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From: 
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 00:31:45 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Trans Time newsletter SCI.CRYONICS

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THE TRANS TIMES
Life Extension through Cryonic Suspension
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Volume 5 Number 4                                     August 1996

                           On the Move
 
                       by Art Quaife, Ph.D.

TRANS TIME moved into its current facility in 1986. It occupies
2200 square feet, in a somewhat undesirable section of Oakland.
At the time The Facility Group purchased it, this was all we
could afford. 

Our ten-year lease expired early this year. We then had the
choice of buying our current place (NO!), or finding new
quarters. I have been searching for the past seven months for a
suitable new location. We entered serious negotiations on about
five different locations, but for varying reasons, all of the
deals fell through.

Finally we have a new facility. We recently signed a lease on
3029 Teagarden St., San Leandro. This modern industrial bay
occupies 4540 square feet, which is twice the size of our current
location. The ceilings are 19' high, permitting easy overhead
encapsulation. It is part of a complex of nine bays, in a
pleasant light-industrial area. The neighborhood is substantially
better than at our current location. The facility is close to the
Oakland Airport, for travel convenience.
   
We regret our tardiness in getting out this newsletter. It is
abbreviated because of the time we are spending on the move. The
move, and settling in at our new location, will keep us extremely
busy for the next few months. Please bear with us if publication
of the TRANS TIMES is delayed. We will supply further detail and
photos after the move is completed. 

I feel very good about the move. As I write this, Frank Sinatra
is crooning the Irving Berlin tune

Blue skies 
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see.

Bluebird
Singing a song
Nothing but bluebirds
All day long.

Nothing but blue skies
>From now on.


          Some Thoughts on the Subject of Life Extension
                     by Hal Sternberg, Ph.D.

In addition to cryonics-related technology, there are many other
lines of experimentation which may lead to life extension. Below
is a list of some ideas which may be useful.

1. Multi-organ transplants from young animals into old animals in
inbred strains of rats should be performed to determine if they
can reverse aging or prolong life.

2. Artificial hearts should be developed that work long term
without dramatically influencing the quality of life.

3. Head transplants which allow survival of the head in inbred
rat strains should be practiced.

4. It is important to develop technology to reattach severed
spinal cords.

5. It is important to assess neuron loss with aging in the
hypothalamus, brain stem, and brain in general.

6. More experimentation with antibodies against specific cancers
should be performed.

7.  We need more defibrillators available and nationwide training
programs in their use.

8. We need to study and better understand the physics and
electrodynamics of consciousness and identity.


                          Annual Meeting

TRANS TIME held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders on July 14.
Three proposals were voted on.

1. All five nominated Directors were elected. At the subsequent
Board of Directors' Meeting, four of them were reelected to their
positions as officers. So the Board for the upcoming year is:

                Art Quaife, Ph.D.  President
                Hal Sternberg, Ph.D.  Vice-President
                Judy Segall  Secretary
                Norm Lewis  Treasurer
                Stephen Kehrer

2. The bylaws were amended to provide that the Board of Directors
consists of a minimum of five members and a maximum of nine
members.

3. The articles of incorporation and the bylaws were amended to
eliminate the liability of directors for certain monetary damages
and to indemnify the corporation's directors and other agents to
the fullest extent permitted by law.

All three proposals were approved by near-unanimous votes.


*Just for the Fun of It*

                         Winning the Deal
                       by Art Quaife, Ph.D.

In the last issue we challenged our readers with the following
puzzle:

You are a contestant in a game show, and there are three closed
doors on stage. Behind one door (chosen at random) is a car as a
prize; behind the other two are goats as booby prizes. Host Monty
Hall knows which door hides the car. You have no way of knowing,
so for you each choice is equally likely. 

Monty then truthfully says "Choose a door, and then I will open
another door to reveal a goat. (Since there are two goats, Monty
can always do that. If both closed doors hide a goat, Monty
mentally flips a coin as to which to open.) I will then offer you
a chance to switch to the remaining door."

You select (say) door #1. Monty opens door #3 revealing a goat,
and offers you the chance to switch to door #2.

Question: Should you switch? What is your probability of winning
if you switch as opposed to if you stick?

*Answer*                         

Many people argue that after Monty has ruled out door #3, each of
door #1 and door #2 must have a 1/2 chance of hiding the car.
Thus it makes no difference whether you switch or not. Seven
entrants gave this answer and essentially this argument.

But this is WRONG. Your initial guess of door #1 had 1/3 chance
of winning. Monty's opening another door to reveal a goat, as he
previously promised to do, does not change that probability. But
since Monty has now eliminated door #3 as a possibility, door #2
must now have a 2/3 chance of being correct. You should switch,
and by doing so you *double* your chance of winning the car.

If this still leaves you dubious, let us look at the three
equally likely possibilities shown in the table (the goats are
indistinguishable for the purposes of this puzzle). We see that
you win in two cases by switching, and in only one case by
sticking.


Possi-   Car  Goat  Goat    You     Monty  Winning
bility                     choose   opens  choice
___________________________________________________

          D    O     O       R       #
  
  A       1    2     3       1      2 or 3 Stick
  
  B       2    3     1       1       3     Switch
  
  C       3    1     2       1       2     Switch


*Winner*

The winner of a two-year subscription to THE TRANS TIMES is Hara
Ra. He gave the correct answer, and an abbreviated version of our
enumeration table (I give him the benefit of the doubt that he
intended the above argument.) Congratulations! 

Hara is currently developing a life monitor system, including a
device that a person could wear, that will generate a phone call
in case the person dies. This is important, as several
cryonicists have already died unattended and not been discovered
for days, with substantial deterioration/decomposition in the
meantime. I hope to be one of the early testers of his first
prototype system.

The two winners of our earlier "High Noon" contest, Mike Perry
and Barry Chapman, also submitted correct answers. Mike
disqualified himself because he was already familiar with the
puzzle. Barry's reply arrived later than Hara Ra's. 

        *                   *                       *

To solve the puzzle, it is very important that you know what
Monty Hall's knowledge and strategy are. Let us consider several
alternatives as to how Monty could conduct the game.

1.  Monty tries to favor the contestant. If you pick the door
with the car, Monty does not offer a chance to switch. If you
pick a goat, Monty reveals the other goat and offers the switch.
You can then *always* win this game, by switching whenever Monty
offers the choice.

2.  Monty tries to favor the sponsor. If you pick a goat, Monty
doesn't offer a chance to switch. If you picked the car, he
reveals a goat and offers the switch. You will lose 2/3 of the
time here when you pick a goat, but knowing his strategy you will
never take his offer to switch, and will win the remaining 1/3 of
the time. 

3.  Monty doesn't know which door hides the car, but still always
opens a door which he chooses at random. Then 1/3 of the time he
will reveal the car, and the game ends there with you losing. In
the other 2/3 of the time where he reveals a goat, you do indeed
have an even choice as to whether to switch or stick. All told
you win 1/3 of the time.

This problem first appeared in the American Statistician journal
in 1976. Marilyn vos Savant published it in her Parade column on
September 9, 1990, but *without* specifying Monty Hall's
strategy. The correct answer to the puzzle as she phrased it is
"There is not enough information given to determine an answer." 

Instead, she gave the correct answer to the fully specified
puzzle as I gave it. This generated an avalanche of mail telling
her she was dead wrong. Most of the mail did not say "not enough
information", but rather it's "50-50", so the critics were dead
wrong. Embarrassingly, some of that mail came from Ph.D.
mathematicians who definitely should have known better. Marilyn
wrote three follow-up columns where she defended and further
explained her answer. Some of her analysis was fuzzy, but she was
mostly right. You can find much more detail about the hullabaloo
in her recent book The Power of Logical Thinking.(1)

It seems hard to believe that so many smart people get the wrong
answer, when it is so easy to check the three equally likely
alternatives. I have long thought that elementary probability
theory is one of the most useful mathematical disciplines, whose
teaching should begin in about the fourth grade.

*Note*

1. If Marilyn looked good on this puzzle, she got in way over her
head in her 1993 book The World's Most Famous Math Problem, a
popular report on Andrew Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
There was much nonsense in this book, including her claim that
Wiles had *not* proved the theorem because his proof is 
"non-Euclidean". This time mathematicians were correct in jumping 
all over her.


            Biotime's Hextend (Trademark) Cleared for 
                    Phase III Clinical Trials

BioTime, Inc. (BTIM - NASDAQ) announced today that its
proprietary blood plasma volume expander Hextend(Trademark) has
been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration to enter Phase
III clinical trials in the United States. The company said that
the trials will be prospective, randomized, double blind
controlled studies. According to the company, they are designed
to show that Hextend can maintain patient blood pressure and
other physiological and biochemical measurements at appropriate
levels during major surgery in which substantial amounts of blood
are generally lost.

BioTime said that two separate trials will be conducted. The
first is expected to begin at the Duke University Medical Center,
and a second soon after at another institution to be announced
later. Each trial is expected to involve approximately 75
patients.

Study director, Dr. Monty Mythen of the Duke University Medical
Center's Department of Anesthesiology, said "Hextend is a

buffered, balanced electrolyte formulation which, based on pre-clinical studies,
is likely to provide better electrolyte and
acid-base management."

Dr. Paul Segall, BioTime's president and chief executive officer,
said that the clearance of Hextend for Phase III trials is a
milestone in BioTime's product development program.

BioTime, headquartered in Berkeley, California is engaged in the
research and development of synthetic blood plasma volume
expanders and low temperature blood substitute solutions and
technology for use in surgery, emergency trauma treatment, the
preservation of organs awaiting transplant, and other
applications. 

TRANS TIME is the only cryonics company that suspends its
patients using solutions that are based upon BioTime's
formulations.


*The Brighter Side of Death*

                   The Philosopher's Conclusion

Rene Descartes was asked if he wanted cream in his coffee.

"I think not", he replied.

And with that-poof-he disappeared!


                      Have Something to Say?

We invite our readers to submit cryonics-related articles for
possible publication in this newsletter. The best way to submit
is to send us the article in WordPerfect, on an MS-DOS diskette.
Call us about other electronic formats you may use. We will also
consider typed or handwritten submissions.


                  Subscribe to THE TRANS TIMES!

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