X-Message-Number: 484
From att!compuserve.com!73647.1215 Wed Oct  2 00:24:27 EDT 1991
Date: 01 Oct 91 02:02:29 EDT
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: The 28 Sept Fundraising Dinner

To all subscribers to Kevin Brown's messages:

I am one of those who attended the Alcor Fundraising Dinner for Scientific
Research on the 28 of September 1991. The presentations were very start- 
lingly different from what had been announced; they were dominated by 
discussion, by Greg Fahy, of his recent studies of 2 points central to our
own desires: the damage done by freezing to brain tissue, and the progress
of his own vitrification experiments as an alternative to freezing.

(I know that in a less strict, nontechnical sense, both "vitrification"
and "freezing" would be referred to as "freezing". To understand what Greg
said and what I'm reporting, we have to make the distinction. When water
or a mixture of water and glycerol (etc ..) FREEZES, it turns into         
crystals. When it vitrifies, it becomes a substance like glass, with no
long-range order and no crystals. This comment is for those who haven't
been closely following Greg Fahy's work).

1. Effects of freezing on brain tissue:
Greg has been able to get microscope slides of brain tissue which show
unequivocally that the effect of ice crystallization is to tear or cut most
or even all of the nerve connections. The small crystals are distributed
very evenly through most of the tissue frozen; only small patches of cells
lie between each crystal, and the crystals form into a novel shape, which
seem to be lenticular. That is, brain damage on freezing with current 
methods (remember, the brains Greg looked at had been treated with cryo-
protectant) was almost universal, and included an almost universal cutoff
of conncections between individual neurons. The individual neurons, as 
cells, however, seem to have survived (most cells do survive freezing,
as cells).

(I personally have spent some time in science reports discussing and 
documenting reasons why damage even so extensive as this need not wipe 
out memory. But its repair, regardless, will take a VERY long time).
(NEXT MESSAGE DISCUSSES GREG'S >>> SECOND <<<< POINT, WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT)

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