X-Message-Number: 4886 Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 09:15:22 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug Skrecky <> Subject: uncle nicks a free appliance UNCLE NICK, ARE YOU ORE-RIDA? By Doug Skrecky (from July/August 1993 Mensa Canada Communications) Here's the scenario. Suppose a dear relative of yours is about to die. Lets call him Uncle Nick. He has it all planned, there is going to be a big flashy funeral with legions of mourning relatives in attendance. His name will be eulogized, his life and times will be remembered and just in case there is any doubt about his passing the local cemetary will be sporting a new monument, a new mausoleum, a new crypt. That's the way I want it he says. I want to be remembered. Somehow it just doesn't seem right that a person so full of life should have to give it up due to the infirmaties of age you think. You say: Instead of cremation or traditional interment why not have your body mummified when you die uncle? Maybe you could be revived at some future time. He says: How would you go about doing that? You say: The mortician says a body could be preserved temporarily with a higher dosage of formaldehyde that is customarily used in embalming. Perhaps a mummy could be created by air drying with a dehumidifier.... Uncle Nick interrupts: What you would really be creating is a mess. You'll have to do better than that young man. Young man thinks then answers: We could buy one of those large 20 cubic feet freezers at the department store and freeze the corpse -er your corpse solid and....ah... Uncle Nick: How do you dry it out if it frozen? Wouldn't freezing damage the body? You need to think this out some more. Talk to me tommorrow. You consult a world renowed expert in mummification -one Doug Skrecky- and then next day....... You say: Here's how we do it uncle. We buy the freezer and set the temperature to just above the freezing point. We place a plastic liner in the freezer and fill it up with a saturated sugar solution and add some salt. When you die your body will be placed on a small cot in the freezer and the sugar/salt solution will be circulated through your cardiovascular system in place of blood while the temperature is gradually reduced to the minimum possible for the freezer. Uncle Nick interrupts: You still wind up with a frozen body and.. You interrupt: No, we will not. The sugar and salt will act as as an antifreeze solution and after the body is perfused with it for a short period it will not freeze either. Uncle Nick says: Ok, ok you've convinced me you can preserve my fresh corpse for awhile in good shape. How are you going to dry it out? You say: We pump the solution out of the freezer and then place bags of dessicant in the bottom of the freezer under the cot which holds the body. We hook up a small air pump to....... Uncle Nick interrupts: I hear it takes several months to vaccuum freeze-dry even small pets. Air drying a human body in a freezer would take YEARS! You say: We hook up a small air pump to the cardiovascular system which would increase the drying surface of the body by over 300 times. Since the body is not frozen and the liquid water can move and evaporate much faster than ice can sublimate we estimate that a few days drying time will be all that would be required. Uncle Nick objects: Wouldn't drying cause massive tissue damage? You say: Not in the presence of sugar. Dry seeds retain the ability to germinate because their biomolecules are stablized in the dry state by sucrose. We can expect a fair degree of preservation of cellular structure due to the sugar added to the solution. Also I should mention that small amounts of citric acid, vitamin C and vitamin E would probably also be added since they seem to prevent frozen food from deteriorating. Uncle Nick says: Correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to plan on preserving my corpse by turning it into something akin to salted beef jerky. I don't see how it could last. It'll rot. You say: Beef jerky still contains a considerable amount of moisture which allows some bacteria to survive. We plan to continue drying till your corpse is as dry as dust and the bacteria are stone dead. The result will not be beef jerky, but instead something more like a large rock. This human rock would then be sealed in a water and oxygen proof desiccant packed time capsule. It'll last. Uncle Nick says: How much would all this cost? You say: Lose the monument and we would about break even with a stainless steel casket buried in the permafrost. Uncle Nick says: Could you guarentee that future reanimation is still possible with such a procedure? You say: No, this technique has never been tried before and so reanimation is only speculation at this point. Your mummy would however look quite lifelike due to the low temperatures employed in desiccation. I imagine that in museums of the distant future your well preserved body would recieve more attention than any blackened decayed remains which happened to belong to some Egyptian Pharoah. Uncle Nick says: So if reanimation is not possible the consolation prize is to be remembered forever. Ok. You say: What?.... Uncle Nick concludes: You pay for the freezer. ......Perhaps sorbitol should replace the salt in the above experiment. When this article was first submitted the original title was just "Uncle Nick". The editor added the Ore-Rida bit and I never did fathom what this meant. Uncle Nick seemed to be having the last laugh. If anyone can figure this one out please let me know. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4886