CryoNet #31996 - #32002

CryoNet - Fri 25 Sep 2009

    #31997: Trans Time spin off organises China subsidiary to work on ste... [John de Rivaz]
    #31998: new medical imaging technology [John de Rivaz]
    #31999: Technological innovation progress graphing tool released...fr... [Rudi Hoffman]
    #32001: Wake from Cryonics [Mark Plus]
    #32002: Re: John Clark's CAS question [Jeff Davis]

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Message #31997
From: "John de Rivaz" <[email protected]>
Subject: Trans Time spin off organises China subsidiary to work on ste...
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:27:25 +0100

BioTime, Inc. (OTCBB:BTIM) announced today that it will organize a new subsidiary, BioTime Asia, Limited, for the purpose of clinically developing and marketing therapeutic stem cell products in the People?s Republic of China, and marketing stem cell research products in China and other countries in Asia. BioTime Asia will initially seek to develop the therapeutic products for the treatment of ophthalmologic, skin, musculo-skeletal system and hematologic diseases, including the targeting of genetically modified stem cells to tumors as a novel means of treating currently incurable forms of cancer. 

more on
http://www.investorcalendar.com/includes/PRNPressRelease.asp?ID=1522604

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

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Message #31998
From: "John de Rivaz" <[email protected]>
Subject: new medical imaging technology
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:24:44 +0100

MPI is a new medical imaging technology developed by scientists at Philips. It uses the magnetic properties of iron-oxide nanoparticles to produce three-dimensional images of the concentration of nanoparticles injected into the bloodstream. The potential of the technology for medical and industrial research and, ultimately, patient care, was demonstrated in a publication which appeared in the March issue of Physics in Medicine and Biology in 2009 (Volume 54, issue 5). It was shown that MPI technology can be used to produce real-time images that accurately capture the activity in the cardiovascular system of a mouse. 

more on 
http://www.investorcalendar.com/includes/PRNPressRelease.asp?ID=1522665

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

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Message #31999
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:28:57 -0400
Subject: Technological innovation progress graphing tool released...fr...
From: Rudi Hoffman <[email protected]>

--001636833dfcb86b75047451f9f6

Hello, Fellow Cryoneters,

Following the recent threads on Cryonet, the subject of tech progress is
obviously relevant to the readers of this list.

Bela Nagy is a professor and researcher at the world famous Santa Fe
Institute think tank.  He will be presenting at the Singularity Summit this
Oct. in New York, and I have been in contact with him about signing up for
cryonics.

The focus of his research is on point for this list.  As I understand it, he
does research and conducts seminars seeking to answer the question, "to what
extent can we model technological progress and then project this forward
accurately into the future?"

No doubt my friend Mark Plus will observe how crappy our present is compared
to where some techno-utopians of the past projected...and these past
inaccuracies are indeed relevant to the kind of progress we all MUST have to
make cryonics...and other components of a great future...reality based, not
faith based.

Anyway, Nagy has developed a graphing system, made available for free, to
help determine if all the gorgeous exponential curves we are all familiar
with from reading Kurzwiel are applicable to things we care about.

I will copy part of his email to me with the links here:  I hope folks
smarter than me can play with this and upload data sets --relevant to our
seeing the year three thousand--and find this a helpful tool.

(small copied section follows)

Hi Rudi,
I'm happy to announce that we've just launched the pre-alpha release of our
web enabled experimental database at
http://pcdb.santafe.edu/
The next step is to promote it and let people know that they can upload and
download their datasets for free.
This is my first attempt in that direction:
http://www.davidorban.com/2009/09/the-performance-curve-database-at-the-santa-fe-institute/en/
I'd be extremely grateful to you if you could forward this to people who you
think might have relevant data or who might be interested in collaborating
with us to model the dynamics of technological innovation.
Thank you,
Bela Nagy
(505) 946-2729
http://www.santafe.edu/profiles/?pid=355



-- 
Rudi Richard Hoffman CFP CLU ChFC

World's Leading Cryonics Insuror rudihoffman.com
Former Board Member Financial Planning Association fpafla.com
Board Member Salvation Army salvationarmy.org
Member Alcor Life Extension Foundation alcor.org,
Member Cryonics Institute cryonics.org
Certified Financial Planner(TM) CFP Board of Standards
Member World Transhumanist Association http://transhumanism.org/

--001636833dfcb86b75047451f9f6

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Message #32001
From: Mark Plus <[email protected]>
Subject: Wake from Cryonics
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:55:15 -0700

http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/forever-young/wake-cryonics

Wake from Cryonics
Wealthy from Your Own Life Insurance. You can too take it with you - and enjoy it when you get back

Written By: Stephen Euin Cobb
Date Published: September 16, 2009
    
The laws are complicated, and not stacked in your favor, but if done carefully it's possible to leave a huge death benefit payoff from your life insurance policy to your cryonically-preserved self. And since life insurance can also be used to finance your cryopreservation, you need not wait until you are rich to sign up. Most in the middle class, if they seriously want it, can afford it now. So by taking the right steps, you can look forward to waking up one bright future morning from cryopreservation the proud owner of a bank account brimming with money.

Don't get me wrong. Leaving money to your future self is complicated. The courts have decided that cryopreserved people are not suspended or preserved. Rather, they are irrevocably dead, and by being dead have no legal right of ownership or inheritance. These laws may change if the first cryopreserved people are resuscitated and sue for some new kind of civil rights, but that could be decades away. In the meantime, those who are not yet being preserved have spent years pondering and discussing possible methods of self-inheritance. They call it Cryonics Estate Planning and there are now at least three ways to achieve the goal.

One method requires individuals to join a foundation based in Europe that has no website and generally avoids publicity (like the piece you are reading now). It was created by wealthy cryonicists for the purpose of wealth preservation, as well as to fund both their cryopreservation and their eventual resuscitation. Meanwhile, Alcor - a more inclusive organization and one of the two main cryopreservation facilities in the United States - is in the process of developing a trust. And finally - for the use of his clients - Rudi Hoffman has created a trust.

Wake from CryonicsHaving written cryopreservation insurance policies for nearly a thousand people, Rudi Hoffman is well established as the world's leading cryonics insurance provider. As a certified financial planner, he also has a longstanding record of helping people leave money to their future selves, and thus avoid the worry of being revived from cryopreservation to discover that they are penniless in wonderland.

A cryonics activist, volunteer, speaker and writer, Rudi teaches cryonic preservation to the uninitiated. "I signed up for cryopreservation back in 1994,” he said, "But being a transhumanist, it's my hope that medical science will advance fast enough and soon enough that I never need to be cryopreserved. I look at cryonics itself as a form of insurance. If I need it, I've got it. It's always good to have a backup plan.”

"The Hoffman Prototype Cryonics Trust,” he explained, "is a method of sidestepping the problem that cryopreserved people have no legal rights by using a dynasty trust.” Dynasty trusts have been used for a century or more in estate planning to make sure future inheritances are awarded only to specific people under specific circumstances - such as paying the tuition of a grandchild when they go to college but only if they maintain a B average. This separates the money from personal ownership, and yet allows the money to be awarded to the cryopreserved person after they are resuscitated.

"I just emailed a student graduating from high school who is signing up for cryonics,” Rudi said. "This points up the egalitarian nature of cryonics; and how the leverage of life insurance can mean a kid with minimal resources can fund both his suspension and a cryonics trust for under a dollar a day.” (Age, health, lifestyle choices like smoking, as well as the size of the desired death benefit payoff cause rates to vary widely from one person to the next.)

Do You Need Money in the Future?
Money, some insist, will have no meaning in a future dominated by advanced molecular manufacturing or other engines of mega-abundance. In this case waking from cryonics rich or poor would be exactly the same.

The courts have decided that cryopreserved people are not suspended or preserved... they are irrevocably dead and have no legal right of ownership or inheritance.

Ben Goertzel, Director of Research at SIAI, and CEO of Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC - both of which produce AI products for corporate clients - described it this way: "Most probably there will always be some issues regarding resource limitations, even in post-Singularity societies. But the reality we take for granted now, in which an individual needs to expend significant effort to acquire the resources to fulfill his basic physical, emotional or intellectual needs, is unlikely to survive after the invention of molecular nanotech, virtual reality and other advanced methods.”

He added, "What seems most likely, if the future takes a positive path in which advanced tech is used in a generally benevolent way, is that a huge and rich variety of resources will be available for all sentient beings ... and negotiation for those resources that are still scarce will occur according to methods much more sophisticated than our current 'money economy'; methods which we have no current means to predict or understand.”

While Rudi Hoffman is aware that advanced nanotechnologies may well produce a post-scarcity era of unlimited bounty for all - and is eager for such a day - he also knows that the cryonically preserved have no guarantee of waking into such a world. "Having a personal abundance of money,” he said, "will preserve your options. And creating a pleasant and fulfilling future for yourself and those you treasure is all about choosing the best options.”

Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, columnist, futurist, game designer, artist, transhumanist and host of the award-winning podcast about the future called: The Future and You.




 		 	   		  
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Message #32002
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:34:39 -0700
Subject: Re: John Clark's CAS question
From: Jeff Davis <[email protected]>

John,
I think I posted these two documents to the cryonet.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dnpz8m3_0f2d4r7fz&btr=EmailImport

As you will see by reading them, the first reports the result of the
autotransplant of whole monkey ovaries.  Worth noting is that the
ovaries had been frozen using the CAS method and without
cryoprotectants, and that they had been stored in LN2 for a month
before being re-implanted.

The ovaries then resumed some degree of function(howbeit with a bit of
prodding), as indicated by the resumption of menstrual cycles.

The second document reports on pig ovaries preserved by the CAS method
for one week at LN2 temps, and then thawed and examined.  Follicle
preservation by this method increased to 17% from 3%.  The researchers
also report less interstitial damage in the tissues than by alternate
methods of cryopreservation.

                          **********************************************

There was some discussion of a glass of water being frozen without the
usual volumetric expansion, and speculation on what was going on with
this, particularly with the possibility that the water was actually
being vitrified.  This seems highly unlikely, if not barred outright
by the laws of physics.

More to the point, that aspect of the CAS discussion was a
distraction.  Forget the glass of distilled water. Who cares?  We need
to focus on how the CAS method effects biological specimens.

                           ************************************************

I'll continue to inquire of the researchers working with this tech
regarding their results, and post what I find to the cryonet.

Best, Jeff Davis

 "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
                     Ray Charles



> I've been hearing a lot on Cryonet about this CAS freezer stuff, and
> it would certainty be wonderful if true, but can anybody find an
> indication that one word of what they are typing onto websites is
> true? I can't. I know how to type too, but that doesn't mean
> everything I type is true.
>
>  John K Clark
>

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