Category Archives: Cryonics

US President Donald Trump was elected on a promise to drain the swamp. Almost four years later, the Washington think-tank racket is as murky as ever, and the gravy train keeps rolling.

The false Trump/Russia collusion narrative has been dead for so long now that its hard to remember what killed it, whether it was the Mueller Report or simply death by a thousand cuts.

Here is what we know: Russiagate was a giant scam, and many of those who promoted it knowingly lied for a considerable length of time. Their aim was either to undermine Trumps presidency or prevent any improvement in US relations with Russia.

Most of the journalists who facilitated the hoax also knew it was nonsense. But their loathing of Trump and in some cases Russia, too trumped ethical considerations. Thus, much of the general public was, for years, fed a diet of grifters and washed-up old spooks pushing a scam.

The crazy thing is that many of its chief architects work for Washington think tanks funded by the US government. Given Trump has taken no obvious steps to curtail public funding for these lobby groups, it means the presidents own cabinet has been effectively bankrolling activists who are out to smear and destroy him.

Take Evelyn Farkas. A rabidly anti-Russia official in Barack Obamas government, she was subsequently looked after with a gig at NATOs Atlantic Council adjunct. This has become a traditional route in DC. When one party loses power, its apparatchiks are placed in a sort of think-tank racket cryonics chamber from which they can be reanimated in future, if their own tribe gets back into the White House.

Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, told MSNBC TV in 2017 that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 presidential election.

But, as Townhall reports, during an interview with the House Intelligence Committee in June 2017, where she was under oath, she admitted she didnt have any information about collusion during that interview.

As its correspondent Katie Pavlich points out, through dozens of House Intelligence Committee transcripts and after a lengthy Special Counsel investigation, it was clear from the beginning Russian collusion with the Trump campaign was a made-up talking point that was used as a political weapon.

Farkas involvement fits a pattern. Her dad came from an elite Hungarian family who had their status diluted after the Soviets installed a communist government in Budapest following World War Two. Farkas background is important, because US media ignores how many of the people who pushed the Trump-Russia hoax come from East European migrant families with an axe to grind against the Russians.

The idea that Russia stole emails from the Democratic National Congress (DNC) was based on information from CrowdStrike. This cybersecurity firm was the source of the allegation that Russian intelligence agencies had hacked the DNCs servers. You may remember the Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear narrative which was popularised by US media at the time.

CrowdStrikes co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch was born in Moscow and moved to the US with his family at the age of 14. Like Farkas, he is also attached to the Atlantic Council, and his first published involvement with the pro-NATO pressure group was in 2012.

Back in 2016, he was lionised by mainstream US media, with Esquire, for instance, saying he was our special forces (and Putins worst nightmare) and leading the fight to protect America.

It has now emerged that the following year, his partner at CrowdStrike Shawn Henry told Congress in closed-door testimony, previously buried that CrowdStrike had no concrete evidence that the data was exfiltrated from the DNC.

In other words, as journalist Aaron Mate has pointed out, CrowdStrike, the very firm behind the accusation that Russia hacked & stole DNC emails, admitted to Congress that it has no direct evidence Russia actually stole (or) exfiltrated the emails.

Of course, promoting Russiagate wasnt limited to the immigrant community. The likes of Bill Kristol, Michael McFaul, John Podesta and Clint Watts are all connected to the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS), another DC lobby group which receives US government funding.

Watts was front and centre in pushing the hoax, while McFaul was at one point ubiquitous on cable news shows waffling on about Russia helping Trump to win the 2016 election. Podesta, meanwhile, alleged his emails were hacked by Russia while he was chair of Hillary Clintons failed presidential campaign.

The GMFUS receives over $1 million annually from both the US State Department and USAID. Meanwhile, the Atlantic Council gets between $500,000 and $999,000 a year from the same State Department and $100,000 to $249,000 from each of the US Air Force Academy and the US Department of Defence.

Which means Trumps government is partially funding the people who tried to destroy his presidency, based on a falsehood obvious to honest observers from the very start. So much for the US presidents campaign promise to drain the swamp.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Does Trump know his own government indirectly bankrolls some key promoters of the Russiagate hoax? - RT

The comment was made by Anders Sandberg, a senior research fellow at the universitys Future of Humanity Institute. His work focuses on the potential risks future technology could pose to human civilisation.

Mr Sandberg has also spent decades involved with the transhumanist movement, which consists of people who believe humans can and should use technology to artificially augment their capabilities.

Speaking to Express.co.uk he argued humans in the future could enjoy greatly expanded lifespans and could even have their brains uploaded onto computers for safekeeping.

Asked how long humans could live Mr Sandberg replied: There is no fundamental ceiling but you are going to need to solve certain problems.

Accidents is the first one cryonics wont help you if a bus runs over you and turns you into mush.

Even if ageing and disease is not a problem you need to handle accidents and probably that means having some form of backup copies. You need some form of uploading or artificial body.

Probably the human brain cant handle that much information so you need to extend it as you get older.

You want to remember what needs to be remembered and maybe put other stuff in cyber storage.

Transhumanists believe humans can halt the ageing process and natural death.

According to Mr Sandberg this is one of the most provocative aspects of their programme.

He explained: Transhumanists have essentially since day one been saying we should really extend the human lifespan and this is perhaps one of the most controversial claims ever made.

We get way more pushback when talking about life extension than cloning or uploading into computers or going to space or taking drugs to become a more moral person.

Thats nothing compared to the potential of oh you might live much longer than you expected.

READ MORE:Academic explains how humans could become part mechanic cyborgs'

That is kind of dreadful to many people so they get very upset and start defending disease, sickness and death very strongly.

Its weird because if one believed their arguments we should be shutting down hospitals left and right and having people naturally and painfully die which of course people dont normally do. Normally we are very keen on having good hospitals and ambulances.

Mr Sandberg is the co-founder of Swedish thinktank Eudoxa and previously chaired the Swedish Transhumanist Association.

Transhumanist ideas have been gaining ground over recent years, with transhumanist political parties emerging in countries across the world including the UK.

An American transhumanist, Zoltan Istvan, recently ran against Trump for the 2020 Republican Presidential nomination.

Mr Sandberg also suggested advances in AI and drugs that improve human abilities are likely to play a role in the future.

READ MORE:US Presidential hopeful plans to ABOLISH DEATH using technology

He asserted: Its very likely artificial intelligence is going to become extremely powerful relatively soon.

Not necessarily the kind of self-willed Hal like being but at least very smart services that can solve problems for us which might speed things up.

I also have been working quite a lot on the ethics of cognitive enhancement. What about making ourselves smarter?

The good news is there are various things like smart drugs that might be helpful for certain mental tasks.

The bad news is there doesnt seem to be anything that really boost intelligence itself. That seems to be very complicated and we dont understand the brain well enough.

Oxford Universitys Future of Humanity Institute was founded in 2005 to focus on the opportunities and threats that could emerge for the human species.

It is headed by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom, who grabbed wide attention with his 2014 book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.

Asked what the world could look like in 40 years time Mr Sandberg replied: think a time traveller going 40 years into the future is first going to be super disappointed because it looks almost the same.

On the surface I think its going to be very similar theres going to be vehicles moving around, maybe without any drivers, there are going to be houses around and so on and then they start interacting with people and theyre going to realise this society works completely differently.

We most likely are going to have quite a lot of enhancements around that are regarded as everyday.

People are not going to think that the morning cognition enhancing pill is any weirder than the morning coffee they might even be the same thing.

The existence of a lot of machine learning and probably nanotechnology making a lot of material way more alive than they used to.

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Oxford academic claims future humans could live for thousands of years - Express.co.uk

The coronavirus may have you thinking about your mortality. At the end of the day, humans only have one life on this planet. Even more so, we are pretty fragile, prone to disease, destructive, and a bit stubborn. Since the beginning of time, humans have longed for eternal life," - the ability to extend ones life and youth far beyond its current limits. Nevertheless, you have to give humans their props for increasing their species life expectancy across the board over the last 200 years.

For the uninitiated, life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a particular age. Yet, as you are probably already wondering, how long can humans live? According to Our World in Data, the average life expectancy is 72.6 years. Yet as you are probably aware, there are select groups of people across the world, especially in wealthier nations, that have well exceeded this number. Some people have gone on to live 100 years, 110 years, and even beyond, with Jeane Calment of France living 122 years and 164 days.

But can humans live even longer? If you could, how long would you want to live? 200 years? 500 years? Maybe a full millennium? Though this might seem like a bit of science fiction, technology could advance to the point where humans could live forever. In fact, some futurists argue that if you make it to 2050, you are probably not going to die. So, stay inside, please.

Futurist Dr. Ian Pearson has gone on to argue that by using the power of technology, humanity might be able to merge our minds with machines, making our bodies obsolete. You could end up attending your own body funeral. Pearson paints the picture of this future,stating, One day, your body dies, and with it, your brain stops, but no big problem, because 99% of your mind is still fine, running happily on IT, in the cloud. Assuming you saved enough and prepared well, you connect to an android to use as your body from now on, attend your funeral, and then carry on as before, still you, just with a younger, highly upgraded body.

And this is just the beginning, beyond 2050, there could be many different ways you may be able to preserve your mind and consciousness. Humans might just switch to different humanoid bodies after a certain period the same way you might buy a new car with new features. Or thanks to projects like Neuralink, your mind may just be a few simple clicks away from downloading yourself into a computer or robotic body. Maybe thousands of years from now, all of humanity may decide it is better for humans to live in a massive megastructure that practically generates our own reality.

Today that is what we are going to explore. There is plenty of technology out there that could potentially change the entire direction of humanity, posing the question; will humans eventually be able to live forever?

Like most of the things on this list, this sounds like something out of a science fiction film. Yet people like University of Southern Californias Theodore Berger, Duke Universitys Mikhail Lebedev, and Alexander Kaplan of Moscow University, all believe its possible. There are already companies out there working on ways to link our minds to machines. At the moment, there are more practical reasons for this. like offering those who have mobility disabilities the ability to live more normal and fulfilling lives.

However, it can go even further than that. The mind will be in the cloud, and be able to use any android that you feel like to inhabit the real world,says Pearson. It could get to a point in which you can hire an android body for the day. Rather than travel to Jamaica, just upload your brain to an android stationed in Jamaica. Or maybe there is a great concert that you want to see, but the band is in another city thousands of miles away. You may be able to simply upload yourself to experience the show. The result of this is that humans may never need a fleshy body again.

3D printing has come a long way, virtually impacting almost every major industry across the world, including healthcare. Just in the past couple of years, researchers from separate organizations and private institutions have found ways to 3D print organs. A team of researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel unveiled a 3D printed heart with human tissue and vessels just last year.

Companies like Skorpio Medical have gone as far as to begin research in the realms of 3D printed limbs. In the near future, you may be able to simply renew a body part when it goes bad. Your body gets more and more limited as you get older. Advances in biotechnologies could put an end to this. Even more so, genetic engineering could eventually prevent the aging of cells or completely reverse it altogether. Lose a finger? Simply print a new one? Need a new arm? Call up a doctor and have them reinstall one.

Cryogenic freezing has its fair share of skeptics, but over the years, the scientific community has slowly embraced the idea. Now, you cannot freeze yourself yet and wake up, but there could be a future in which you simply put your body on ice for extended periods of time to be awakened on a given date or time.

This could come in handy during trips to distant planets hundreds of light-years away. Nevertheless, cryogenic freezing is simply an option for people who want to freeze their bodies when they pass away with the aims of bringing them back during a time period where science makes it possible. However, there is some research that centers around using cryonics to slow tissue aging.

You have probably heard it before, but we are probably living in a virtual world, at least that is one people who buy into simulation theory believe. However, in the coming age of electronic immortality, living in the virtual world may become an alternative to living in the current one. Think of it like that episode of San Junipero from the popular Netflix series Black Mirror. Perhaps in the future, androids are extremely expensive, but the cheaper alternative is to have some humans uploaded into a cloud-based virtual reality system, a place where you could spend all eternity living in peace with an avatar of your choosing. Most people already live on the internet, so in most cases, it is just a matter of time?

But, what could come after creating a virtual world? Though this could happen far beyond 2050, we are talking thousands of years; it could be possible. In short, humanity might be able to simulate reality on a universal scale using what is known as a matrioshka brain. Based on the Dyson sphere, a matrioshka brain is a hypothetical megastructure proposed by Robert J. Bradbury. The idea was proposed when imagining the type of highly advanced civilizations that are out there in the universe as this would be an impressive Class B stellar engine, employing the entire energy output of a star to drive computer systems.

Our entire species could be uploaded on this computer system able to simulate reality and remake the universe as we know it. Though this idea may seem far from reality, the idea of uploading the mind to a computer seemed like a distant fantasy at some point.

One of the lesser-known projects that Elon Musk is working on centers around the star-up Neuralink. The company has ambitious plans to directly link brains and computers using a simple, noninvasive device that we can install in our brains. The current fascination with brain-computer interface centers around helping those with neurological mobility issues. However, Musks project extends far beyond that. The eventual goal is to create a "digital superintelligence layer" to link humans with artificial intelligence. As stated in the Neuralink San Francisco presentation, "Ultimately, we can do a full brain-machine interface where we can achieve a sort of symbiosis with AI."

But why stop there? Developments in robotics and prosthetics could open the gates to human-robot hybrids. You may be able to simply go in for a procedure to get bionic eyes, a robotic arm, new legs, etc., all with features that suit your needs and wildest dreams. Just like a toolbox, you could be able to switch out different arms, fingers, and legs for different activities.

Do you think it will be possible for humans to live forever? Share your opinion in the comment section.

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How Long Do You Want to Live? This Technology Could Potentially Help People Live Forever - Interesting Engineering

As pet deathcare providers, we assist families with the euthanasia process in their own homes and with the disposition of their pets body once death has occurred. Most families chose traditional dispositions like burial or cremation. Less frequently, they may choose something untraditional, like taxidermy. This would be the first time weve ever worked with clients who requested cryogenic preservation.

It was nearly 7:30 pm in Richmond, California, in late March of 2018, and from the crest where I stood I could see the last dregs of the sun slipping below the horizon. Across the Bay, the silhouette of San Francisco was drenched in shades of hazy sherbet. My husband Derek and I held hands as we slipped inside the corner houses gate and knocked on the door. His black medical kit, a plain bag, was slung over one shoulder to hang on his hip.

Laura, a tall, online psychology professor in her fifties with a background in hospice and crisis line work, ushered us inside. Her son, Jordan, a quiet 27-year-old college student, slipped into the room after us. We were there to meet Dakota, a 14-year-old mixed breed dog who was dying of right-sided heart failure.

In late April 2017, our own dog Harper was dying of heart failure, too. We eventually euthanized her in our living room, sitting on our red leather couch, with our favorite band playing quietly from the speakers as I held her to my chest the same way we took naps together over our nine years together. Once she died, I placed her in a casket lined with a bright pink towel and surrounded her body with flowers and her favorite treats. We took pictures of her before the procedure and after she was arranged in her casket. Then we drove to the crematory. I placed her body in the retort myself, and we picked her up an hour later. Sitting in our parked car with her urn in my lap, we decided to open a veterinary practice focused on providing in-home hospice, palliative care, and euthanasia. Derek was a veterinarian; I worked as a licensed funeral director, embalmer, and crematory operator across the Bay Area before moving to pet deathcare. We believed that a good death was an integral part of a good life.

Hospice and palliative care is healthcare focused on maximizing quality of life, usually for terminally ill patients. Dakota the dog was that kind of patient. He had right-sided heart failure, a chronic condition in which the heart muscle or valves doesnt pump blood efficiently. As a result, the fluids back up into the abdomen. (Left-sided heart failure causes the blood to back up in the lungs instead, leading to breathing problems and eventual suffocation.) Laura and Jordan had been managing Dakotas illness with medication, administration of concentrated oxygen, and periodic drainage of the fluid from his abdomen. Ultimately, most causes of heart disease in dogs are not reversible conditions. Death is not a matter of if, but when.

Normally, we advise that families choose euthanasia over a natural death. As we explain it, the body is a machine whose dominant goal is to continue functioning. It will push to do so regardless of pain or difficulty. Euthanasia hastens the natural dying process as painlessly as we know how to with current medical science. Jordan and Laura wanted Dakota to die naturally, without the assistance of euthanasia medications, but they also wanted to ensure his pain was managed.

As a veterinarian, my primary role and ethical imperative is to advocate on behalf of the pet, who is at a disadvantage in the decision-making process to begin with, Derek explains, as he remembers Dakota. Even at the expense of disappointing or angering the owner, advocating for the most ethical death experience is forefront. If Dakota had been dying of left-sided heart failure, the type that causes suffocation, Derek would have insisted on euthanasia as the most humane and ethical choice. Because Dakota was experiencing right-sided heart failure instead, a natural death was acceptable because the amount of suffering was minimal. (Pain is one type of suffering, but there are many different types of suffering, including nausea, malaise, fatigue, and fear.) Derek and I provided a hospice Emergency Comfort Kit filled with sedatives and pain relief, as encouraged by the International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care.

Jordan let us know that they were interested in cryogenically preserving Dakotas body after death, a process he first learned about when he was a teenager. My dad died when I was 10, Jordan would later tell me. I think that sort of really made me more aware of mortality in a way most 10-year-olds arent. He and Laura arranged to have Dakota received at the Cryonics Institute (CI) in Detroit, Michigan, a place that describes cryonics as a form of one-way medical time travel. Cryopreservation is the process where biological tissue, like a body, is cooled to very low temperatures with the intention of stopping chemical processes that might cause damage to the tissue, like decomposition. The bodies (or patients, as theyre referred to in the industry) are held in a dewar, a tall stainless steel vat. Ultimately, the end goal of cryopreservation is to hold the body in stasis until new technology is invented that can reverse or cure the injury or ailment that caused death.

Cryopreservation of tissue isnt a new concept. In 1964, a physics teacher named Robert Ettinger published The Prospect of Immortality, a book which promoted the concept of cryonics. By 1972, the first cryonics organization was founded (a company now called Alcor, located in Scottsdale, AZ.) And the technology used in the cryopreservation process is even older than that.

The tech we use goes back to the time of Queen Victoria, Steve Garan tells me over the phone. Garan is the Chief Technology Officer of TransTime, a cryonic suspension service out of San Leandro, CA that was founded in 1974. Hes also a Research Fellow at UC Berkeley, the Director of Bioinformatics at the Center for Research & Education on Aging, and a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Cryogenic liquids were synthesized back in the late 1800s... The dewar was developed back in the 1800s as well. We use Victorian technology.

Cryopreservation of biological material has included semen, blood, tissues like tumors, eggs, embryos, ovarian tissue, and plant seeds, but as of yet no human has been cryopreserved and revived. In order to do that, youd have to cure whatever caused their death, chuckles Garan. ...[But] there are people walking around today that were frozen embryos, he offers as proof of concept. For every open letter on cryonic justification signed by scientists, you can find a similar counterargument denouncing it as snake oil mixed with false hopes.

In Richmond, Derek and I gently counseled Laura and Jordan about the scientific validity of cryonics, ensuring they fully understood that there is, as of yet, no proof as to the likelihood of success. The contract they signed with CI is similarly shrouded in dire legal jargon: Laura and Jordan must represent that they understand cryonic cryopreservation is an unknown, untested process, and that no human being, or any adult vertebrate, has ever been successfully cryonically suspended and revived, and that the success of cryopreservation depends on future advances in science and technology and that the probability of success is completely unknown. CI charged $7,300 for the privilege of storing Dakotas body after death, excluding the costs of shipping his body there as soon as possible after dying.

Laura doesnt disagree. I would not advise anybody to do it, she tells me frankly, speaking quickly but clearly. I think theyre just throwing money away. She used life insurance money from her husbands death to cover most of the costs and bridged the gap by borrowing from her retirement fund. Jordan still feels gratitude about both the money spent and the fact that spending it didnt affect their quality of life. He plans to repay her once hes graduated and making money.

Derek and I agree that besides the necessity of ensuring the comfort of the pet, a huge part of our work is focused on helping the family find comfort in their moment of grief. If money is a tool meant to improve our lifes experience while were living, and cryopreservation of Dakotas body contributes to a sense of solace for Laura and Jordan, then we have successfully completed at least one facet of our job.

Laura acknowledges that shes choosing of her own free will and volition to sign the paperwork, pay the fees, and send Dakota (and, eventually, in February 2020, their 16-year-old dog Maggie, too) to be cryopreserved. But she believes the industry preys upon peoples fear of death.

It magnifies my fear of death, she explains. It makes me more afraid to die. Im concerned they might start cryopreserving me before Im fully dead, I might feel it, it might be painful. And the thought of waking up a millennium from now, surrounded by people with different customs, technology, and languages, contributes to her fear.

She wont fully commit to saying that patients will never be revivedshes been wrong beforebut posits that the number of variables that have to fall into place for it to happen seem unlikely. There are so many factors that are going to have to work out perfectly.

Jordan himself isnt actually fully sold on the feasibility, either. I think theres a reasonable enough chance that its worth doing, he explains carefully, his measured cadence in direct opposition to his moms rapid-fire responses. I sort of see it like an insurance policy. I mean, if youre decomposed in the ground or burnt to ash [via cremation], theres basically a zero percent chance of ever living again. He likens it to Pascals Wager, a philosophical argument that posits humans bet with their lives in the existence or nonexistence of God. Pascals Wager argues that a rational person should live as though God exists, as his nonexistence will result in finite loss, whereas they stand to receive infinite gains (an eternity in Heaven) or suffer infinite loss (eternity in hell) for atheism.

Jordans other big argument is the shifting litmus test for what constitutes death. Through most of the existence of animal life, if your heart stops, youre dead, he says. But now, of course, theres plenty of people who have gone into cardiac arrest and been resuscitated. Look at someone like Dick Cheney, who was alive without a heartbeat walking and talking. (After a series of heart attacks, Cheney had a small pump called a left ventricular assist device installed while waiting for a heart transplant. The devices creates continuous blood flow and results in no pulse or measurable blood pressure.)

After Derek and I left, we exchanged emails with Laura late into the evening, collecting information about the requirements to ship Dakotas body to CI. We originally planned to use UPS. Per CIs instructions, Dakota should be wrapped in a towel, contained within a plastic bag, tucked into a good quality cooler secured with clear tape, cooled with bags of ice. From there, he should be packed into a large cardboard box and shipped as an animal diagnostic specimen. The words dead dog or dead animal were not to be used, lest they cause the UPS employee to refuse the package. Time, we were told, is of the essence. With cryopreservation of people, if there is advance warning of the death, the patient is placed in an ice bath within seconds of clinical death being declared. Decomposition begins immediately.

Dakota died overnight. The dogs death led to a mad scramble, where the best laid plans of veterinarians and cryonic institutes ultimately go awry when two UPS employees refuse the shipment. I did what I could to assist with the process, but my hands were tied by the failure of the UPS to follow their own bureaucratic policies. My contact at CI told me this kind of screw-up is a rarity and depends solely on the employee; they claimed to have received another pet via UPS shipment through without issue.

One full day passes. Then another. Derek and I worried and wondered about what happened. Did Dakota get there? Even if Dakota got there, would he be able to be cryopreserved? Does water ice even follow the appropriate standards for good cryopreservation? Were we helping our clients get ripped off by assisting in this process?

I eventually found out that Laura was put in touch with Garan at TransTime, who delivered Dakotas body in person via commercial flight from California to Michigan. TransTime doesnt normally handle the cryopreservation of pets, but Garan is also a pet owner; he has a 15-year-old dog named Skippy and could empathize with Lauras predicament. Dogs are like family, he says. We treat them almost like children, in a way. He had no problem assisting with the transfer and he jokes that the x-ray technician who took Dakotas body through security nearly fainted.

Dakota was finally received at CI and his body cryopreserved in a dewar, per Laura and Jordans instructions. Jordan says he was sent a picture of Dakota cryopreserved in Michigan, and tells me he has no worries about it being an outright scam. It seems like it would be a pretty big conspiracy if theyre not really even freezing the bodies, he says.

Even without physically seeing the procedure performed, Lauras gut feeling is also that Dakota was properly preserved and stored. They genuinely believe in what theyre doing. I dont believe theyre consciously setting out to take advantage of people.

For their part, CI Headquarters say they try to be as open as possible so people can find comfort and closure. They have pets shipped via water ice because dry ice freezes a pets smaller body and prevents perfusion, a process involving an injection of cryoprotective solutions that decreases freezing damage to the cells. (Though pets like birds are not perfused because their vascular systems are too small to work with, which means theyre frozen and more likely to suffer damage than a perfused pet.) CI currently has 184 pets in cryopreserved storage.

Garan notes that while the repair job for Dakota may be more difficult because of the time between death and cryopreservation, its not impossible. By the time we get to that point, it may be kind of irrelevant, he says. The technology to do so could exist in the form of bioprinters, biogenerators, nanorobotics, the human/brain cloud... At the end of the day, theres just as much uncertainty about the preservation of a pet as there is about people. The bottom line is they have all the time for technology to do its thing.

When I speak to Laura nearly two years after Dakotas death, shes a week out from her second dogs death. She and Jordan have also elected to have Maggies body cryopreserved, though this time closer to home at TransTime. (Garan, for his part, makes it clear that TransTime will only consider pet cryopreservation if their accompanying human has plans to be preserved as well.)

Both Laura and Jordan felt like cryopreserving Dakota and Maggie was stressful to undergo. I wouldnt call it a pleasant process by any means, says Jordan, though he does point out that working closer to home certainly made things easier. For Laura, the grief of Maggies death combined with the stress of logistics plus the added remorse of money spent has her feeling sad and depressed.

Its almost like with both dogs, I didnt really have a chance to grieve and mourn because there was so much hassle to make this happen. She vacillates between worrying about whether its unhealthy that Jordan has a lifetime of false hope that he might get his dogs back and feeling adamant that its worth it to grant Jordan that modicum of hope and protect him from his fear.

For Jordan, his intense fear of death, of nonexistence, and of a negative afterlife are enough to overpower any frustrations caused through the process. If I did it for myself, but I didnt do it for Maggie and Dakota when I woke up then I would regret it forever, he says.

Ace Ratcliff lives and works in sunny Boynton Beach, FL with their veterinarian husband and a pack of wild beasts. Their hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome makes for a rebellious meatcage. They like reading, getting tattooed, and tweeting @mortuaryreport.

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Cryonics, Dakota the Dog, and the Hope of Forever - Gizmodo

Meet the Man Who Looks After Nederland's Frozen Dead Guy - 5280 Photo by Chet Strange

Taking care of the cryogenically frozen corpse saved Brad Wickham's life.

It was 2014, and Brad Wickham was done with death. Hed spent the past 25 years working as a respiratory therapist in hospital emergency departments, where the relentless cycle of seeing patients die caused him such trauma that hed been diagnosed with PTSD. Wickham turned to alcohol and drugs to cope. Realizing he needed a fresh start, Wickham moved from Missouri to Nederland because he heard he might find work there. Eventually he didthough there was one catch: Would he be willing to spend time with a dead body?

Although small, Nederland has an outsize reputation, partly due to a local named Bredo Morstoel, a Norwegian man whos been dead for 30 years. In the early 1990s, Morstoels family brought his corpse to town, aiming to create a cryonics facility, but legal issues required them to leave the country before it came to fruition. Bredo stayed behind and became the centerpiece of Nederlands Frozen Dead Guy Days (March 13 to 15), a winter festival with live music and eccentric events like coffin racing. Bredos relatives pay someone to take care of Morstoel during the other 362 days of the year. Since 2014, that person has been Wickham.

Morstoels body rests within a Tuff Shed near Nederlands Barker Reservoir. Every two weeks, Wickham, now 61, empties around 1,000 pounds of dry ice into a wooden container that holds the casket, keeping the corpse near minus 110 degrees Celsius. The ritual provides him an opportunity to catch up and chat with the man hes come to think of as family. That might be the part where a therapist could come in handy, Wickham says, but Ive kind of grown sentimental about it. I know he depends on me.

This article appeared in the March 2020 issue of 5280.

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Meet the Man Who Looks After Nederland's Frozen Dead Guy - 5280 | The Denver Magazine

Updated February 26, 2020 12:34:04

When Ron Fielding tells people he plans to be brought back to life long after he dies, he gets a few curious looks, but that is just what he has signed up for.

Cryonics has been a passion of Mr Fielding's for decades.

The 78-year-old from Goulburn in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, is a member with The Cryonics Institute in the United States.

He has spent years researching the process of having his body frozen, or put into a state of 'suspension' and is hoping that one day, his own frozen body will be brought back to life.

Mr Fielding had initially planned that at age 84 he would leave his family and move to the US to be closer to a cryonics storage facility.

But he is now hoping his move across the world may not need to go ahead as groundwork for the first cryonics storage facility in the southern hemisphere started this month in Holbrook, in southern NSW.

Mr Fielding visited the site on the weekend to take a sneak peek of the facility where he hopes to be kept in suspension and to start the long wait for science to maybe, one day, bring him back into the world of the living.

Mr Fielding said while he was used to facing scepticism about the possibility of being brought back from the dead, he remained an optimist.

"People might laugh, but someone had to be a pioneer," he said.

"They always laughed at people when they're going to do something [new], but I feel this is the start of another exploration.

"The way science and that are today, just ask yourself, 'why should you die?'"

Mr Fielding said he hoped he would not be waking up alone in the future if he ever is brought back to life.

But he should not worry too much as his son, Guy Fielding, has also signed on to be suspended.

Guy, who describes himself as having "an open mind", decided to be frozen after learning about the process from his father.

It was an exciting moment for Mr Fielding and his son to inspect the foundations of the storage facility in Holbrook this month.

"I'd rather Dad stayed in Australia if it's at all a possibility, rather than go to America at one the cryonics institutes in the States," Guy said.

"This is really exciting to keep Dad with us here in Australia.

"If one day we can be together again, that will be fantastic [and] if we're here in Australia, that will be a better option than being overseas."

The warehouse at Holbrook will be operated by Southern Cryonics and is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

Zoning, location, and a reduced risk of natural disaster all helped lead to the small town becoming one of the cryonics capitals of the southern hemisphere.

The warehouse will only be around 100 square metres and will host up to 40 clients.

For those undergoing the process, a designated response team will step into action after a client is declared legally dead.

The body will be stabilised to help preserve the brain as best as possible and slowly cooled, before the body is wrapped in ice and injected with an anticoagulant to stop blood clotting.

Water will then be removed from cells and replaced with a glycerol-based chemical.

The body is cooled to dry-ice temperatures to about minus 130 degrees Celsius and is then placed upside down in a vacuum-sealed tank filled with liquid nitrogen.

Being upside down will protect the brain from any potential leaks in the tank, where temperatures hover around minus 200 degree Celsius.

Different specialist teams will be in charge of different steps of the suspension process, with Southern Cryonics in charge of the final storage stage.

"We have the technology for the suspension part," Southern Cryonics founder, director, and chairman Peter Tsolakides said.

"Where the technology does not exist, very clearly, is technology and science of the future, and that is to bring people back."

That has not deterred future clients, whom Mr Tsolakides described as "optimists".

"Most of the people who are interested in cryonics are male [and] either they've got a science or STEM-type background or they're interested in that," he said.

"They've got an interest in the future and normally they're very positive about the future, they have a positive aspect, they're optimistic type people generally."

Being frozen is more expensive than a standard funeral or cremation.

So far 27 founding members of Southern Cryonics have committed $50,000 each to help build the facility, and will receive a free suspension.

Founding memberships will be closing on March 31, this year and after that, associated members who want to be frozen will have to pay $150,000.

Mr Fielding and his son Guy have weighed up the financial obstacle and agree it was "an issue".

"Things like insurance and having something there when you pass away usually you have some assets saved up, and that's when you make the commitment to spend," Guy said.

"Certainly being able to raise the funds and do it now would be difficult while you're still living but I think it's something you have in place when you do pass."

Executive officer of the Cryonics Association of Australasia, Phil Rhoades, who joined the Fieldings on their tour of the site, is expecting cryonics to become more mainstream.

"I'm expecting a non-foundation member to happen relatively quickly in the next year or two," he said.

"I'm guessing the first person [to be frozen] is going to be a non-foundation member who is going to come out of the blue, finding out that the facility is working and wanting to take advantage of it.

"There's the possibility also of preserving pets, so I wouldn't be surprised if that happened sooner than a human as well."

Like the Fieldings, Mr Rhoades is also an optimist about what the future holds.

"People are starting to think that anything might be possible," he said.

Topics:science-and-technology,health,community-and-society,medical-research,death,holbrook-2644,goulburn-2580,united-states

First posted February 26, 2020 11:43:20

Link:

Work begins on first cryonics storage facility in southern hemisphere - ABC Local

The first facility in the Southern Hemisphere thats capable of storing frozen dead bodies, so they can be brought back to life one day,should open in Australia this year.

For $50,000 as a foundation member, you can help build the storage warehouse at Holbrook, north of Albury in regional NSW. Southern Cryonics will operate the facility which initially will store up to 40 bodies, kept suspended by a system of freezing and preserving. Foundation members receive a free suspension.

The way science and that are today, just ask yourself, why should you die? Ron Fielding

Foundation members Ron Fielding and his son Guy told ABC News they are excited about the prospect of being awakened in the distant future. They always laughed at people when theyre going to do something [new] but I feel this is the start of another exploration, said Ron Fielding, who has been researching cryonics for decades.

The way science and that are today, just ask yourself, why should you die?

For some people, these current technological advances might conjure up pop culture images from the past like Han Solo in the 1983 flick Return of the Jedi. But actually before all that in fact, over two thousand years ago Jesus has been offering people the ability to not die and to rise from the dead. And with no financial transaction needed.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life, said Jesus, referring to himself as that all-important son of God (see John 3:16).

Christians have placed their hope in this offer by Jesus, who backed up his claim by himself rising from the dead three days after he was crucified by Roman officials.

Similar to what cryonics promises, the Bible says those who have faith in Jesus will be as if asleep in death (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17) and will rise again (John 11:25-26).

But in contrast, the Bible also says they will receive newly refurbished bodies: For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies (2 Corinthians 5:1-3).

And the cost outlaid for this afterlife process? Already paid in Jesus himself: The Son of Man [Jesus] came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:28)

Quite the life-after-death deal, isnt it?

Follow this link:

Want to live forever? It will cost you $50,000 - Eternity News

Alexey Boronenkov, one of the clients of the company Kriorus, frozen brain and my 70 year old mother in the hope that it will be able to return to life with the help of scientific progress.

I took this decision because we were very close. I thought that this is the only opportunity to meet in the future, he said.

He himself is going to cryonization after death.

I Hope one day we will reach such a level that it will be possible to create an artificial body with an artificial muscle tissues and organs which may be transplanted the brain of my mother, he says.

the ContextHoliness and frozen Ilta-Sanomat18.01.2018 Stern: the Russian business aimed at Stern03.10.2018 Cryopreservation as a successful Helsingin Sanomat11.06.2017

investing in the future for tens of thousands of dollars

In the suburban tanks of the company in liquid nitrogen at minus 196 degrees stored the body or the brain 71 people and Pets. It is an expensive procedure. The preservation of the whole body will cost 36 thousand dollars, the preservation of the brain 15 thousand dollars.

This is a much higher level of average salaries of Russians. For foreigners the cost is a little higher. Customers from more than 20 countries have signed a contract with the company regarding further actions with their bodies after death.

a Firm referred to as expensive funeral Agency

the activity of the company is often criticized. Evgeny Alexandrov, the head of the Commission of Sciences to combat pseudoscience and falsification of scientific data, said the newspaper FStia that cryonics is a very commercial idea that lacks any scientific basis.

Its a fantasy, speculating on the hopes of the people about the resurrection of the dead and dreams of eternal life quoted by his newspaper.

Valeria Udalova Director of the company, her dead dog froze in 2008. She considers it likely that humanity will be able to develop the technology to revive dead people. However, she acknowledges that no guarantees for this.

According to Valerie Udalovoy, the people who pay for the procedure for preservation of bodies of relatives show how much they love their loved ones.

They need hope, she says.

What can we do for our dead relatives and loved ones? A good funeral, an album of photographs. And these people go on proving their love even stronger.

the new York times contain estimates of the solely foreign media and do not reflect the views of the editorial Board of the new York times.

View original post here:

MTV (Finland): the Russian firm will freeze your body or brain for resurrection in the future - International Law Lawyer News

SERGIEV POSAD ( RUSSIA ): When Alexei Voronenkovs 70-year-old mother passed away, he paid to have her brain frozen and stored in the hope breakthroughs in science will one day be able to bring her back to life. It is one of 71 brains and human cadavers which Russian company KrioRus calls its patients floating in liquid nitrogen in one of several metres-tall vats in a corrugated metal shed outside Moscow.'; var randomNumber = Math.random(); var isIndia = (window.geoinfo && window.geoinfo.CountryCode === 'IN') && (window.location.href.indexOf('outsideindia') === -1 ); console.log(isIndia && randomNumber They are stored at -196Celsius (-320.8F) with the aim of protecting them against deterioration, although there is currently no evidence science will be able to revive the dead. I did this because we were very close and I think it is the only chance for us to meet in the future, said Voronenkov who intends to undergo the procedure, known as cryonics, when he dies. The head of the Russian Academy of Sciencess Pseudoscience Commission, Evgeny Alexandrov, described cryonics as an exclusively commercial undertaking that does not have any scientific basis, in comments to a newspaper. KrioRus says hundreds of potential clients from nearly 20 countries have signed up for its after-death service. It costs $36,000 for the whole body and $15,000 for brain alone for Russians, who earn average monthly salaries of $760, according to statistics. Prices are higher for non-Russians.Voronenkov said he set his hopes on science. I hope one day it reaches a level when we can produce artificial organs to create an artificial body where my mothers brain can be integrated.

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Brain freeze: New path to immortality - Times of India

Immortality has always been one of the biggest human obsessions. From fantasy to science fiction, eternal life is often depicted both a boon and a bane. And now, a Russian firm could be making these dreams of immortality real - for only Rs 25 lakh.

A Russian firm by the name of KrioRus is offering to freeze human brains and cadavers in cryogenic cylinders for the sum of Rs 25 lakh. the bodies will be frozen in liquid nitrogen for an unspecified time until the technology becomes available for reanimating the body again.

If it sounds like a nightmare out of Dr Frankenstein's head, you are probably not far off the mark.

When Alexei Voronenkovs 70-year-old mother passed away, he paid to have her brain frozen and stored in the hope breakthroughs in science will one day be able to bring her back to life.

It is one of 71 brains and human cadavers that KrioRus calls its patients - floating in liquid nitrogen in one of several metres-tall vats in a corrugated metal shed outside Moscow.

They are stored at -196 degrees Celsius (-320.8F) with the aim of protecting them against deterioration, although there is currently no evidence science will be able to revive the dead.

I did this because we were very close and I think it is the only chance for us to meet in the future, said Voronenkov who intends to undergo the procedure, known as cryonics, when he dies.

The head of the Russian Academy of Sciencess Pseudoscience Commission, Evgeny Alexandrov, described cryonics as an exclusively commercial undertaking that does not have any scientific basis, in comments to the Izvestia newspaper.

It is a fantasy speculating on peoples hopes of resurrection from the dead and dreams of eternal life, the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Valeriya Udalova, KrioRuss director who got her dog frozen when it died in 2008, said it is likely that humankind will develop the technology to revive dead people in the future, but that there is no guarantee of such technology.

KrioRus says hundreds of potential clients from nearly 20 countries have signed up for its after-death service.

It costs $36,000 (about Rs 25 lakh) for a whole body and $15,000 (about Rs 10 lakh) for the brain alone for Russians, who earn average monthly salaries of $760, according to official statistics. Prices are slightly higher for non-Russians.

The company says it is the only one in Russia and the surrounding region. Set up in 2005, it has at least two competitors in the United States, where the practice dates back further.

Voronenkov said he set his hopes on science. I hope one day it reaches a level when we can produce artificial bodies and organs to create an artificial body where my mothers brain can be integrated.

KrioRus director Udalova argues that those paying to have dying relatives remains preserved are showing how much they love them.

They try to bring hope, she said. What can we do for our dying relatives or the ones that we love? A nice burial, a photo album, she said. They go further, proving their love even more.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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Original post:

Immortality or Scam? Russian Company Offers to Freeze Dead Brains to Revive Them in Future - News18