X-Message-Number: 8403 From: (Joseph J. Strout) Newsgroups: sci.cryonics Subject: Re: Succesful Cryonics? Date: Fri, 18 Jul 1997 08:47:02 -0700 Message-ID: <> References: <5qlt5s$2jd$> In article <5qlt5s$2jd$>, Richard Hawkins <> wrote: >Hi, I wonder if someone could help me. I just wondered if anyone know if >there have been a successful attempt at freezing an animal for a period of >time and then resucitating it (being in good "working" order). Could someone >briefly explain how it works? Some lower animals, like the Antarctic nematode, can be frozen to liquid nitrogen temperatures, rewarmed, and go about their business just fine. But these animals are particularly adapted to the cold. No mammal has been frozen and revived; we don't have the technology today to repair freezing damage. This is not a test of whether cryonics works, of course. Cryonics works if the patient's condition is stabilized in a state that *future* technology can repair. Tests of this are currently underway -- check back again in 100 years or so to see how these tests come out! There is much cause for optimism, though: humans and other animals have been successfully cooled to near-freezing temperatures, their blood washed out and replaced with a perfusate solution, and restored to normal life and health (do lit searches on "deep hypothermic surgery"). And the freezing procedures used appear to preserve brain structures in good order, which is what would be required (at a minimum) for successful repair. >Also, what's the difference between cryonics and cryogenics. "Cryogenics" is an incorrect term for cryonics which is often used by the media to let you know that they really haven't done any research into the topic at all. The same applies to laypeople as well, of course -- if someone tells you they're convinced cryogenics can't work, then you can tell immediately that they actually know nothing about it. Rather convenient, really... ,------------------------------------------------------------------. | Joseph J. Strout Department of Neuroscience, UCSD | | http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~jstrout/ | `------------------------------------------------------------------' Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8403