http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/07/13/2210214.shtml
We can do it.
This is so cool, now can you please explain it?
We can do it.
This is so cool, now can you please explain it?
Chalnoth, it's done! We can freeze ourselves in time.
- Thread starter K.I.L.E.R
- Start date
No big secret: just lower the body temperature. This slows the rate at which chemical reactions occur, which in turn prevents your body from using up the oxygen in the blood and producing toxins (which would eventually kill, though first cause brain damage). The problem is that as warm-blooded animals, our bodies actively resist a lowering of body temperature, which makes it hard to do safely.
Chalnoth said:
That, and our cells would be crushed from the ice buildup within the body.
A lab in our department is pursuing this field actively. Search "Ken Storey", the research is there though he's not as crazy to think you can freeze whole humans yet (though Ken is a crazy character). They've yet to do human organ tissues.
They have a great lab with cool people. We play soccer with them every wednesday.
Well, the experiment in question didn't involve going below freezingdrpepper said:
Yup, and there's lots of good research going on in attempting to try to get survivable temperatures below freezing. It's not easy, but there are a number of animals that can do it, so presumably we can find a way to do it, too.A lab in our department is pursuing this field actively. Search "Ken Storey", the research is there though he's not as crazy to think you can freeze whole humans yet (though Ken is a crazy character). They've yet to do human organ tissues.
They have a great lab with cool people. We play soccer with them every wednesday.
Chalnoth said:Well, the experiment in question didn't involve going below freezing
Yup, and there's lots of good research going on in attempting to try to get survivable temperatures below freezing. It's not easy, but there are a number of animals that can do it, so presumably we can find a way to do it, too.
Oops. I just scanned through the article, I was assuming below zero... My bad.
I lot of frogs, snails, bats, gophers, turltes and what not has died for this research.
It's a shame, the turtles are so cute.
KILER, try the following: take a small goldfish, and throw it into liquid nitrogen. After any amount of time you wish, you can fish it out, and drop it into chilly water (~4 degreees C). Wait a while, and slowly rise the temperature of the water to about 15 degrees. And watch it swim away.
That only works with cold-blooded animals who already have some kind of anti-freeze in their blood and body, though.
That only works with cold-blooded animals who already have some kind of anti-freeze in their blood and body, though.
DiGuru said:
Call me a skeptic. Cold water fish, even fish in the polar regions who have anti-freeze cannot survive "thrown into liquid nitrogen" Carefully lowering their body temperature works, but I have a hard time believing flash-freezing would. In fact, I have a hard time beliving they would survive being frozen solid at all. Some species of frog can survive being frozen solid, but they do so by dehydrating all the water out of their internal organs and moving it just beneath the skin. Fish anti-freeze is not "designed" to let the fish be immobilized in a solid block of ice, but to keep it moving in the water below the ice. The frog on the other hand, is adapted to being frozen solid.
However, it is not adapted to being *flash frozen by LN2*!
KILER, cryonics can be done today. They can replace water in your cells with anti-freeze, or vitrifying agents, then slowly lower you to LN2 temperatures. Of course, you can go whole body, or have just your head frozen. It has been verified by microcellular analysis that freezing damage is limited in these scenarios, with preservation being good, and some limited thermal stress cracking. Of course, unfreezing is difficult. There are toxic levels of anti-freeze gumming up your cell machinery, and cracks in your brain, however the damage is not bad enough to have erased the information content of your mind which is being stored there. Thus, you can be frozen today, but you must wait 100-500 years to be revived when sufficiently advanced biotech/nanotech exists to remove the toxic anti-freeze and repair the cracks, plus, grow you a whole new body.
Frankly, I don't think regrowing a body is that far off. It will happen before nano-repair. You'll also see "body transplant" (or brain trainsplant if you want to call it that) happen in the near future.
it prevents the formation of ice crystals, effectively lowering the freezing temperature. Some chemicals are hydrophobic, repelling water out of areas you don't want frozen.
check out these movies on supercooled water http://f0rked.com/articles/supercooling
check out these movies on supercooled water http://f0rked.com/articles/supercooling
drpepper said:That, and our cells would be crushed from the ice buildup within the body.
A lab in our department is pursuing this field actively. Search "Ken Storey", the research is there though he's not as crazy to think you can freeze whole humans yet (though Ken is a crazy character). They've yet to do human organ tissues.
They have a great lab with cool people. We play soccer with them every wednesday.
Yes, I'm sure they do.
This would have great benefit to those who are waiting for organs for transplant. You might just need a few hours/days to get it, anything that allows you to live just a little longer would be great.Jim Norton said:
epic
