are using neural nets to mine their vast information banks for all sorts of "hidden meanings." A professor at Stanford has used a neural net to forecast the weather locally (rain/no rain) with almost perfect success. And neural nets are being used on Wall Street, although somewhat clandestinely. In the December Barron's, Avner Mandelman, President of Cereus Investments in Los Altos Hills CA publicly acknowledges that he has been using nets, built on fundamental analysis, for six years. One of these nets correctly called the 1987 "crash" two months before it occurred. A net to which Mr. Mandelman fed large chunks of market- valuation data and combinations of such data, alongside the interest rate environment, distilled patterns and compared these patterns to the market rise a year ahead. The net arrived at some "understandings" and began to make forecasts. Interestingly the net's ability to forecast during times of "normal" activity is not particularly remarkable. But the ability of the net to forecast extremesDmarket tops and market bottomsDhas been extremely good. And of course it is knowing the extremes, when to buy aggressively and when to sell short, that is critical in any successful equity investment strategy. Of further interest is Mr. Mandelman's, or rather Mr. Mandelman's net's chart, for the coming year. It indicates that the Dow will reach 4000 and the S&P 500 will reach 550 by November 1993! For those who want to check all this out for themselves and create their own neural net, Mr. Mandelman recommends Braincel, by Promised Land Technology of New Haven Conn. This is a $250 program that runs alongside the Excel spreadsheet with Windows. The same company also offers a more elaborate package called Futuresbuilder for $1000. NeuralWare of Pittsburgh is the Rolls-Royce of neural nets and starts at $1895. And may the force be with you. Upgrading Surgical Preparedness by Art Quaife, Ph.D. Shawn Shermer is the Facility Supervisor in the laboratory of the principal surgeon we use for cryonic suspensions. Last March, she acted as assistant surgeon in the suspension of one of our patients. At that time, TRANS TIME also hired her to help with upgrading our response capability. Since then, she has checked our inventory of surgical instruments and supplies, prepared lists of equipment and supplies for us to purchase, and suggested suppliers. We have now obtained virtually everything she recommended. We bought a new aspirator pump to use as a cardiotomy sucker. We bought a long list of surgical instruments, sutures, and disposable supplies. We had three more oxygenator~tubing pack combinations assembled and sterilized. We obtained the electrodes to make our Bovie electrocautery unit again functional. And we bought coverall suits and gloves to be worn by personnel if we suspend patients with contagious diseases, such as AIDS. With the help of her friend Richard Wirth, Shawn made our ethylene oxide gas sterilizer operational. We now sterilize all of our instruments and supplies in-house. Many thanks, Shawn. [PHOTO OMITTED] Shawn Shermer wraps supplies to be sterilized. Upcoming Meeting TRANS TIME holds bimonthly business meetings at which visitors are welcome. The next meeting will be the Annual Meeting of Shareholders, held on Sunday, April 25, 1:00 p.m at: The Trans Time Facility 10208 Pearmain Street Oakland, CA 94603 510-639-1955. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2036