Category Archives: Cryonics

"The Beautiful Place"

By Lee Gowan

Published by Thistledown Press

$24.95 ISBN 978-1-77187-208-9

Saskatchewan born-and-raised writer Lee Gowan has penned a thick new novel "The Beautiful Place" and its a beautiful thing. Gowans three previous novels have garnered much attention ("Make Believe Love" was shortlisted for Ontarios Trillium Award), and his screenplay, "Paris or Somewhere," was nominated for a Gemini Award.

Currently the program director of the Creative Writing and Business Communications department at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, this award-winning author is giving readers something completely different with "The Beautiful Place," which delves into the sci-fi world of cryonics; the realistic world of failed marriages, 21st century parenting and dementia; and the ever-precarious world of art and art making.

What Gowan has done is ingenious: hes imagined an ongoing life for Philip Bentley, Sinclair Rosss protagonist in "As for Me and My House." Gowans tri-provincial sequel to that prairie classic is told from the perspective of the minister-turned-artists grandson, also known as Bentley. The younger Bentley a fired, semi-suicidal cryonics salesman, writer and father of two daughters from different wives is approached by a beguiling woman named Mary Abraham who met Jesus in a dream and walked with him to a desert well and met Buddha under a tree by a river.

Abraham has also dreamed about the younger Bentley, and shes on a mission, as hes one of few who know where the cryonics company, Argyle, keeps the frozen bodies of the deceased. He must reveal this location so she can extract her late husbands disembodied head, because he posthumously told her he wished to be buried and that it was [her] duty to get him underground.

The younger Bentley must also try to appease his wise-cracking ex-wife and finance their rebellious 23-year-old daughters New York art school, plus figure out his own place in the world as the grandson of a famous painter (whose body is also in The Beautiful Place). Bentley himself doesnt believe in cryonics a longshot gamble at eternal life even though he was Argyles sales manager.

Its complicated, but, Gowan adeptly directs this cast of disparate characters with their strange plights, and the often witty dialogue reveals why hes such a revered writer. Upon the birth of a daughter, Bentleys wife says: She looks like a live roast. Another character says urologists always have such lovely personalities. Speaking of his wifes TV-star ex, the protagonist says: He wishes he were indigenous; he wishes he were gay. And its a hoot to read that Philip Bentley lived beyond Rosss novel and became an artist with pictures hanging in the Vancouver Art Gallery next to Emily Carr.

This book is a complex weaving of the real and the impossible, of hope and grief, and of dreams and hard realities. Though the protagonist believes The point of existence ... was to vanish with as little trace as possible. Stay out of the frame, this shimmering and beautifully-organized novel will ensure that its author, Lee Gowan, will not disappear within the lexicon of Canadian literary writers.

This book is available at your local bookstore or from the Saskatchewan Publishers Group http://www.skbooks.com.

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Delving into the sci-fi world of cryonics - SaskToday.ca

The latest research on Cryonics Technology Market concisely segments the industry based on types, applications, end-use industries, key regions, and competitive landscape. Also, the report provides a detailed evaluation of the gross profit, market share, sales volume, revenue structure, growth rate, and the financial position of the major market players. The scope of development for new entrance or established companies in the Cryonics Technology business was also highlighted in the report.

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Immortality could also be cause for alarm. An uploaded brain, in a sense, will have beaten death, which raises basic psychological and philosophical questions. We can say that death is at the root of consciousness, normative law and human existence, Kauffman says. The loss of death is likely to radically alter who or what the being or creature is.

Theres no guarantee that this being would be the same one who first entered into the cryogenic process, either. As de Grey says, the question remains of whether scanning the brain and uploading it into a different substrate is revival at all, or if youd be creating a new individual with the same characteristics.

Regardless of who or what that ghost in the machine turned out to be, programming in a digital suicide option would likely be necessary just in case the experience proved too overwhelming or oppressive. I think theyd have to decide in advance what the escape hatch would be if it didnt work out, Callahan says. Is it that the company is authorised to kill you, or are you left to do it yourself?

Despite the unknowns, some would still be willing to give such an existence a shot. If the option was complete oblivion and nothingness or uploading my mind into a computer, Id like to at least try it, Kowalski says. It could be pretty cool.

--

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If cryonics suddenly worked, wed need to face the fallout ...

Human and pet preservation by freezing

Cryonics Institute (CI) is an American Non Profit Foundation that provides cryonics services. CI freezes dead humans and pets in liquid nitrogen with the speculative hope of restoring them with technology in the future.[1][2]

The Cryonics Institute was founded by the Father of Cryonics Robert Ettinger on April 4, 1976, in Detroit, Michigan, where he served as president until 2003. Ettinger introduced the concept of cryonics with the publication of his book The Prospect of Immortality published in 1962.[3][4][5] Operations moved to the current location in Clinton Township, Michigan in 1993.[6]

The Cryonics Institute has 188 people cryopreserved in tanks of liquid nitrogen with Robert Ettinger the 106th who is cryopreserved along with his mother and wives.[7][8][9][10][11]

The cryonics procedure performed by the Cryonics Institute begins with a process called vitrification where the body is perfused with cryoprotective agents to protect against damage in the freezing process. After this, the body is cooled to -196C over the course of a day or two days in a computer-controlled chamber before being placed in a long-term storage container filled with liquid nitrogen. The Cryonics Institute calls their storage units cryostats, and each unit contains up to eight people.[citation needed] The process can take place only once the person has been declared legally dead. Ideally, the process begins within two minutes of the heart stopping and no more than 15.[12][13][14]

The Cryonics Institute provides services including Human Cryostatis, DNA/Tissue Freezing, Pet Cryopreservation, and Memorabilia Storage.[15][16]

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Cryonics Institute - Wikipedia

A number of Minnesotans have made plans to be frozen, and a passionate group of cryonics enthusiasts is trying to ease the transition.

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Minnesotans are used to life in subzero temperatures, but what about death?

Reader Sharon Carlson wanted to know if Minnesota is home to any cryonics facilities, where bodies are kept frozen until theoretical future technology is able to reanimate them. She posed the question to Curious Minnesota, the Star Tribune's reader-powered reporting project.

"I'm just kind of having a hard time with the idea of dying," said the 62-year-old Andover resident. "I'm not philosophical I'm kind of pissed off about it."

There are actually only two cryonics facilities in the nation, in Arizona and Michigan. But a number of Minnesotans have made plans to be frozen, and a passionate group of cryonics enthusiasts is trying to ease the transition from life to long-term storage.

Minnesota Cryonics Rapid Response counts about two dozen members. Most if not all have signed up to spend their postmortem days in large freezers at either the Cryonics Institute (CI) in Clinton Township, Mich., or the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz.

When a member dies, time is of the essence.

Other Rapid Response members must stabilize the body as quickly as possible, usually by packing it in ice. The body must be kept cold until it can be shipped to CI or Alcor, where it will be "vitrified" at about 320 degrees below zero Fahrenheit in a vacuum-sealed tube of liquid nitrogen. The response team may administer anti-coagulants to keep the blood from thickening after death.

"Our biggest expense last year was about $150 for ice," said Chris Petersen of Minneapolis, a board member of the rapid response group. "Knowing where your closest 24-hour gas station with an ice freezer has turned out to be a big role."

'Freeze Hank'

Last year, the group launched a GoFundMe fundraiser to help get one of their members, Hank, to the Michigan facility after his death. The "Freeze Hank" campaign didn't raise much only about $2,300. But when Hank died earlier this year, members successfully preserved his body and got it to Michigan.

The primary goal of the fundraiser was to raise money for long-term needs such as an emergency vehicle and monitors that could alert the group when a member's vital functions are failing. They also hope to develop educational materials for paramedics, funeral homes and hospitals, to teach them how to process the body of someone who wants cryonic preservation.

Freezing and reanimation is a frequent theme of Hollywood, playing a prominent role in movies like "Captain America," "Demolition Man" and "Austin Powers."In fact, many of the members of the Rapid Response group were first drawn to cryonics through sci-fi.

"I've always liked the harder part of sci-fi, where the science is plausible," Petersen said. He admits that when he first heard about cryonics, "I thought it sounded kind of quacky."

But Petersen and others maintain that what seems out of the realm of possibility today may be routine in the future. Nobody thought humans could fly; then the Wright brothers did it. A century ago, nobody would have believed a heart transplant was possible, yet today they're not even newsworthy.

Advances in cellular and molecular science are opening doors to medical advances that would have been unheard of even a decade ago, said Dennis Kowalski, president of CI. Scientists routinely freeze and thaw human eggs, sperm, embryos and tissue samples with no ill effects. Who's to say a whole body couldn't be frozen and thawed successfully?

"I don't believe we're at the zenith of human technological knowledge," Kowalski said. "We're going to be smarter in the future than we are today."

Health care of the future

CI has about 200 bodies in vitrification right now, Kowalski said, along with about 200 pets. Walt Disney is not among them, despite rumors that the famed animator had his head frozen after death a rumor Kowalski said is false.

But there is at least one famous person at his facility, Kowalski said, although he can't reveal who it is.

CI, which is a nonprofit organization, requires a donation of $28,000 to be stored at the facility indefinitely, Kowalski said. Many members donate more, with the money often coming from life insurance policies. The institute invests the donations in mutual funds, which are expected to provide money to keep the facility operating into the future.

Of course, if you're frozen after dying of cancer, you will still have a cancer-ridden body when you wake up.

"The issue is when you wake up, they have to fix what killed you," said Gene Shaver of St. Louis Park, another rapid response team member. But that's where members believe science will find a way.

"Let's be very honest here," Petersen said. "This is a long shot that we're doing. But if humanity and civilization is still around 500 or 1,000 years from now, if they have the technology to bring someone back to life, they probably have the technology to do nanotechnology or gene therapy" to treat the cause of death.

And for cryonics advocates, that long shot is better than nothing at all.

As Kowalski put it: "I can be sure that if you don't try, you're going to be worm dirt."

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How many people live their entire life in Minnesota?

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Who is the oldest living Minnesotan and what is their story?

Are Minnesota's health care costs really the highest in the nation?

Where does Twin Cities electricity come from and how is it delivered to homes?

Correction: Previous versions of this article misspelled Chris Petersens name.

John Reinan is a news reporter covering Greater Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. For the Star Tribune, he's also covered the western Twin Cities suburbs, as well as marketing, advertising and consumer news. He's been a reporter for more than 20 years and also did a stint at a marketing agency.

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Frozen for the future: Does Minnesota have any cryonics ...

In a recent informal survey, I asked what terms people preferred to indicate not only that you want to live not only longer than average, but longer than the current human maximum. That term or another might also be used to indicate that you support an organized effort to enable anyone who wants it to live possibly centuries or more in excellent health. Saying, I want to live longer does not convey the intended meaning adequately. Perhaps the most common term for this is life extension or extended life.

Out of around three dozen responses, life extension was the most popular choice. As expected, almost no one favored immortality with several people noting that it was not literally correct and probably impossible and also had distracting connotations. Several liked my suggested chosen lifespan or some other term emphasizing choice, such as personal lifespan. These have the benefit of conveying individual choice and putting the burden on those who oppose life extension for people other than themselves.

Other terms that got some explicit support:

Indefinite lifespan/extension

Extended lifespan

Superlongevity

Hyperlongevity

Other terms that received an honorable mention:

Age reversal, curing aging, death free, ending aging, expanding lifespan, extended longevity, healthy life extension, immortality, indefinite health extension, life expansion, longer life, managed aging, optional aging, optional mortality, overcoming age-related decline, personal lifespan, rejuvenation, reversing aging.

In an upcoming issue of Cryonics dealing with effective communication about life extension and cryonics, I will comment further on these options. Thanks to those of you who provided input. Its not too late if you want to add your thoughts.

Max More

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News - Cryonics: Alcor Life Extension Foundation

Permanent, irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism

Death is the permanent, irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism.[1] Brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death.[2] The remains of a previously living organism normally begin to decompose shortly after death. Death is an inevitable, universal process that eventually occurs in all living organisms.

Death is generally applied to whole organisms; the similar process seen in individual components of a living organism, such as cells or tissues, is necrosis. Something that is not considered a living organism, such as a virus, can be physically destroyed but is not said to die.

As of the early 21st century, over 150,000 humans die each day.[3]

Many cultures and religions have the idea of an afterlife, and also may hold the idea of judgement of good and bad deeds in one's life (Heaven, Hell, Karma).

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5,5176,289

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6,8367,916

7,9178,728

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The concept of death is a key to human understanding of the phenomenon.[4] There are many scientific approaches and various interpretations of the concept. Additionally, the advent of life-sustaining therapy and the numerous criteria for defining death from both a medical and legal standpoint, have made it difficult to create a single unifying definition.

One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life. As a point in time, death would seem to refer to the moment at which life ends. Determining when death has occurred is difficult, as cessation of life functions is often not simultaneous across organ systems.[5] Such determination, therefore, requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death. This is difficult, due to there being little consensus on how to define life.

It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness. When consciousness ceases, a living organism can be said to have died. One of the flaws in this approach is that there are many organisms that are alive but probably not conscious (for example, single-celled organisms). Another problem is in defining consciousness, which has many different definitions given by modern scientists, psychologists and philosophers. Additionally, many religious traditions, including Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, hold that death does not (or may not) entail the end of consciousness. In certain cultures, death is more of a process than a single event. It implies a slow shift from one spiritual state to another.[6]

Other definitions for death focus on the character of cessation of something.[7][clarification needed] More specifically, death occurs when a living entity experiences irreversible cessation of all functioning.[8] As it pertains to human life, death is an irreversible process where someone loses their existence as a person.[8]

Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of a human's death have been subjective, or imprecise. Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered that definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted. This type of death where circulatory and respiratory arrest happens is known as the circulatory definition of death (DCDD). Proponents of the DCDD believe that this definition is reasonable because a person with permanent loss of circulatory and respiratory function should be considered dead.[9] Critics of this definition state that while cessation of these functions may be permanent, it does not mean the situation is irreversible, because if CPR was applied, the person could be revived.[9] Thus, the arguments for and against the DCDD boil down to a matter of defining the actual words "permanent" and "irreversible," which further complicates the challenge of defining death. Furthermore, events which were causally linked to death in the past no longer kill in all circumstances; without a functioning heart or lungs, life can sometimes be sustained with a combination of life support devices, organ transplants and artificial pacemakers.

Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead; people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases. It is presumed that an end of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. Suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during certain sleep stages, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference.

The category of "brain death" is seen as problematic by some scholars. For instance, Dr. Franklin Miller, senior faculty member at the Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, notes: "By the late 1990s... the equation of brain death with death of the human being was increasingly challenged by scholars, based on evidence regarding the array of biological functioning displayed by patients correctly diagnosed as having this condition who were maintained on mechanical ventilation for substantial periods of time. These patients maintained the ability to sustain circulation and respiration, control temperature, excrete wastes, heal wounds, fight infections and, most dramatically, to gestate fetuses (in the case of pregnant "brain-dead" women)."[10]

While "brain death" is viewed as problematic by some scholars, there are certainly proponents of it that believe this definition of death is the most reasonable for distinguishing life from death. The reasoning behind the support for this definition is that brain death has a set of criteria that is reliable and reproducible.[11] Also, the brain is crucial in determining our identity or who we are as human beings. The distinction should be made that "brain death" cannot be equated with one who is in a vegetative state or coma, in that the former situation describes a state that is beyond recovery.[11]

Those people maintaining that only the neo-cortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness sometimes argue that only electrical activity should be considered when defining death. Eventually it is possible that the criterion for death will be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone given current and foreseeable medical technology. At present, in most places the more conservative definition of death irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the neo-cortex has been adopted (for example the Uniform Determination Of Death Act in the United States). In 2005, the Terri Schiavo case brought the question of brain death and artificial sustenance to the front of American politics.

Even by whole-brain criteria, the determination of brain death can be complicated. EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses, while certain drugs, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, or hypothermia can suppress or even stop brain activity on a temporary basis. Because of this, hospitals have protocols for determining brain death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals under defined conditions.

In the past, adoption of this whole-brain definition was a conclusion of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1980.[12] They concluded that this approach to defining death sufficed in reaching a uniform definition nationwide. A multitude of reasons were presented to support this definition including: uniformity of standards in law for establishing death; consumption of a family's fiscal resources for artificial life support; and legal establishment for equating brain death with death in order to proceed with organ donation.[13]

Aside from the issue of support of or dispute against brain death, there is another inherent problem in this categorical definition: the variability of its application in medical practice. In 1995, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), established a set of criteria that became the medical standard for diagnosing neurologic death. At that time, three clinical features had to be satisfied in order to determine "irreversible cessation" of the total brain including: coma with clear etiology, cessation of breathing, and lack of brainstem reflexes.[14] This set of criteria was then updated again most recently in 2010, but substantial discrepancies still remain across hospitals and medical specialties.[14]

The problem of defining death is especially imperative as it pertains to the dead donor rule, which could be understood as one of the following interpretations of the rule: there must be an official declaration of death in a person before starting organ procurement or that organ procurement cannot result in death of the donor.[9] A great deal of controversy has surrounded the definition of death and the dead donor rule. Advocates of the rule believe the rule is legitimate in protecting organ donors while also countering against any moral or legal objection to organ procurement. Critics, on the other hand, believe that the rule does not uphold the best interests of the donors and that the rule does not effectively promote organ donation.[9]

Signs of death or strong indications that a warm-blooded animal is no longer alive are:

The stages that follow after death are:

The death of a person has legal consequences that may vary between different jurisdictions.A death certificate is issued in most jurisdictions, either by a doctor, or by an administrative office upon presentation of a doctor's declaration of death.

There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then "coming back to life", sometimes days later in their own coffin, or when embalming procedures are about to begin. From the mid-18th century onwards, there was an upsurge in the public's fear of being mistakenly buried alive,[15] and much debate about the uncertainty of the signs of death. Various suggestions were made to test for signs of life before burial, ranging from pouring vinegar and pepper into the corpse's mouth to applying red hot pokers to the feet or into the rectum.[16] Writing in 1895, the physician J.C. Ouseley claimed that as many as 2,700 people were buried prematurely each year in England and Wales, although others estimated the figure to be closer to 800.[17]

In cases of electric shock, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for an hour or longer can allow stunned nerves to recover, allowing an apparently dead person to survive. People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room.[18] This "diving response", in which metabolic activity and oxygen requirements are minimal, is something humans share with cetaceans called the mammalian diving reflex.[18]

As medical technologies advance, ideas about when death occurs may have to be re-evaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death (as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death). The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead. Therefore, the concept of information-theoretic death[19] has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death occurs, though the concept has few practical applications outside the field of cryonics.

There have been some scientific attempts to bring dead organisms back to life, but with limited success.[20] In science fiction scenarios where such technology is readily available, real death is distinguished from reversible death.

The leading cause of human death in developing countries is infectious disease. The leading causes in developed countries are atherosclerosis (heart disease and stroke), cancer, and other diseases related to obesity and aging. By an extremely wide margin, the largest unifying cause of death in the developed world is biological aging,[3] leading to various complications known as aging-associated diseases. These conditions cause loss of homeostasis, leading to cardiac arrest, causing loss of oxygen and nutrient supply, causing irreversible deterioration of the brain and other tissues. Of the roughly 150,000 people who die each day across the globe, about two thirds die of age-related causes.[3] In industrialized nations, the proportion is much higher, approaching 90%.[3] With improved medical capability, dying has become a condition to be managed. Home deaths, once commonplace, are now rare in the developed world.

In developing nations, inferior sanitary conditions and lack of access to modern medical technology makes death from infectious diseases more common than in developed countries. One such disease is tuberculosis, a bacterial disease which killed 1.8M people in 2015.[22] Malaria causes about 400900M cases of fever and 13M deaths annually.[23] AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90100M by 2025.[24][25]

According to Jean Ziegler (United Nations Special Reporter on the Right to Food, 2000 Mar 2008), mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58% of the total mortality rate in 2006. Ziegler says worldwide approximately 62M people died from all causes and of those deaths more than 36M died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients.[26]

Tobacco smoking killed 100million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1billion people around the world in the 21st century, a World Health Organization report warned.[21]

Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by diet and physical activity, but the accelerating incidence of disease with age still imposes limits on human longevity. The evolutionary cause of aging is, at best, only just beginning to be understood. It has been suggested that direct intervention in the aging process may now be the most effective intervention against major causes of death.[27]

Selye proposed a unified non-specific approach to many causes of death. He demonstrated that stress decreases adaptability of an organism and proposed to describe the adaptability as a special resource, adaptation energy. The animal dies when this resource is exhausted.[28] Selye assumed that the adaptability is a finite supply, presented at birth. Later on, Goldstone proposed the concept of a production or income of adaptation energy which may be stored (up to a limit), as a capital reserve of adaptation.[29] In recent works, adaptation energy is considered as an internal coordinate on the "dominant path" in the model of adaptation. It is demonstrated that oscillations of well-being appear when the reserve of adaptability is almost exhausted.[30]

In 2012, suicide overtook car crashes for leading causes of human injury deaths in the U.S., followed by poisoning, falls and murder.[31] Causes of death are different in different parts of the world. In high-income and middle income countries nearly half up to more than two thirds of all people live beyond the age of 70 and predominantly die of chronic diseases. In low-income countries, where less than one in five of all people reach the age of 70, and more than a third of all deaths are among children under 15, people predominantly die of infectious diseases.[32]

An autopsy, also known as a postmortem examination or an obduction, is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a human corpse to determine the cause and manner of a person's death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present. It is usually performed by a specialized medical doctor called a pathologist.

Autopsies are either performed for legal or medical purposes. A forensic autopsy is carried out when the cause of death may be a criminal matter, while a clinical or academic autopsy is performed to find the medical cause of death and is used in cases of unknown or uncertain death, or for research purposes. Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices, and those where the body is dissected and an internal examination is conducted. Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases. Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is generally reconstituted by sewing it back together. Autopsy is important in a medical environment and may shed light on mistakes and help improve practices.

A necropsy, which is not always a medical procedure, was a term previously used to describe an unregulated postmortem examination . In modern times, this term is more commonly associated with the corpses of animals.

Senescence refers to a scenario when a living being is able to survive all calamities, but eventually dies due to causes relating to old age. Animal and plant cells normally reproduce and function during the whole period of natural existence, but the aging process derives from deterioration of cellular activity and ruination of regular functioning. Aptitude of cells for gradual deterioration and mortality means that cells are naturally sentenced to stable and long-term loss of living capacities, even despite continuing metabolic reactions and viability. In the United Kingdom, for example, nine out of ten of all the deaths that occur on a daily basis relates to senescence, while around the world it accounts for two-thirds of 150,000 deaths that take place daily (Hayflick & Moody, 2003).

Almost all animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning eventually die from biological aging, known in life sciences as "senescence". Some organisms experience negligible senescence, even exhibiting biological immortality. These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii,[33] the hydra, and the planarian. Unnatural causes of death include suicide and predation. From all causes, roughly 150,000 people die around the world each day.[3] Of these, two thirds die directly or indirectly due to senescence, but in industrialized countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany the rate approaches 90% (i.e., nearly nine out of ten of all deaths are related to senescence).[3]

Physiological death is now seen as a process, more than an event: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible.[34] Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. As scientific knowledge and medicine advance, formulating a precise medical definition of death becomes more difficult.[35]

Cryonics (from Greek 'kryos-' meaning 'icy cold') is the low-temperature preservation of animals and humans who cannot be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future.[36][37]

Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology. The stated rationale for cryonics is that people who are considered dead by current legal or medical definitions may not necessarily be dead according to the more stringent information-theoretic definition of death.[19][38]

Some scientific literature is claimed to support the feasibility of cryonics.[39] Medical science and cryobiologists generally regards cryonics with skepticism.[40]

"One of medicine's new frontiers: treating the dead", recognizes that cells that have been without oxygen for more than five minutes die,[41] not from lack of oxygen, but rather when their oxygen supply is resumed. Therefore, practitioners of this approach, e.g., at the Resuscitation Science institute at the University of Pennsylvania, "aim to reduce oxygen uptake, slow metabolism and adjust the blood chemistry for gradual and safe reperfusion."[42]

Life extension refers to an increase in maximum or average lifespan, especially in humans, by slowing down or reversing the processes of aging. Average lifespan is determined by vulnerability to accidents and age or lifestyle-related afflictions such as cancer, or cardiovascular disease. Extension of average lifespan can be achieved by good diet, exercise and avoidance of hazards such as smoking. Maximum lifespan is also determined by the rate of aging for a species inherent in its genes. Currently, the only widely recognized method of extending maximum lifespan is calorie restriction. Theoretically, extension of maximum lifespan can be achieved by reducing the rate of aging damage, by periodic replacement of damaged tissues, or by molecular repair or rejuvenation of deteriorated cells and tissues.

A United States poll found that religious people and irreligious people, as well as men and women and people of different economic classes have similar rates of support for life extension, while Africans and Hispanics have higher rates of support than white people.[43] 38 percent of the polled said they would desire to have their aging process cured.

Researchers of life extension are a subclass of biogerontologists known as "biomedical gerontologists". They try to understand the nature of aging and they develop treatments to reverse aging processes or to at least slow them down, for the improvement of health and the maintenance of youthful vigor at every stage of life. Those who take advantage of life extension findings and seek to apply them upon themselves are called "life extensionists" or "longevists". The primary life extension strategy currently is to apply available anti-aging methods in the hope of living long enough to benefit from a complete cure to aging once it is developed.

Before about 1930, most people in Western countries died in their own homes, surrounded by family, and comforted by clergy, neighbors, and doctors making house calls.[46] By the mid-20th century, half of all Americans died in a hospital.[47] By the start of the 21st century, only about 2025% of people in developed countries died outside of a medical institution.[47][48][49] The shift away from dying at home towards dying in a professional medical environment has been termed the "Invisible Death".[47] This shift occurred gradually over the years, until most deaths now occur outside the home.[50]

Death studies is a field within psychology.[51]

Many people are afraid of dying. Discussing, thinking, or planning their own deaths causes them discomfort. This fear may cause them to put off financial planning, preparing a will and testament, or requesting help from a hospice organization.

Different people have different responses to the idea of their own deaths.

Philosopher Galen Strawson writes that the death that many people wish for is an instant, painless, unexperienced annihilation.[52] In this unlikely scenario, the person dies without realizing it and without being able to fear it. One moment the person is walking, eating, or sleeping, and the next moment, the person is dead. Strawson reasons that this type of death would not take anything away from the person, as he believes that a person cannot have a legitimate claim to ownership in the future.[52][53]

In society, the nature of death and humanity's awareness of its own mortality has for millennia been a concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical inquiry. This includes belief in resurrection or an afterlife (associated with Abrahamic religions), reincarnation or rebirth (associated with Dharmic religions), or that consciousness permanently ceases to exist, known as eternal oblivion (associated with Secular humanism).[54]

Commemoration ceremonies after death may include various mourning, funeral practices and ceremonies of honouring the deceased. The physical remains of a person, commonly known as a corpse or body, are usually interred whole or cremated, though among the world's cultures there are a variety of other methods of mortuary disposal. In the English language, blessings directed towards a dead person include rest in peace (originally the Latin requiescat in pace), or its initialism RIP.

Death is the center of many traditions and organizations; customs relating to death are a feature of every culture around the world. Much of this revolves around the care of the dead, as well as the afterlife and the disposal of bodies upon the onset of death. The disposal of human corpses does, in general, begin with the last offices before significant time has passed, and ritualistic ceremonies often occur, most commonly interment or cremation. This is not a unified practice; in Tibet, for instance, the body is given a sky burial and left on a mountain top. Proper preparation for death and techniques and ceremonies for producing the ability to transfer one's spiritual attainments into another body (reincarnation) are subjects of detailed study in Tibet.[55] Mummification or embalming is also prevalent in some cultures, to retard the rate of decay.

Legal aspects of death are also part of many cultures, particularly the settlement of the deceased estate and the issues of inheritance and in some countries, inheritance taxation.

Capital punishment is also a culturally divisive aspect of death. In most jurisdictions where capital punishment is carried out today, the death penalty is reserved for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries, sexual crimes, such as adultery and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy, the formal renunciation of one's religion. In many retentionist countries, drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.[56]

Death in warfare and in suicide attack also have cultural links, and the ideas of dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, mutiny punishable by death, grieving relatives of dead soldiers and death notification are embedded in many cultures. Recently in the western world, with the increase in terrorism following the September 11 attacks, but also further back in time with suicide bombings, kamikaze missions in World War II and suicide missions in a host of other conflicts in history, death for a cause by way of suicide attack, and martyrdom have had significant cultural impacts.

Suicide in general, and particularly euthanasia, are also points of cultural debate. Both acts are understood very differently in different cultures. In Japan, for example, ending a life with honor by seppuku was considered a desirable death, whereas according to traditional Christian and Islamic cultures, suicide is viewed as a sin. Death is personified in many cultures, with such symbolic representations as the Grim Reaper, Azrael, the Hindu god Yama and Father Time.

In Brazil, a human death is counted officially when it is registered by existing family members at a cartrio, a government-authorized registry. Before being able to file for an official death, the deceased must have been registered for an official birth at the cartrio. Though a Public Registry Law guarantees all Brazilian citizens the right to register deaths, regardless of their financial means, of their family members (often children), the Brazilian government has not taken away the burden, the hidden costs and fees, of filing for a death. For many impoverished families, the indirect costs and burden of filing for a death lead to a more appealing, unofficial, local, cultural burial, which in turn raises the debate about inaccurate mortality rates.[57]

Talking about death and witnessing it is a difficult issue with most cultures. Western societies may like to treat the dead with the utmost material respect, with an official embalmer and associated rites. Eastern societies (like India) may be more open to accepting it as a fait accompli, with a funeral procession of the dead body ending in an open-air burning-to-ashes of the same.

Much interest and debate surround the question of what happens to one's consciousness as one's body dies. The belief in the permanent loss of consciousness after death is often called eternal oblivion. Belief that the stream of consciousness is preserved after physical death is described by the term afterlife. Neither are likely to ever be confirmed without the ponderer having to actually die.

After death, the remains of an organism become part of the biogeochemical cycle, during which animals may be consumed by a predator or a scavenger. Organic material may then be further decomposed by detritivores, organisms which recycle detritus, returning it to the environment for reuse in the food chain, where these chemicals may eventually end up being consumed and assimilated into the cells of a living organism. Examples of detritivores include earthworms, woodlice and dung beetles.

Microorganisms also play a vital role, raising the temperature of the decomposing matter as they break it down into yet simpler molecules. Not all materials need to be fully decomposed. Coal, a fossil fuel formed over vast tracts of time in swamp ecosystems, is one example.

Contemporary evolutionary theory sees death as an important part of the process of natural selection. It is considered that organisms less adapted to their environment are more likely to die having produced fewer offspring, thereby reducing their contribution to the gene pool. Their genes are thus eventually bred out of a population, leading at worst to extinction and, more positively, making the process possible, referred to as speciation. Frequency of reproduction plays an equally important role in determining species survival: an organism that dies young but leaves numerous offspring displays, according to Darwinian criteria, much greater fitness than a long-lived organism leaving only one.

Extinction is the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa, reducing biodiversity. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point). Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where species presumed extinct abruptly "reappear" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. New species arise through the process of speciation, an aspect of evolution. New varieties of organisms arise and thrive when they are able to find and exploit an ecological niche and species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition.

Inquiry into the evolution of aging aims to explain why so many living things and the vast majority of animals weaken and die with age (exceptions include Hydra and the already cited jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, which research shows to be biologically immortal). The evolutionary origin of senescence remains one of the fundamental puzzles of biology. Gerontology specializes in the science of human aging processes.

Organisms showing only asexual reproduction (e.g. bacteria, some protists, like the euglenoids and many amoebozoans) and unicellular organisms with sexual reproduction (colonial or not, like the volvocine algae Pandorina and Chlamydomonas) are "immortal" at some extent, dying only due to external hazards, like being eaten or meeting with a fatal accident. In multicellular organisms (and also in multinucleate ciliates),[59] with a Weismannist development, that is, with a division of labor between mortal somatic (body) cells and "immortal" germ (reproductive) cells, death becomes an essential part of life, at least for the somatic line.[60]

The Volvox algae are among the simplest organisms to exhibit that division of labor between two completely different cell types, and as a consequence include death of somatic line as a regular, genetically regulated part of its life history.[60][61]

In Buddhist doctrine and practice, death plays an important role. Awareness of death was what motivated Prince Siddhartha to strive to find the "deathless" and finally to attain enlightenment. In Buddhist doctrine, death functions as a reminder of the value of having been born as a human being. Being reborn as a human being is considered the only state in which one can attain enlightenment. Therefore, death helps remind oneself that one should not take life for granted. The belief in rebirth among Buddhists does not necessarily remove death anxiety, since all existence in the cycle of rebirth is considered filled with suffering, and being reborn many times does not necessarily mean that one progresses.[62]

Death is part of several key Buddhist tenets, such as the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination.[62]

While there are different sects of Christianity with different branches of belief; the overarching ideology on death grows from the knowledge of afterlife. Meaning after death the individual will undergo a separation from mortality to immortality; their soul leaves the body entering a realm of spirits. Following this separation of body and spirit (i.e. death)resurrection will occur.[63] Representing the same transformation Jesus Christ embodied after his body was placed in the tomb for three days. Like Him, each person's body will be resurrected reuniting the spirit and body in a perfect form.[64]

In Hindu texts, death is described as the individual eternal spiritual jiva-atma (soul or conscious self) exiting the current temporary material body. The soul exits this body when the body can no longer sustain the conscious self (life), which may be due to mental or physical reasons, or more accurately, the inability to act on one's kama (material desires). During conception, the soul enters a compatible new body based on the remaining merits and demerits of one's karma (good/bad material activities based on dharma) and the state of one's mind (impressions or last thoughts) at the time of death.

Usually the process of reincarnation (soul's transmigration) makes one forget all memories of one's previous life. Because nothing really dies and the temporary material body is always changing, both in this life and the next, death simply means forgetfulness of one's previous experiences (previous material identity).

Material existence is described as being full of miseries arising from birth, disease, old age, death, mind, weather, etc. To conquer samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth) and become eligible for one of the different types of moksha (liberation), one has to first conquer kama (material desires) and become self-realized. The human form of life is most suitable for this spiritual journey, especially with the help of sadhu (self-realized saintly persons), sastra (revealed spiritual scriptures), and guru (self-realized spiritual masters), given all three are in agreement.

There are a variety of beliefs about the afterlife within Judaism, but none of them contradict the preference of life over death. This is partially because death puts a cessation to the possibility of fulfilling any commandments.[citation needed]

The word death comes from Old English da, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauuz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the "process, act, condition of dying".[65]

The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms for death. When a person has died, it is also said they have passed away, passed on, expired, or are gone, among numerous other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms.

As a formal reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in the deceased; another noun form is decedent.

Bereft of life, the dead person is then a corpse, cadaver, a body, a set of remains, and when all flesh has rotted away, a skeleton. The terms carrion and carcass can also be used, though these more often connote the remains of non-human animals. The ashes left after a cremation are sometimes referred to by the neologism cremains.

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Death - Wikipedia

Where are cryonics patients stored?

If you ever flown to America, you may unknowingly have made a journey with a cryonics patient in the hold. Cryonics is a transcontinental process.

There are three major storage providers in the world that take international patients. Kriorus, a storage facility in Russia that currently has 81 human patients and 47 cryopreserved pets, only accepts upfront payments.

Alcor, in Scottsdale, Arizona, will celebrate its fiftieth anniversary in February. It is home to 186 cryonically preserved bodies and heads, three of whom are Britons, and has a membership of 1,379.

The Cryonics Institute in Michigan has 207 human patients and 202 pets, plus 320 DNA and tissue samples from people waiting for cloning technology to improve. After Americans, Britons are the institutes second largest customer base, accounting for 121 of its 1,805 members.

Both American institutions have a more favourable system of accepting life insurance payments, which means these are the typical point of call for hopeful Britons.

Patients are sealed in a two-metre-long metal box for the journey, which is surrounded by dry ice and contained within an insulated outer box. Cryonics UK avoids flying patients out on Fridays, as customs can be slower on weekends.

People say this is for rich people and it just isnt. We have people who have no money and instead of buying fags and beer they buy life insurance, said Mr Gibson.

The entry level for cryopreservation is the Cryonics Institutes lifetime membership package. This has a one-off $1,250 (924) upfront charge (paid when alive), and costs a further $28,000 through an insurance plan. Add on 30,000 for Cryonics UKs perfusion service, and the total cost is about 50,000.

However, inflation and currency fluctuations meant customers needed to insure themselves for more, said Mr Morgan. Life insurance plans of between 60,000 and 200,000 are typically required. I have people below the age of 40 who are paying premiums of 30 to 40 per month, while other clients are paying several hundreds, he added.

Alcor also offers a system whereby members can fund half of the cost using the value of their home or a retirement fund.

Alcors prices are higher, but they include having a medical team on standby and the perfusion process. It charges a monthly membership fee of $55 and neuro cryopreservation (just the head) cost a minimum $80,000. Whole body preservation starts at $200,000.

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How much would you pay to come back from the dead? The starting price is 60k - The Telegraph

Even Greater Mistakes by Charlie Jane Anders. Photo: Tor / Getty Images / EyeEm

In the introduction to her latest book, San Francisco native Charlie Jane Anders explains that when she started her writing career, she swore shed never write a novel: My first allegiance, my deepest loyalty, was to short fiction the only species of confabulation that grants you total freedom to mess around, she writes.

After (thankfully) going back on her word and publishing a number of Nebula- and Hugo-winning novels and novelettes, including All the Birds in the Sky (2016) and The City in the Middle of the Night (2019), Anders first full-length collection of speculative short stories is finally here.Longtime fans and even newbies to the genre: Get ready for one zany ride.

The 19 stories in Even Greater Mistakes all previously published elsewhere, including a few that take place in realms explored in her novels are a panoply of virtuosic world-building, inventive approaches to unpacking relationship quandaries (the duo in Power Couple opt for cryonics) and full-on hilarious scene crafting. Also, be on the lookout for some artfully disguised (but decidedly pointed) political commentary thrown in for good measure.

My Breath Is a Rudder and Because Change Was the Ocean and We Lived by Her Mercy are both queer first-person stories set in alternate versions of a future San Francisco. Because Her Mercy tackles climate change, envisioning what might happen if the ocean-flooded city turned into an archipelago and a commune-like group of freaks, artists and other members of the Wrong-Headed crew returned, debating whether and how to rebuild.

A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime and Fairy Werewolf vs. Vampire Zombie both dabble in the delightfully silly, with the latter involving multiple bar brawls, a good old-fashioned karaoke throw-down between the two title characters, and a giant jar of pickled brains.

The most hard-hitting, perhaps because its the most personal, is the unsettling and devastating Dont Press Charges and I Wont Sue, in which a trans woman takes on an organization whose mission is returning healthy, well-adjusted individuals to society without any trace of dysphoria, dysmorphia, dystonia, or any other dys-words by thwarting its attempts to forcefully alter her identity. (Anders wrote it in the weeks leading up to the inauguration of our 45th president. Need I say more?)

Whatever mood youre going for, theres a story in Even Greater Mistakes to match it. What also makes the collection so infectious and, frankly, cool are the edifying intros that accompany each story. Much in the same vein as her recently released writing how-to/memoir mash-up Never Say You Cant Survive, these snippets provide valuable insight into Anders creative process and inspiration for each story, but they also highlight her screwball sense of humor and mad-scientist-style outlook on life.

In an interview for a prior book, Anders mused: Good science fiction allows us to see ourselves in a lot of different contexts, and it kind of allows us to kind of think beyond our narrow ideas of who we are as a species, as a people and become more accepting of different ways of being a human being.

Not every story in Even Greater Mistakes is a knockout. But as far as what each one accomplishes in its own way? I couldnt have put it better than she did.

Even Greater MistakesBy Charlie Jane Anders(Tor; 352 pages; $27.99)

Author event

Charlie Jane Anders, other authors at Writers With Drinks: In person. 7-9:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 13. Vaccination and masks required. $5-$20. Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., S.F. Eventbrite

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Review: Irresistible and observant realms of science fiction revealed in 19 stories - SF Chronicle Datebook

Ammon News - Many people dream of living forever, while songs have been written about it and movies made with eternal life the central plot point. Some companies claim they give humans the opportunity to do so.

Many people throughout human history have had the seemingly-impossible ambition of living forever.

But now we live in the most scientifically advanced period in mankind's time on Earth and immortality might not be the pipe dream it always has been up to now.

Thanks to a select few companies, that dream could become a reality, and it may not break the bank as much as members of the public might think.

The firm Alcor, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, markets themselves as the world leader in cryonics, the process of freezing a body after death to later be brought back to life.

Corpses and brains are frozen in liquid nitrogen after legal death with the hope of being resurrected and restoring them to full health in the event some technology allows humans to be brought back to life in the future.

A full body preservation at Alcor costs a staggering $200,000 (145,000), with annual costs totalling $705 (510) per year after the person's death. $80,000 (58,000) for a neuro-patient, where they just have their brain preserved.

But according to the company's British CEO Max More, the procedure is actually quite affordable for the majority.

He said "Most people think: 'I don't have $80,000 or $200,000 lying around,' but neither did I when I signed up.

"I signed up as a student in England, quite poor. Almost everyone, well the vast majority of our members pay through life insurance.

"They just make Alcor the beneficiary, you just pay standard monthly for life insurance.

"So for the vast majority of people, it's actually quite affordable. If you can afford to go out to Starbucks every couple of days for a coffee, you can afford cryonics."

Alcor currently has 1,379 members, including 184 patients who have died and whose corpses have been subject to cryonic processes.

Membership are $660 (478) per year for the first family member, with an almost 50% discount for every subsequent relative over the age of 18.

It costs $96 (70) per year for relatives under the age of 18, while members can even have their pets preserved in a bid to maintain their full family when technology allows it.

Alcor says patients can be preserved for an indefinite period of time until technology allows patients to be revived.

The company is confident memories will be preserved through cryonic preservation, and research on worms suggests this could be the case.

Commenting on the incredibly findings in the 2015 study, Mr More's wife, Natasha Vita-More - who is a researcher for Alcor - said: "This is the first evidence of preservation of memory after cryopreservation.

"Further research on larger organisms with more complex nervous systems could prove to be beneficial to the issue of cryopreservation, including, specifically, memory retention after reviving."

The company was founded by Fred and Linda Chamberlain in 1972, initially in California, after Fred's fragile father had a stroke.

He died in 1976 and made history as the first neuropreservation patient ever.

Fred himself died on March 22, 2012, and is cryopreserved at Alcor.

Despite a growing profile, the industry is extremely controversial and has attracted criticism from scientists.

Although a popular theme in science fiction films, it has never been possible to successfully revive a human or any mammal - and such a procedure is likely to be a long way off.

Mr More said: "To me cryonics is just an extension of critical care medicine. 50 years ago people who keeled over, and the heart stopped beating, there's nothing at all that could be done for them.

"Today we routinely bring these people back to life. But 50 years from now the standard may change again because of changing technology.

"We're pointing out that what you call dead is not a sharp line. It changes over time depending on your level of technology and expertise.

"Our job is to stop you getting worse. To preserve you and let the future have a shot at bringing you back.

"It just means you don't want to die, you enjoy living. Why would you not do that?

"You'd have open-heart surgery or experimental cancer treatment, why wouldn't you do cryonics?

"Cryonics is your last option, it's your only possible chance you could be brought back.

"We don't know if it's going to work for sure, our paperwork is full of disclaimers and things we don't know and might happen.

"But it's really the only option you have once your body gives out. And we do have some reasons to think it might be workable."

*dailystar

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Humans could 'live forever' as firm offers 'immortality' freezing for 478-a-year - Ammon News