Coming to an end… February 27th, 2011

From the title you might be thinking that cryogenics is coming to an end, or that they have stopped providing money for cryogenics. Eh! (that was supposed to be a buzzer sound) Wrong! No, the title is just saying my blogging is coming to an end.  I am coming close to the end of the 3^rd quarter now and I have completed my community service and blogging for that portion of the class so this is my farewell blog post.  This has been a very, very interesting experience from writing a 1,000 word paper all the way to touring a cryogenics facility. 

            This is the last blog post I will be doing.  Thank you very much for following my blog and reading it.  I hope if you have any interest in cryogenics I helped you in some way whether you decided you wanted to do it or completely hate the idea, I hope that I helped.  This has been an interesting experience.

Thanks for reading,

    Kirsten46

Corpsicles v. Frogsicles February 11th, 2011

           Humans and Frogs, have you ever thought about how they are realted?  Wheter you believe in Darwin’s theory or not, frogs and humans have very similar body structures.  Now you are probably wondering something like, “Why do I care if frogs and humans are realted? It’s not like I have a frog for a child.”  Yes I know you do not yet understand why anyone would even care about frogs and humans being related, hint: it has something to do with cryogenics.  Watch this video by clicking here to find out more! 

This is a frozen wood frog as seen on the forest floor.

            Now that you have seen the video you probably understand why I am writing this blog post, and you probably got from the narration at the end of the video that it has to do with cryogenics when he said, “immortality might be ours if we could manage to do the same.” If we can freeze frogs to the point where they are as close to death as you can be without being “dead” why cant we for humans? Humans do have very similar body structure to a frog, and they both have the same kinds of organs and systems and organs.  The anatomy of a frog is much simpler.  The frog's internal organs- the heart, lungs, and digest organs and held in a hollow space.  While our organs have protection and are much more complex.

            When frogs freeze they are commonly referred to as “frogsicles.”  According to Ken Storey, scientist in biochemistry lab, says that the body, “Basically, the body turns into a syrup mass.”  Then in the spring the Wood Frogs make a compete turn-aroound and come back to life.  But Ken and Janet Storey say, “But our focus is not how to apply these techniques to humans down the line. We want to figure out how the biological systems work. Other people can take it from there.”  The Wood Frogs know when they are about to freeze so their body knows to increase their blood sugar levels which acts as an anti-freeze for when they become frozen.  Many scientists say humans need something like that because the way we are cryogenically freezing people now is causing brain damage.  Cryogenics facilities freeze humans at colder than -300⁰ Fahrenheit (-184.4⁰ Celsius) which is much lower than what Wood Frogs freeze at on the forest floor. At the moment these extremely low temperatures dry out cells which cause harm to the human body.  “Still, while the Wood Frogs example is alluring, it's not cryonic preservation in the true sense. These frogs don't actually die. And in replicating this process, scientists have only been able to freeze and revive individual animal organs for a short period of time -- a far cry from reviving an entire organism.”

            Isn’t this amazing? Tell me what you think about the Wood Frogs freezing on the forest floor and then recovering with no problem in the comment box, I’d love to hear your opinions! Thanks for reading!

Cryogenics: The Opinions... February 7th, 2011

          I think it is pretty obvious that there are many, many opinions on cryogenics.  All the way from if it is a religious issue, to the expense,to if it should be legal before death for people with a terminal illness.  If you do not already know this I am doing this blog for a Research and Media Study class where I was assigned to select a topic of choice, write a paper, create a survey, create a video, and select to do a: community service project and blog about it, write a public service announcement, or create a feature video.  We also had to come up with a topic question to ask and answer, my topic question was: Should people with a terminal illness be allowed to be cryogenically frozen before they are medically considered brain dead?  I obviously selected to do community service and blog about it, although I ran out of community service things to blog about pretty quickly so I decided to just talk about some of the key points of cryogenics. 

            I created my survey and published it to 25 family and friends from November 31, 2010 thru December 7, 2011.  I received 19 responses to my survey; which was 10 questions multiple choice that asked about the survey taker’s opinion on cryogenics, if they have had/ or known someone who has had cryogenics etcetera.  Questions 9 and 10 of the survey were long answers which both got a generous 18 responses each.  The last two questions asked were, “What are your opinions about people cryogenically freezing themselves before they are medically considered brain dead?”  And also, “What do you think cryogenics could do for the world if it worked effectively?”  In this blog post I am only going to talk about question 9.

            I am going to share some of the survey responses with you so that you can see how many diverse and intense opinions were given.  For question 9, “What are your opinions about people cryogenically freezing themselves before they are medically considered brain dead?”  Out of the 18 responses that were received 3 out of those 18 (16%) think that it should be okay for another person to be cryogenically frozen before they are medically brain dead if they have a terminal illness.  5 out of the 18 people (28%) said something that meant they basically were not in favor of it at all.  And doubling the number of people completely opposed to it, 10 of the 18 people (56%) said something along the lines of “it is a person’s choice to do what they wish”.     

           

       People that were okay with cryogenics for a person that is not yet medically brain dead but with some conditions said things like: “I think it should be allowed once the technology exists to safely bring them back,” or, “It is up to them, but not their relatives.”  Now the people that are completely against cryogenics answered this question with things like, “First of all, we are all terminal. We all die. If we freeze ourselves, we only prolong the end. Hardly seems worth it. If there is only so much time left, let's have fun and not freeze ourselves,” and another reply was, “This would be self-serving. We are here to serve GOD and others until he decides to take us home. Sure we live longer due to science but the time comes when we let go. Besides, say in twenty years a cure is found, the rest of the world will have changed drastically from what it was so you probably would wish you had gone the first time.”  Some comments from the 10 people that said it would be okay if another person could be cryogenically frozen before they are legally declared brain dead said things like, “I believe that an individual should have the right to cryogenically freeze themselves if they want to. It should be an individual right to do so,” and one woman said, “They have a right to do with themselves and their money as they wish as long as it does not infringe on the rights of someone else.”  These are some of the many opinions on cryogenics tell me yours in the comment box below.  Thanks for reading!

Cryogenics: The Moral, Religious and Ethical Issues February 2nd, 2011



The picture used to represent cryogenics

 on a religious website.



           As I have said before in many blogs there are many moral, religious and ethical issues about cryogenics.  Some people are against cryogenics for many reasons; a few of them are that you are getting cryopreserved while there are thousands of malnourished children across the world.  So basically what this is saying is that you are spending tens of thousands of dollars to be frozen so that you can live longer while the children that are starving, have no money and will live shorter lives.  See the problem?  What about the overpopulation?  The world is overpopulating every minute and that is with the 1-2 million abortions that are carried out throughout the US alone every year.  If we are overpopulating as we know it is there really room for more people?  More the less, frozen, lifeless people?

            One example of a religious question you might hear about cryogenics could be, “Where does the soul go when you are cryopreserved?”  Or, “Why would you want to live longer than god intended you to?”  These are a few of the many unanswered questions about cryogenics.  People that claim to believe in god this strongly are somewhat hypocritical, in my opinion, for asking such questions.  In chapter 5 of the biblical book Genesis, it names six biblical figures who lived over 900 years, far longer than anyone should expect to live by being cryopreserved.  A few of the biblical figures mentioned were: Adam (950 years), and Methuselah (969 years).

            Now that you know, and slightly understand the moral, religious, and ethical problems people have with cryogenics, do you agree or disagree?  What are your personal problems with cryogenics?  Tell me in the comment box i'd love to know!  

Ted Williams+ Cryogenics= Batting Practice January 11th, 2011



Ted Williams via Google Images



Ted Williams.  First person in Major League baseball to hit 400 in a single season, and has the highest career batting average for anyone with 500 or more home runs, you know, no big deal.    So Hall of Fame, Baseball star, Ted Williams was cryogenically frozen in 2002.  The plan with this Cryogenics patient was the same as any other; be frozen, wake up later, continue living their life.  That’s not exactly how Ted’s experience with cryogenics went. 



            It went something like this: his head was separated from his body, and then he was specially treated and cooled to temperatures that are proper for Cryogenics.  After that his head was store in a steel can filled with liquid nitrogen.  According to Sports Illustrated Ted’s head was, “shaved, drilled with holes, accidently cracked 10 times, and used as batting practice” according to some Alcor Life Extension Foundation.  Williams’’ Head was also supposedly hit with a monkey wrench repeatedly.  Sports Illustrated said that according to a taped conversation between former Alcor chief operating officer Larry Johnson and a board adviser, eight DNA samples among 182 taken from Williams are missing without explanation.

            Williams’ Head is now being contained in a “neurocan” according to Sports Illustrated.  Also acording to many online resources the Williams’ family still owes the Alcor Life Extension Foundation $111,000, because they have only paid $25,000 of the $136,000 owed.  The remaining $136,000 has not yet been paid but Alcor is trying to get the money from Williams’ youngest son who is refusing to pay.  Thanks for reading!  What do you think about this Ted Williams mishap?  Voice your opinion in the comment box, I’d love to hear!

Cryogenics: The Funnies January 6th, 2011

     Cryogenics is a very serious topic.  But there is some fun to it thanks to Cartoon Stock who created many funny ways of looking at cryogenics.  The following cartoons are credited towards Cartoon Stock who created them.  I hope you enjoy the fun part of cryogenics!

I hope you have enjoyed seeing that cryogenics can be fun! Tell me in the comments what your favorite comic was and why.  Thanks for reading!

Cryogenics: The Pros and Cons January 3rd, 2011

Cryogenics as I have said before, is the process of preserving people to give them hope for the future.  Cryogenics has many concerns: moral, ethical, physical, and many more.  The government has not yet decided if they will provide funding for this department of scientific research or not.  These are just a few of the pros and cons of cryogenics that you will need to take into consideration if you want to be cryopreserved. 

Pros of Cryogenics:

            There are many positive things about cryogenics but these are only a few.  First I would say that one of the major pros is that you would be expanding your lifespan, duh!  Next up there is the fact about your money, have you thought about that?  Say you have some money stored away while you are “asleep” you are making money off of your stored money for doing absolutely nothing, cool right?  Oh and did I mention you can wake up like a superhero?  No, I’m just kidding about that but you can wake up with some changes (for better or worse) like in your physical appearance, knowledge etcetera.  The pros about just freezing your head are that it costs less, easier to store, and easier to preserve.

Cons of Cryogenics:

            It seems that for every good thing about cryogenics there are two bad.  The most obvious is you can spend up to $90,000 up to $250,000 on a chance that it will work.  Then when you wake up your family will probably be long gone, all you will have will be great grandchildren, maybe.  Are you just going to walk up and say, “Hi I’m your Uncle John I was cryopreserved,”?  No, I didn’t think so, it would be like you are starting your life over, but if that is what you wanted than imagine this as a pro to cryogenics.  Do you cry at funerals?  Well guess what no one will at yours!  I’m not being mean, I’m just saying if you get cryopreserved you cannot have a funeral, just a party in the freezer box.  Only a chance, you don’t know if it will even work!  Even if they will have a cure to your terminal illness, death of age etcetera. 

I hope this article has helped you understand the pros and cons about cryogenics so that if you were considering it you will think through it again.  Check out the more advanced pros and cons of cryogenics that are throughout the internet to make sure you know what you are doing and you are prepared.  Thanks for reading!