Cryogenic freezing?
I saw on the History channel on Modern Marvels "Extreme Cold" that there was a cryogenic freezing lab somewhere. These bodies are waiting to be unthawed one day looking the same as they did before the deep freeze. How long do they have to be frozen for? Does the freeze-ee pick how long they want to stay frozen?
Anyone with info thank you.
Hi!
The Cryonic providers in the US are the Cryonics Institute, http://www.cryonics.org in Michigan, and Alcor http://www.alcor.org in Arizona. Outside of the US, there are several other organizations, including Kryorus in Russia.
These companies offer, for a fee, to retrieve your body after death, and preserve it at liquid nitrogen temperatures. There is no specific amount of time they will hold your body, you will be preserved until the technology becomes available to revive you.
As for how long that it might take to be revived, good question. Right now, today, we cannot revive a person that has been frozen, even if they were healthly when they were preserved. There are a couple of reasons, "ice damage" and Cryoprotectant toxicity. Both are problems that are being researched, and have had some remarkable breakthroughs(1).
For the people that are already frozen, the hope is that nanotechnology, tiny robotic machines that operate in swarms will be able to repair the damage. "Nano" is also undergoing a lot of research now,(2) and we are starting to see real nano inspired technology on the horizon(3).
Hope that helps,
Ellie
Full Disclosure: I am a life-insurance funded option 2 member of the Cryonics Institute. http://www.cryonics.org
1. Vitrification technology which allows freezing without any ice crystals has recently advanced to the point where entire organs can be preserved, thawed, and Live! (21st Century medicine, http://www.21cm.com)
2. Wall street Journal, BBC, Take your pick.
3. In medicine and cosmetics currently, mostly. In another 4 or 5 years we will probably start seeing carbon nano-tube supercapacitors in hybrid cars too.
It's usually until their is the technology to unfreeze the bodies.
The people, whom would choose to be frozen, would most likely choose to be frozen until they can be unfrozen in future times.
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