DARPA project seeks immortality, suspended animation The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is offering money to researchers looking at identifying and controlling timing mechanisms in cells, including those of the human body. The blue sky gazing loon-collective notes that no single "master switch" has been found to control genes' activities. But it hopes that …
Dixie's rebirthday (unfrozen german shepherd): http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics8601.txt
Effects of antifreeze proteins on red blood cell survival during cryopreservation: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/199/9/2071.full.pdf
(These links are from 1986 and 1996 respectively and could be cobwebs. Dixie only went to 4°C, and not for very long. It looks like you need lower temperatures to preserve people for a longer time, but the required cryoprotectants are toxic. I was surprised not to find more modern links.)
"If humanity manages to extend its lifespan, we will soon run out of place on earth. "
History shows us that longer lifespan correlates strongly with decreased birth rate; in fact, many Western societies actually have *negative* population growth, with the rest made up by immigration. There is no reason to assume that with radically extended lifespans, this trend won't continue.
And indeed radically extended lifespan does not necessarily equate with radically extended fertility. Women are born with a finite number of eggs, after all; it would be a bit odd to assume that a woman with an indefinite lifespan will keep having more and more and more and more and more children.
"It can't be done. When you freeze something, the water expands."
That's why cryo institutes like Alcor don't freeze people. Instead, they infuse people with a complex set of cryoprotectants which are intended to displace the water in their cells. When the people are brought down to liquid nitrogen temperature, the cryoprotectants go through a glassy phase change--they vitrify rather than freezing. There's no expansion and no ice crystal formation.
These cryoprotectants have already been used to bring animal organs down to liquid nitrogen temperatures, then warm them back up and show that the cells are still alive and the organs still function.
I beg to differ. Her brain wasn't frozen. Parts of her body that froze were either completely destroyed and required replacement (ie; major internal organs) or lost significant functionality. (ie; fingers)
Given how long it takes ice cubes to freeze in my freezer and the relative size of a head, I am going to assume that her brain wasn't actually frozen in 80 minutes (ie; frozen in the scientific definition as in frozen into an ice cube, causing the creation of ice crystals and expansion which causes the destruction of tissues)
I'm quite willing to assume that her brain was reduced in temperature to virtually zero and not functional, but to the best of my knowledge medical science cannot resuscitate someone who has been *frozen solid*.
A person/soldier is drowning or in some other traumatic state and unconcious. Invent a device that is embedded in the Central Nervous System that can put the persons limbs into auto pilot and swim to safety.... or at least above water so they don't drown/freeze to death. It could even be remote controlled by some one else, or use brain interfaces to tell the mind what activities to perform.<Evil Genius>
"Scientists have evidence of jellyfish roaming the seas for about 500 million years."
refers to the species, not individual entities.
The whole immortality thing is a dead end unless they restrict breeding (which is a whole taboo ballpark in itself) to 1 in, 1 out.
John Barrowman becomes mortal though, the crazy yank weegie.
First use will be a big storage facility at Guantanamo Bay, where they don't have to bother about any boring 'human rights' legislation.
Anyone vaguely suspicious gets warehoused there in cold storage 'just until we get the case sorted out'.
Nice and cheap, no worries about detainees demanding that you produce evidence against them. Hey, you can even promise to release anyone who protests against their detention!
Then you let them go a few decades down the line when all their family and friends are dead so they can't be in any nasty conspiracies.
You know - that's not as ridiculous idea as you make it sound. If suspended animation was actually possible, it could have judicial applications. Analogous to sending convicts to Australia.
So far it's just a science-fiction idea, however, so I don't recommend starting a political party which promises this as a reform. Not that that's going to stop anybody...
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