X-Message-Number: 2605
From: G.Smyth
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Problem with Cryonics 
References: <2jjrfr$>
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 1994 11:30:43 +0000
Message-ID: <>

In article <2jjrfr$>  writes:

>
>  I heard that cryonic suspension has some problems.  It damages
>skin cells.  Not too recently a woman who payed to have her body
>frozen ran out of funds some years after her body was frozen.
>They took her out and just froze her head.  This gave scientist
>(or cryonicists) s the chance to analyze her body.
>  
>  Apparenly her skin had been badly damaged.  A problem if she was
>ever re-animated.  (This info was taken from "Thje Great Mambo
>Chicken")  

I believe that some years ago Alcor picked up a couple of patients from
another organisation that could no longer afford to maintain them. The
patients were converted to neuros for reasons of cost and the bodies were
autopsied. This is, at least in part, responsible to the whole debate over
fracturing, and whether it would be practical to store at slightly higher
temperatures.

>
>  Have any animals been re-animated?  I think I heard a rumor
>about a dog once.

Several dogs have been recovered form near zero centigrade - but they 
were never below the ice point. Many animals survive winter in or around the
tundra by partially freezing. Also, perhaps most convincingly, cats brains
were frozen for several years (to -80 cetigrade I think) and thawed. Whilst
function was rather impaired, integrated brainwaves were found. This was
done in the sixties and I'm sorry to say that the line of research has been
very poorly followed up since. Freezing protocols and cryoprotectants are

so much better understood these days that doing the same but updated experiment
mihgt well give quite noteworthy results.

Sadly the Society for Cryobiology bans any cryonics related work, and cryonics
organisations are running on rather tight budgets at the moment. I hope the
situation changes in the near future.

Garret
PS Of course there are people today leading quite normal lives who were frozen
as embryos.

-- 
Garret Smyth

Internet: 
Phone:    081 789 1045
       +44 81 789 1045

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