Category Archives: Cryonics

Hey guys, have you heard? Ji Chang Wook is BAAAAACK!

Melting Me Softly, Ji Chang Wooks first post-military drama, tells the story of Ma Dong Chan (Ji Chang Wook) and Go Mi Ran (Won Jin Ah) who volunteer themselves to be frozen for 24 hours as part of a cryogenics experiment-slash-variety show production. However, things go awry when they arent warmed and woken up by the end of the 24 hours, but instead, are woken up 20 years later!

So far, the first two episodes are mostly set in the year 1999 (pre-freeze), and we see the respective social circles of Ma Dong Chan and Go Mi Ran as well as the whys and hows of the cryogenic experiment.

Warning: Spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution!

Ma Dong Chan is an award-winning variety showdirectorwho enjoys taking on challenges and taking risks. His newest fascination is with the study of cryogenics, and he wishes to film the process of freezing and unfreezing humans as part of an experiment conducted by Dr. Hwang (Seo Hyun Chul). Wanting toraise the experiments validity,he volunteers himself to be one of the test subjects while also intending to enlist a female test subject.

Son Hyun Ki (FTISLANDs Lee Hong Ki) suggests Go Mi Ranforthe position. He reminds Dong Chan about Mi Rans risk-taking capabilities as shownby her volunteering for whatever far-fetched experiment Dong Chan was concocting for his variety show Infinite Experiment Paradise. He agrees that she would be a good candidate, but alas, Mi Rans fearlessness stops short ofallowing herself to be frozen.

Dong Chan and Hyun Ki doggedly pursue Mi Ran in hopes to convince her to join them, and they find her hanging around the riverbank with her friends. Also at the riverbank? Mi Rans boyfriend, Hwang Byung Shim (B1A4s Baro), who is on a pedal-boat date. With another girl. That ends as spectacularly as you would imagine it to, and all parties involved end up at the police station for questioning. While Dong Chan doesnt get an opportunity to persuade Mi Ran, he does get a front row seat toher spit-fire personality.

When you have one mate too many.

When Dong Chan does eventually meet Mi Ran, she remains adamant in her refusal. That is, until he mentions that cryonics has reported healing abilities, and they couldbe playing a part in changing how treatments and medicine work in the future.This makes her think of her younger brother, Nam Tae, who has adevelopmental disability, and is finally motivated to join the experiment.

The day of the experiment finally arrives, and Dong Chan and Mi Ran are frozen along with four other undisclosed test subjects. They set the clock for 24 hours, and Hyun Ki and his crew film the whole process for their variety show.

Things go as expected until about two hours left on the clock, whenDr. Hwang suddenly says he has to step out for a bit. His assistant is worried as they have to start the unfreezing process soon, butDr. Hwang insists hell be backvery soon. And so the doctor (who is also the only one capable of unfreezing the test subjects by the way) leaves the facility. Long story short, Dr. Hwang ends up in a car chase, and just whenyou breathe a sigh of relief that hes avoided the truck of doom, his car goes kaboom!

And so,with the 24 hours now up and withoutthe doctor to initiate the unfreezing process, things in the facility rapidly go haywire. The assistant locks the camera crew out, and before anyone realizes whats happening, everything in the lab has disappeared, including the capsules holding the test subjects. Hyun Ki and his superior decide to keep this a secret while also bribing Dong Chans girlfriend Na Ha Young (Chae Seo Jin) tokeep her silence with a position as a prime time news anchor.

The respective families only know that Dong Chan and Mi Ran have gone missing but do not know the details surrounding their disappearance. Dong Chans family persistently hands out missing person flyers over the years hoping to hear any news but to no fruition. Mi Rans family, on the other hand, receives a mysterious envelope clueing them in that Mi Ran is actually alive, but they have to stay quiet if they want her to live.

Thats a little over 6 months, if youre wondering.

Fast forward years later, and we arrive in 2019. It turns out that Dr. Hwang somehow survived the accident (looking completely unscathed too) but has been in a coma. He miraculously wakes up and staggers over to inject Dong Chan and Mi Ran with a serum and starts the unfreezing process. The two of them wake up at different times and make their way out into the world (with a fresh set of clothes no less!). After more staggering, Dong Chancollapsesand gets sent to the hospital, whereas Mi Ran manages to go to quite a few places despite her sickly state. It takes a while for reality to set in, but they finally realize that its no longer 1999, and the people around them have, well, aged 20 years.

There are individual elements of the premiere that I really enjoyed: Ji Chang Wook, Mi Rans relationship with her brother, Mi Ran and her two friends, seeing Hong Ki and Baro one last time before their military enlistments, the feel of the the late 90s, Ji Chang WookAnd yet, for me personally, the premiere as a wholedidnt quite sparkle as much as Id hoped it would. I cant quite place my finger on whats off maybe its the over-the-top sequences like Mi Ran suddenly displaying kung fu skills or the whole opera singer-dinner scene, maybe its the supporting characters (everyone around Dong Chan circa-2019 feels loud), maybe its the pacing, or maybe its something else. Whatever it is, something is preventing me from really falling for the drama.

The scenes of Nam Tae missing his sister were heartbreaking. T.T

With the show now in 2019,there are a different batch of actors taking over the roles(now that theyve aged 20 years).How the chemistry will play out is still yet to be seen, but for sure the younger counterparts will be missed (Baro as the narcissistic, Freud-loving ex-boyfriend is hilarious). The chemistry between the older actors remains unknown, and well just have to wait and see how everything plays out.That being said, I can already imagine Shim Hyung Tak as the older-but-just-as-self-involved Hwang Byung Shim, andit already feels amazing!

See you in 2021, boys!

Storyline-wise,there are parts where the writing may make you want to facepalm, such as when the doctorsuddenlyneeds to leave with two hours left on the clock, orthat the medical staff at the hospital all seem rather lost, or that post-freeze Mi Ran still manages to wander all around the city even though she looks like shes about to collapse any minute. However, the threads of mystery are intriguing enough. I definitely want to know who the other four test subjects are (Is it Freddie Mercury?!), and just how did Dr. Hwang survive that explosion with nary a burn mark?!

All in all, Melting Me Softly has the ingredients to make for a great drama, but it may need a bit more heat to get it to just the right temperature.

Watch the premiere of Melting Me Softly here!

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If youve watched the premiere, what did you think of it? Do you also feel that there is something off, and if so, what do you think it is? Or are you love, love, loving it instead? Andwhere do you think post-freeze Dong Chan and Mi Ran got the clothes from?Let us know in the comments below!

Belinda_C is excited to have Ji Chang Wook back on her screen again! Talk Melting Me Softly andSEVENTEENwith her onTwitter!

Currently watching:Melting Me SoftlyAll-time favorite:Kill Me Heal Me, Defendant,Hotel Del Luna

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First Impressions: Melting Me Softly Has Warmth, Mystery, And Ji Chang Wook - soompi

Cryonics is the practice ofdeep-freezing recently deceased bodies(or even justthe brains of thosewho have recently died)in the hopes of one day reviving them.

It has been the subject of serious scientific exploration and study - as well as a fair share of pseudoscience, lore, and myth. Fictional accounts like Batman's Iceman, and the (untrue) rumours of Walt Disney being cryogenically frozen have cast a speculative shadow over the field of cryonics.

Butrecently, for the first time ever in China,a woman has been cryogenically frozen. Zhan Wenlian died at the age of 49 from lung cancer and her husband, Gui Junmin, "volunteered" her for the cryonic procedure.

Bothhe and his late wife wanted to donate her body to science to "give back to society." He told TheMirror UKthat hewas initially "pitched"the idea of cryonicswith it being described as a "life preservation project".

This procedure - which has Wenlian's body restingface downin 2,000 litres of liquid nitrogen - was completed at theYinfeng Biological Group in Jinan.

This project is the collaborative effortof the Yinfeng Biological Group, Qilu Hospital Shandong University and consultants fromAlcor Life Extension Foundation, a nonprofit cryonics company based in the United States.

Even with all the faith many have in the procedure, the question remains: how scientifically possible is a project like this? Is this just an experiment to allow us to better understand human biology, orcould cryonics one day become a feasible option?

Cryonics isall about timing.The bodies of the deceased arecryogenically frozenimmediately after the heartstops beating."Freezing" is a bit of a misleading term, because cryonic freezing is actually very specifically trying toavoidice crystal formation - which damages the cells of the body's tissues.

Rapid cooling, rather than freezing, is a more accuratedescription of the process.

A chemical cocktail of preservatives likeglycerol andpropandiol, in addition to antifreeze agents, are commonly used to get the body into a stable state where it won't be decaying, but also won't suffer damage from being stored at low temperatures for, conceivably, a very long time.

From there, the bodiesare given specific care that caters to the idea that death is a continuing process; one that can ultimately be reversed.

The aim of cryonic preservation would be to one day be able to thaw the bodies and reanimate them at a cellular level - preferably without too many epigenetic changes.

"I tend to believe in new and emerging technologies, so I think it will be completely possible to revive her."

With ourcurrent understanding and technology, this process of reversingdeath so completely is just not possible. The closest kind of revival we have are themoments after clinical death where patients are revived by something such as cardiac defibrillation.

Cryonics acts within this critical, albeit brief, period as well- but works within the belief that death is a grey area. More of a processrather than a definite, final, event.

Just because we haven't succeeded in reviving the dead yetdoesn't mean the field of cryonics isunnecessary or unimportant.This case inChina is a step forward for everyone researchingthe field of cryonics- and those of us who hope to benefit from advancements in it.

We may not be able to reverse death just yet,but it doesn't seem outof the realm of possibility to imagine that, withsuch wild scientific advancements underway, technology could one day allow it to be possible.

Whether or not it does in our lifetimes, this most recent development is certainly an interesting one.

This article was originally published by Futurism. Read the original article.

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For The First Time Ever, a Woman in China Has Been Cryogenically Frozen - ScienceAlert

Cryonics is the practice in which a body is frozen shortly after death with the hope, when technology catches up, they will be able to be revived.

Zhan Wenlian, who died of lung cancer aged 49 earlier this year, became the first person in China to be cryogenically frozen.

Ms Wenlians remains are currently in a giant tank filled with 2,000 litres of liquid nitrogen at Yinfeng Biological Group in Jinan, capital of East China's Shandong Province.

The deceased was volunteered for the procedure by her husband Gui Junmin, who said that his late wife wanted to donate her body to science to "give back to society, according to The Mirror.

GETTY

The project was a collaboration between the Yinfeng Biological Group and from US firm Alcor Life Extension Foundation.

In cryonics, as soon as a persons heart stops beating, they must be rapidly cooled but not technically frozen.

If the person is frozen, their cells form ice crystals which is irreversible damage.

GETTY

A cocktail of chemicals like glycerol and propandiol, as well as antifreeze agents, are commonly used in the procedure so the body can be cooled without freezing.

However, there is no evidence that people will one day be able to be revived.

Director Jia Chusheng of Yinfeng Biological Group said that although there is a chance the procedure will not work, it gives the husband and wife hope for the future.

She said: [Zhan] and her family are clear about the risks and the possibility that the procedure might ultimately fail.

GETTY

"But as someone who has donated her body to science, she also gains hope of being revived one day.

Her husband is extremely hopeful, however, and even plans to have himself preserved when he dies so that he can be reunited with his wife.

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Mr Junmin said: "I tend to believe in new and emerging technologies, so I think it will be completely possible to revive her.

"If my wife wakes up, she might be lonely. I need to keep her company."

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Chinese woman cryogenically frozen with 'COMPLETE possibility' of ... - Express.co.uk

SLIDESHOW: Cryostats are insulated tanks for long term patient storage in liquid nitrogen.

An estimated 2,500 bodies around the world have been frozen in the hope of some future resurrection.

If you have around US$90,000 to spare and are of a gambling disposition, perhaps your final journey should be to Australia. A company called Southern Cryonics is looking to open a facility in New South Wales this year that will allow its customers to freeze their bodies after death in the hope of one day being resurrected. If it goes ahead, it will make Australia only the third country, after the US and Russia, where such a service is available.

But, especially for those of a futurist bent perhaps, its as valid a thing to do with ones body as burial or cremation. Last year, a terminally ill 14-year-old girl in the UK became the first and only child so far to undergo the cryonic process. This is technically not freezing but vitrification, in which the body is treated with chemicals and chilled to super-cold temperatures so that molecules are locked in place and a solid is formed. An estimated 2,500 bodies around the world are now stored in this condition.

Supporters concede that the technology to revive the infinitely complex interactions between those molecules may never exist, but are nonetheless hopeful, pointing to shifting conceptions of what irreversible death actually is. If, for example, cessation of a heartbeat used to define it, now hearts can be re-started todays corpse may be tomorrows patient. They point to experiments such as that announced last year by 21st Century Medicine, which claimed to have successfully vitrified and recovered an entire mammalian brain for the first time, with the thawed rabbits brain found to have all of its synapses, cell membranes and intracellular structures intact.

Its not just cryonics. Stem-cell research, nano-tech, cloning, the science just keeps plugging away towards a future [of reanimating] that may or may not come to exist, says an upfront Dennis Kowalski, president of the Michigan-based Cryonics Institute. His company was launched just over 40 years ago to provide cryostasis services. Lots of things considered impossible not long ago are possible today, so we just dont know how cryonics will work out. For people who use the service its really a case of theres nothing to lose.

Naturally, not everyone is hopeful that such processes will ever work out for those in the chiller. The problem with cryonics is that the perception of it is largely shaped by companies offering a service based on something completely unproven, says Joo Pedro De Magalhes, biologist and principal investigator into life extension at the University of Liverpool, UK, and co-founder of the UK Cryonics and Cryopreservation Network. Youre talking about a fairly eccentric procedure that only a few people have signed up to and into which little reported research is being done. That said, I think the people providing these services do believe theres a chance it may work one day, although I would have to say theyre optimistic.

But this is not to say that living longer wont, in time, prove possible as a result of some other method; just that arguably this is more likely to be based around preserving a life that has not experienced death, rather than the promise of reanimating one after its demise. The chasm between the two is all the more pronounced given neurosciences still scant ideas as to what consciousness or mind is, let alone how it might be saved and rebooted; would the warmed and reanimated you be the you that died, or a mere simulacrum? Your body may well not be the same: many of those opting for cryo-preservation go for the freezing of just their brains.

Certainly while cryonics specifically may remain a largely unexplored field, Google is now investing in anti-ageing science, an area that, as De Magalhes puts it, now has fewer crackpots and more reputable scientists working in it, with stronger science behind it too. Indeed, as Yuval Noah Harari argues in his best-selling book Homo Deus, humanisms status as contemporary societys new religion of choice, combined with technological advances, makes some form of greatly extended lifespan inevitable for some generation to come. Whether this will be by melding man and machine, by genetic manipulation, by a form of existence in cyberspace or some other fix can only be speculated at, but everything about our civilisations recent development points to it becoming a reality.

Advances in medicine, after all, have greatly extended average longevity over the last century alone. With this has come a shift in perspective that sees death less as the natural end point to a life so much as a process of disease that could, and perhaps should, be tackled like any other disease that threatens existence. De Magalhes points out that for many working in the field it is less about the pursuit of immortality as of improved health.

After all, its not self-evident that we all want to live forever, and there are philosophical arguments for the idea that death is good, that its necessary to appreciate life, he says. But it is self-evident that nobody wants Alzheimers, for example. If you focus on retarding the problems of ageing then inevitably were going to live longer. The longevity we have now isnt normal; its already better than what we had not long ago. Extrapolate that to the future and in a century the length of time we live now might be considered pretty bad. One can envisage a time when we might live, if not forever, then perhaps thousands of years so much longer than we live now that it might feel like forever.

That, naturally, would bring with it profound changes to the way in which we perceive ourselves and to how the world operates and all the more so if living considerably longer became a possibility faster than society was able to inculcate the notion. How would such a long lifespan affect our sense of self? Would institutions and mores such as lifelong marriage and monogamy remain the norm? When would we retire? How would our relationships with the many subsequent generations of our family be shaped? How would population growth be managed? How would such long lives be funded?

Such questions are, for sure, of no concern to those currently in cryostasis. These people tend to be into sci-fi, and into science too, suggests Kowalski, who has signed up himself, his wife and children for cryonic services when the time comes. I think for a lot of them its not necessarily about the fear of death. Its more a fascination with the future. Theyre optimistic about what it will bring. Theyre more Star Trek than Terminator.

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Freeze Frame: Lifting The Lid On Cryonics - Billionaire.com

AsiaOne

This company freezes your body so that you could one day be resurrected AsiaOne If you have around US$90,000 (S$122,733) to spare and are of a gambling disposition, perhaps your final journey should be to Australia. A company called Southern Cryonics is looking to open a facility in New South Wales this year that will allow its ...

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This company freezes your body so that you could one day be resurrected - AsiaOne

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17:40 17.08.2017 Get short URL

A 49-year-old woman has become the first to have her body cryogenically frozen in a procedure performed completely on Chinese soil, media reported on Monday.

Zhan Wenlian, who was declared dead oflung cancer onMay 8, underwent the operation atthe Yinfeng Biological Group center inShandong Province.

First developed inthe US, cryogenics (also known ascryonics) involves preserving an ailing body atextremely low temperatures inthe hopes it may be revived and treated inthe future.

Zhan's full body is currently being stored atYinfeng ina 2,000 liter tank ofliquid nitrogen, where she is kept attemperatures of196 C.

Before her death, Zhan had agreed todonate her body tomedical science.

As Zhan underwent chemotherapy, her husband Gui Junpin applied forthe cryonic procedure bydonating her body toShandong University Qilu Hospital, legally qualifying her toundergo the experimental procedure atYinfeng.

All fees are paid througha fund established byYinfeng.

Zhan is not the first Chinese tobe cryogenically frozen. In 2015, Chinese author Du Hong had her brain preserved atAlcor, the US-based cryonics center where it is currently being stored.

Aaron Drake, a senior consultant forAlcor, was onhand atYinfeng forZhan's cryonic operation inMay.

This article originally appeared onthe Global Times website

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The Future is Here! Human Body Cryogenically Frozen for First Time Ever in China - Sputnik International

I recently did a presentation at the Museum of Military History in Kissimmee, Florida, about Disney and World War II. During the question-and-answer session, I was asked if I actually believed Walt was cremated and his ashes interred at Forest Lawn Glendale, because they had heard from a reliable source "that worked at Disney" that it was obvious he was frozen.

I was even asked about this during a question-and-answer session after a presentation I did at the Walt Disney Family Museum a few years ago about Disney and outer space.

It is a question I keep getting asked not out of idle curiosity, but because the person often wants to prove that they know this "secret fact" and if I am simply a Disney apologist who only promotes the official Disney line.

First, it is always challenging to try to prove a negative to the satisfaction of all people.

Second, just the mere mention of these falsehoods about Walt continues to give them additional life, with people claiming they saw this assertion in a book or heard it somewhere, like from a Disney cast member, so it must be true.

Finally, there will be people who despite common sense and all the evidence to the contrary will condescendingly assume that where there is smoke, there must be fire, or that someone is trying to cover-up the real story.

The one image that sticks in my mind when someone asks me if Walt were frozen is the memory of his oldest daughter Diane Disney Miller. I remember her telling me with a mixture of sadness and anger in her face and voice about how upsetting it was to the Disney family over the years for this question to even be asked in the first place.

She told me that one of the reasons she was so adamant about creating the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco was "Other little kids would say to my kids, 'Your grandfather is frozen, isn't he?' And I just couldn't let that stand. What if someone said that about their parent? How would they feel?"

When I lived in California, some California Institute of the Arts students as an art project raised some money by producing a limited amount of "Waltsickles" that featured a full-figured model of Walt Disney in a suit inside of a popsickle. That never happened again although gags about "Disney on Ice" with Walt frozen in a block of ice and skaters performing on top of him abound.

An editorial cartoon jokingly referred to Disney on Ice as being Walt frozen in ice.

Walt Disney was not cryogenically frozen, but was cremated on December 17, 1966. Rumors still persist that Walt was put into cryogenic suspension and buried somewhere underneath Disneyland, in particular under the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, since it was still under construction when he died.

However, I have had people tell me, he was put under the dedication plaque on Main Street or directly in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. Interestingly, I haven't yet had anyone tell me Walt's supposed frozen body is somewhere in the Haunted Mansion. I guess that is because the Mansion is supposed to be for dead people and in theory, if he were frozen, Walt would still be alive.

Articles and books about the preservation of animal tissue through freezing appeared in medical and scientific journals and occasionally the general press starting in the late 1950s. Perhaps the most prominent book during Walt's lifetime, The Prospect of Immortality by Robert C.W. Ettinger, was published in 1964.

However, this book still discussed cryonics as merely theoretical although eventually possible. Just as it was possible Walt "might" have heard about this topic, but there is no documentation that he ever did. Neither his family nor his closest associates ever heard him talk about the topicand Walt talked about everything he was interested in at the moment.

Certainly, there are several untrustworthy and unreliable sources that have proposed that he did but there is no evidence, including interviews with those who actually knew and worked with Walt.

Again, this is one of those Walt Disney Urban Legends that "everyone knows" but nobody seems to know where the information originated.

Waking Walt was a novel published in 2002 by former Disneyland and Walt Disney World Vice-President Larry Pontius about Walt Disney supposedly being defrosted by a very small group of former confidants to save the Disney Company from the machinations of Michael Eisner.

It is no surprise that Walt's disgust about what has happened to his dream, especially Epcot, is clearly apparent in the novel. Pontinus never knew Walt, but worked as a Disney marketing executive from 1976-1982.

Diane Disney Miller asserted in 1972: "There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that my father, Walt Disney, wished to be frozen. I doubt that my father had ever heard of cryonics."

Walt's official death certificate clearly shows that his body was cremated at Forest Lawn Glendale on December 17, 1966. The name, license number and signature of the embalmer, Dean Fluss, are those of a real embalmer who worked at the mortuary at the time. Court papers show that the Disney family paid $40,000 to Forest Lawn for the interment location of his ashes.

Certainly, Walt did not like attending funerals and even avoided the ones for his own father and brother.

"He never goes to a funeral if he can help it," wrote Diane in 1956. "If he had to go to one it plunges him into a reverie which lasts for hours after he's home. At such times he says, 'When I'm dead I don't want a funeral. I want people to remember me alive'."

Walt did not want people to see him in the hospital, and so only the immediate family was allowed into his room. Very few people, even those close to him, knew how really sick Walt actually was. The story told to the public was that he was undergoing surgery for an old neck injury from playing polo that most people knew had troubled him for decades and then re-entered the hospital days later for a routine post operative checkup.

Walt's death was not immediately announced to the press until several hours after it occurred at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 15, 1966. Walt lay in his hospital bed for a few hours while his family arrived and said their farewells. If Walt was to be put into cryonic suspension, it would have had to be done immediately to preserve him or even just moments before his death. That did not happen.

He lay there as his daughter Diane tried to get her mother to hurry up to get to the hospital but Lillian kept delaying the inevitable. His older brother Roy sat at the edge of the bed rubbing one of Walt's feet that was sticking out from the under the sheets. Walt had always complained his feet were cold in the hospital.

The cause of Disney's death was initially announced as being "acute circulatory collapse" and, on the death certificate, "cardiac arrest," which meant simply that his heart had stopped beating. It was a standard medical phrase giving no indication of what caused the heart to stop beating, which, in this case, was cancer. The cause was considered of secondary importance and to the general public the actual cause was unimportant. Walt Disney was gone.

Walt's funeral was quietly held at the Little Church of the Flowers in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale at 5 p.m. on Friday, December 16, the day after his death. No funeral announcement was made until after it had taken place. Only immediate family members attended, no friends, people who worked at the studio or business associates.

The Disney characters and cast members mourn Walt Disney in this cartoon.

His widow Lillian; daughters Diane and Sharon, with their husbands (Ron Miller and Robert Brown); his brother Roy and his wife Edna; and their son, Walt's nephew Roy E. Disney, with his wife Patty, were the only ones there. His sister Ruth was told not to fly down from Portland, Oregon, where she lived for fear the press would follow her to the service.

The Los Angeles Times reported, "Secret rites were conducted at the Little Church of the Flowers at Forest Lawn. The services were a closely-guarded secret. Family services were announced only after they had been concluded. Studio and cemetery officials refused to reveal details."

Forest Lawn officials refused to disclose any details of the funeral or disposition of the body, stating only that "Mr. Disney's wishes were very specific and had been spelled out in great detail."

The situation that people were not fully aware how ill Walt was, never saw him in the hospital and how badly he had deteriorated, nor attended his funeral to see him lying in state sparked the speculation that like other popular celebrities who died somewhat suddenly, including Elvis Presley, Walt was not really dead.

While the Disney family were a private family and felt this was a private matter, others saw it as a mystery.

The origin of the rumor of Walt being frozen has often been credited to Disney Studios animators who "had a bizarre sense of humor" and perhaps the earliest known printed version appeared in the French magazine Ici Paris in 1969.

In 1985, I asked animator Ward Kimball if he was the source for the rumor since he was well known for his pranks. "When Disney fans ask me if it's true that Walt's body is kept frozen for future resurrection, I answer that question by pointing out that Walt was always intensely interested in things scientific and he, more than any person I knew, just might have been curious enough to agree to such an experiment."

A decade earlier, Kimball had told another interviewer, "The smoking may have set the stage for his death. It probably weakened his physical condition. But I'm convinced it was the emotional stress he was under that killed him. It's such a dull world. So when I am asked if Walt's body was frozen and if he believed he could come back someday, just to stir things up I tell everybody he is frozen. Actually, he was cremated."

in 1972, Bob Nelson, who was then the president of the Cryonics Society of California, gave an interview to the Los Angeles Times. He specifically stated that Walt was not cryogenically frozen and reaffirmed that he had been cremated. However, he continued that he felt that Walt wanted to be frozen and based it on the fact that he had been contacted by someone at the studios prior to Disney death that asked elaborate questions about the process, the facilities, the staff, and their history.

That someone may have been writer Charles Show, who had worked on the Tomorrowland episodes for the Disney television series and has admitted doing research on the topic before Walt's death.

Nelson pointed out that the first cryonic suspension took place just a month after Disney's death. Dr. James Bedford, a 73-year-old psychologist from Glendale, was suspended by Nelson and his team on January 12, 1967. Bedford has yet to be revived from his comfortable rest in Arizona.

"If Disney had been the first it would have made headlines around the world and been a real shot in the arm for cryonics," said Nelson who had hoped to put Walt in a nitrogen filled capsule chilled to minus 371 degrees Fahrenheit. Interestingly, Nelson's organization had its incorporation papers approved by the state of California on December 15, 1966, the same day Walt passed away.

Nelson was later asked if some other facility than his own might have been involved.

"There was no other facility at that time. The only other group was the Cryonics Society of New York and they had nothing no mortician, no doctor, no nothing," Nelson said.

Author Ray Bradbury said later, "There was a rumor that (Walt) had been frozen in a cryogenic mortuary to be revived in later years. Nonsense! He's alive now! People at the studio speak of him as if he were present! That's immortality for you. Who needs cryonics?"

In the 1970s, the National Enquirer revealed the grave site of Walt Disney.

For nearly a year after the cremation, Walt Disney's ashes remained un-interred. When Sharon's husband, Bob Brown, died less than a year later, in September 1967, Sharon made the arrangements for her father and her husband to be interred together so that neither would be alone. She and her older sister, Diane, chose a remote plot outside the Freedom Mausoleum.

A modest bronze rectangular tablet on a wall lists the name of Walter Elias Disney; his wife, Lillian; his son-in-law, Robert Brown; and a mention that daughter Sharon's ashes were "scattered in paradise."

To locate the site, drive through the entrance to a road called Cathedral Drive. Stay on the road to the eastern edge of the park where Cathedral Drive intersects with Freedom Way. At that intersection, turn right onto Freedom Way. On your left will be trees, fountains, and statues. This area is called Freedom Court.

At the far end of Freedom Court is a large mausoleum. Pull over and park on the right-hand side of the street. There should be a "33" painted on the curb opposite your car, indicating 33 Freedom Way. Standing at the base of the steps leading to the main entrance of the Freedom Mausoleum, turn to your left and walk to the far edge of the steps.

There is a small, private, low-gated courtyard garden near the brick wall. Inside this area guarded by a hedge of orange olivias, red azaleas, and a holly tree there is a small statue of Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid sitting on a rock.

In recent years, another huge falsehood has circulated in regards to Walt Disney's death and I have no clue where this could have originated.

According to the myth, in Walt Disney's Last Will and Testament dated March 1966, he stipulated that the first man to get pregnant or give birth would receive millions of dollars, all of Walt Disney World or even the entire Disney Company. The vagueness of the reward should be the first clue that this is bogus.

Walt Disney's will is a public document and easily accessible so it is easy to see that no such statement exists or anything else like it relating to bizarre statement.

In addition, Walt was a highly conservative Midwest Christian and such a decree would certainly be out of character even for a man interested in innovation and the latest technology. In any case, this would not be something the traditional Walt would likely want to encourage at all nor did he ever discuss anything like it.

In any case, The Walt Disney Company was a publicly held corporation so Walt wouldn't have been able to give away the company or Walt Disney World. He didn't own them. In his will, Disney clearly left 45 percent of his estate to his wife and daughters and another 45 percent to be distributed primarily to California Institute of the Arts and the remaining 10 percent to be divided among his sister, nieces, and nephews.

So there were no extra millions of dollars to be distributed to any other bequest.

While there have been stories of eccentric wealthy people making unusual bequests in their wills, Walt never did.

However, even Walt knew that a good story is hard to extinguish and will often take on a life of its own. You might think that the information in this column is enough to put the story to rest but I can tell you that I shared this with an avid and somewhat knowledgeable Disney fan before publication and her immediate reaction was, "documents can be forged!"

I just sighed.

So the falsehoods will probably continue while the facts are forgotten. I just keep remembering how sad it made Diane Disney Miller and I wish there were more I could do.

More:

Walt Disney Was NOT Frozen - MousePlanet

A 49-year-old Chinese woman who died from lung cancer has been put in deep freeze in the hope that she will be brought back to life and reunited with her husband once science has found a cure for her fatal illness.

Thecryonics procedure was performed at Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute in Jinan on May 8, several minutes after Zhan Wenlian died at Shandong Universitys Qilu Hospital, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reports.

Zhan and her husbandGui Junmin had agreed to put her through the procedure, which involves low-temperature preservation of a person whose life can no longer be sustained under current science and medical knowledge, with the hope that he or she can be resuscitated and restored to full health in the future.

While some people suspect that the procedure is just another hoax, Gui expressed in a letter of consent that he knew it was not possible to revive his wife in the near future but he still he would like to give it a try.

He said he and his family believe that future advances in science and medicine will enable experts to revive his wife.

The cryopreservation was the first for a whole human body in China, although a female writer in Chongqing had had her brain frozen and preserved in 2015.

The procedure was done by Aaron Drake, a specialist in cryogenics, in cooperation with doctors from Shandong Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute and specialists from the hospital.

After more than 60 hours of work, Zhans body temperature was lowered to below minus 190 degrees Celsius before she was kept in a liquid nitrogen tank that provides a stable temperature of minus 196 degrees.

The procedure is said to cost more than 7 million yuan (US$1.05 million) plus an annual charge of 50,000 yuan for the refilling of liquid nitrogen.

But Gui only needs to pay a small portion of the amount since his wife volunteered.

Jia Chunsheng, who is in charge of Shandong Yinfeng, said cryogenics projects remain asserious scientific studies and the institute has no intention to commercialize the procedure anytime soon, news website hk01.com reported.

Jia also praised Zhan for being willing to contribute her body to scientific research, adding that her consent fuels the hope that dead people can be revived and restored to full health in the future.

In the United States, there have been about 250 people placed in cryopreservation as of 2014.

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A first in China cryonics: Dead woman put in deep freeze - EJ Insight - EJ Insight

by Joe Douglass, KATU News and KATU.com Staff

Oregon Cryonics Executive Director Jordan Sparks cools brains to be revived in the future to negative 300 degrees using liquid nitrogen. (KATU Photo)

If there were a way to preserve your mind after you died, would you do it, even if it cost tens of thousands of dollars?

Oregon Cryonics is working to make that idea a reality. Its facility is one of only four offering the service worldwide.

From the outside the facility looks like a normal office building, and inside it looks like a normal lab, complete with gas tanks, computer screens, a refrigerator and nearby buckets.

But inside the refrigerator there is a human brain, and the buckets are full of brains, too.

Oregon Cryonics is a nonprofit group with a very specific goal.

We preserve brains. We try to preserve them with the very best structure that we can, says Executive Director Jordan Sparks, who is a computer programmer and a dentist by trade.

He wrote the software for the endeavor, and part of the facility was his previous dental office.

Sparks started working on Oregon Cryonics full time four years ago. The first brain the group preserved belonged to a dog named Cupcake. Since then it has preserved around 50 or 60 human brains.

We try to lock all the molecules in place so that future scientists can decide what to do with those molecules afterwards revive the person somehow, says Sparks.

He says the preservations are done in two ways.

One: By pumping the brain full of chemicals with a complex electronic system soon after the person dies. Two: By keeping brains cold, around negative 300 degrees.

If you have a brain thats been preserved well, the laws of physics say that you should be able to pull out all the memories, the personalities, the way that person thinks, Sparks says. Clearly, the revival technology is well over 100 years away, but were doing the preparatory work right now to let those future scientists do the revivals.

Most of the brains the ones in the buckets are not kept cold. Theyre preserved only with chemicals.

Those are ones where people donated their body to science, and were trying to perfect the technology, Sparks says. And so we do the same process on those, and then we slice up and analyze and see how good of a job we did.

He says six of the brains are being kept cold through a multistep process. It ends with them chilling in a tank filled with liquid nitrogen.

Those six are ones that are trying to get revived. Thats why theyre here, says Sparks. And so for those, we treat them differently. We treat them with extra care.

He says two of those brains are from folks who spent about $25,000 each.

Anyone can sign up for services, but you have to die close by, Sparks says, because they need to start pumping chemicals into the brain as soon as possible after death to successfully preserve it.

Also, certain life insurance policies do cover cryonics.

Excerpt from:

Brain Freeze: Have yours preserved in Salem for possible future revival - KATU

EXCLUSIVE:Everyone is looking to stand out from the pack at Comic-Con and Seth MacFarlanes upcoming sci-fi satire The Orville is set to plant a flag with a first of its kind San Diego sweepstake for this life and beyond.

With an aim to snag attention for the latest project from the Emmy winner and Family Guy boss, Fox has built the Orville Space Training Station, which opens Thursday on the Hilton Bayfront Lawn. However, pushing into another final frontier, The Orville activation will also see a cryonics sweepstakes, a first for any entertainment company at SDCC.

Yep, you heard that right, fans can enter for the chance to win a membership to a Cryopreservation program. Along with all the bells and whistles weve come to expect from such SDCC activations, of which FX, Amazon and many more have up this year, one applicant will be randomly selected for the opportunity to be cryopreserved at the end of his or her life and revived in 2417 seriously. Interested applicants can apply in person or online, as of tomorrow.

Applicantscomplete a fictional job application process for a crew member spot on the ship in 2417, with in-person applicants then invited to conquer the stations spinning gyroscope ride. One application will be randomly selected for the cryopreservation.

This all comes as the September 10 and 17th debutingThe Orvillehas a SDCC panel set for July 22 at 4:15 in the convention centers Room 6A. Confirmed to attend are MacFarlane, along with fellow cast members Adrianne Palicki, Scott Grimes, Penny Johnson Jerald, Peter Macon, Halston Sage, J Lee, Mark Jackson and Chad Coleman, and producers David A. Goodman and Brannon Braga. While not expected at SDCC, Transparent star Jeffrey Tambor will be appearing on The Orvilles first season, MacFarlane has revealed.

Set four centuries from now, The Orville followsthe obviously Star Trek inspired adventures in the final frontier of the middling U.S.S. Orville. Its human and alien crew tackles the battles and politics of speed of light galactic travel and the workplace dramas that never change, no matter what century it is.

Fueled by FOX Doubleheaders NFL games, The Orvillewill start with a special two-night series premiere on Sunday, September 10 and a week later. With that double launch date, the series then makes its real time-period premiere on September 28 at 9 PM.

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Comic-Con: Seth MacFarlane's 'The Orville' Brings Unique Fan ... - Deadline