CryoNet #31777 - #31782

CryoNet - Tue 30 Jun 2009

    #31778: Re: Possible Experiment? [yvan Bozzonetti]
    #31779: Re: Celebs: Too Cool to be Cryo-Preserved [Mark Plus]
    #31781: Possible experiment [Brian Wowk]
    #31782: Meekness and Blessedness [Charles Platt]

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Message #31778
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:54:50 +0200
Subject: Re: Possible Experiment?
From: yvan Bozzonetti <[email protected]>

--000e0cd29d0ed37137046d7eb5bc

I think such an experiment would fall.
The cryopreserving solution is toxic, more, it don't carry oxygen. In the
dog case, the cold saved him.
Something along this was done many years ago with a chloro-fluorocarbon mix.

There was survival because the product can carry a lot of oxygen, is not
toxic and has a low viscosity.

The real problem yet is not here, it is with a technology able to repair the
freezing molecular scale destruction.
I would say the first step would be to have a scanning system able to map a
body at that scale.
Sadly, no cryonics organization want to do such research, even if it cost
nothing.

Yvan Bozzonetti.


> From: "Kennita (Go Cryo!)" <[email protected]>
> Subject: Possible Experiment?
> Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:41:45 -0700
>
> How much would it cost to washout a mouse, to perfuse it with our
> latest vitrification solution, to replace the blood, and to attempt to
> revive the mouse? How long would it take? Who should perform the
> experiment? Given that a similar experiment was successfully completed
> on a dog years ago (with the added step of lowering the temperature to
> near freezing) using the more primitive cryoprotectant, what would you
> say the chances are of ending up with a live, functional mouse?
>
> Live long and prosper,
> Kennita
>

--000e0cd29d0ed37137046d7eb5bc

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Message #31779
From: Mark Plus <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Celebs: Too Cool to be Cryo-Preserved
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:18:48 -0700

In Cryonet #31776, Dr. Harris writes:

>Heinlein was one of the great visionaries of the future, and (by his own estimate, at any rate) one of the brilliant and intelligent men of the age.

Some of Heinlein's sociological visions of "the future" seem to anticipate real developments, for example the breakdown in sexual inhibitions and the growth of Christian evangelical churches based on television. But the space travel part of Heinlein's "future" hasn't happened for the most part, and it seems even less likely now than it did in the 1950's.

And the more I've read into Heinlein, the more absurdities in his world view I've noticed. For example, Heinlein, who to the best of my knowledge never had children, writes repeatedly about baby-making as the highest value, while also showing that civilizations experience recurring Malthusian catastrophes. Uh, excuse me? What about preventing these catastrophes by not haphazardly procreating in the first place?

The emphasis on baby-making could also account for the absence of extremely long-lived women in Heinlein's stories about Lazarus Long. Given the ideology in that society, what woman would seek rejuvenation (assuming that it restores her fertility) so that she could bear dozens of children a century over an indefinite life span? Apparently it never occurred to Heinlein that some women might want to extend their lives for their own sake and not just because they serve the needs of others. (For example, we do see a few women in cryonics who signed up on their own initiative, unlike the potentially "hostile wives" who don't care for cryonics but go along with it reluctantly because they want to please the cryonicist men in their lives -- for now.)

Our juvenile literary enthusiasms might have a handful of good ideas in them apiece that we can carry with us into adulthood and whatever lies "beyond" that if cryonics and radical life extension work. But for the most part science fiction writers live conventionally, and they don't try to act upon the edgy or radical ideas they present in their published fantasy lives, especially when these ideas push their mortality salience buttons the way cryonics does. An adult can read science fiction to pass the time while waiting at, say, an airport; but he would do himself a disservice to consider this literature a guide to practical life.

Mark Plus

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live : Keep your life in sync. 
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_BR_life_in_synch_062009

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Message #31781
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:33:50 -0700
Subject: Possible experiment
From: Brian Wowk <[email protected]>

> Message #31774
> From: "Kennita (Go Cryo!)" <[email protected]>
>
> How much would it cost to washout a mouse, to perfuse it with our
> latest vitrification solution, to replace the blood, and to attempt to
> revive the mouse? How long would it take? Who should perform the
> experiment? Given that a similar experiment was successfully completed
> on a dog years ago (with the added step of lowering the temperature to
> near freezing) using the more primitive cryoprotectant, what would you
> say the chances are of ending up with a live, functional mouse?

      Experiments replacing blood in dogs, cooling them to near 0 degC
for several hours, and subsequently recovering them have indeed been
done in cryonics

http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/tbw.html

and in mainstream medical research since the mid 20th century
(although I'm not aware of any published research doing it for as long
a time period as in the above CryoVita/Alcor experiments).  These
experiments were done by cryonicists because blood substitution and
cooling to near 0 degC is the first step of a human cryopreservation
protocol, so survival of this step is necessary if cryopreservation is
ever to be demonstrably reversible.  Now that this has been achieved,
demonstrating survival of animals after adding cryoprotectant
chemicals (vitrification solution) to the blood substitution solution
near 0 degC would seem to be the next logical step.

       In fact, the current vitrification solution used by Alcor (M22)
is a solution that was developed at 21CM by loading and unloading an
isolated vital organ (kidney) with solution at cold temperature with
subsequent survival of the organ.  If it can be done with an organ,
why not a whole animal?  It is possible that a whole animal could
survive a short time period of cold perfusion with a vitrification
solution, or diluted vitrification solution.  However I expect that
the compromise in perfusion time and/or concentration necessary for
survival of all organs and tissues in parallel would not be consistent
with sufficient cryoprotection to survive actual vitrification.  I
personally would feel more comfortable attempting such whole animal
experiments once there was more success cryopreserving isolated
organs, especially the brain, heart, and other vital organs.  As a
practical matter, no cryonics organization currently has the resources
or expertise required to perform whole animal hypothermic perfusion
survival experiments.  In hindsight, the combination of people and
circumstances that permitted such experiments in the 1980s was rather
unique.

       In May, 2007, 21CM disclosed a research initiative to begin
studying cryoprotection of multiple organs in parallel, essentially by
perfusing entire animals with cryoprotectant.  After having moved to a
larger facility to accommodate the research, acquiring necessary
staff, and constructing a highly sophisticated cryoprotectant
perfusion machine, this initiative is presently at the stage of
measuring cryoprotectant concentrations achieved in various organs and
tissues during whole body perfusion.  Survival experiments are
anticipated eventually, but not for several years at least.  It's
important that such experiments be built upon sufficient foundation to
maximize scientific value, rather than staged for publicity and
possibly misunderstood in terms of context and significance.

---Brian Wowk

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Message #31782
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:23:39 -0400
Subject: Meekness and Blessedness
From: Charles Platt <[email protected]>

Steve Harris writes, "When it comes to cryonics, blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth."

Well, I know what he means, and I realize Steve did not intend to be
interpreted literally--but this has to be the first time anyone
referred to Curtis Henderson, by implication, as "meek"! Moreover
cryonics wouldn't exist as it does today if Alcor, in particular,
hadn't been willing to fight legislative battles very vigorously.

Long ago, when I asked Curtis Henderson about his long-term objective,
he gave me his bulldog look and barked, "World domination, of course!"
This was not entirely a manifestation of Curtis's sense of humor. It's
easy to forget that back in the day, when Curtis cofounded the
Cryonics Society of New York, there was still some room to imagine
that if cryonics were actively promoted, the concept really could
sweep the nation and, by extension, the world. That's what anyone
should expect from a "cure for death," right? A few decades later,
we've learned the hard way that it isn't that easy. Certainly I don't
think meekness is going to take us much farther down the road, and
being a singer-dancer celebrity, or even a bestselling science-fiction
author, looks easy by comparison.

I have to add that if it had not been for Curtis and a few others, my
life would have been very different. The debt is large indeed.

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