Cryonics : A Reality Check

When the body is frozen, its cells are destroyed. There's no way to prevent this from happening (none that we know of, anyway). The answer from cryonics enthousiasts is always 'nanotechnology'. They believe that tiny robots will be used to repair the damage done to your cells during the freexing process. Needless to say, this sort of technology won't exist for a long, long time if ever. It's not clear that this would be possible even if such nanomachines existed, because a lot of information is simply lost during cell freezing. This is an especially big problem for the brain, where even slight changes can result in loss of memory or damage to a person's personality.

By the way, I think a couple of people here mentioned freezing frogs. Frogs can't really survive being frozen solid. They're able to survive very low temperatures because their bodies produce natural anti-freeze, which prevents their cells from freezing. This allows them to survive temperatures slightly below freezing because the freezing point of their body fluids is depressed. No frog can survive being frozen in liquid nitrogen.

On amorphous ice: the only way to create amorphous ice is to deposit water vapor directly into ice at very low temperatures without allowing it liquefy, or by freezing the water very very quickly. Obviously the first method isn't very useful for cryonics, and no one has been able to come up with a good way to freeze a body quickly enough for the second method. It's a really tough problem, because all of our freezing methods basically involve placing whatever you want to freeze into contact with something really cold. Liquid helium is about as cold as it's possible for something to be, but even it can't cool a body fast enough.
 
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So these 'almost frozen frogs' can't really last 50+ years then, can they? If you have liquid moving inside of the cells, to me that would seem to suggest degradation over time.
 
Nasor,

Nanotechnology would be an impractical solution since,even if you have a zillion of Nanobots,what would you program them with?,how will they repair the cellular damage?by adding cell sap?by repairing the torn surface?,how? by Nano Cloners & replicators?That would be making problem too complex.
Brain's Memory location is not known as yet(As far as i know).We dont know how our memory is affected with external elements (exactly,i mean),what would freezing do to our memory system is yes a question yet too complex to be answered,since we are not in a position to understand our Brains working in an exact manner.

Salvation lies probably would lie in testing wtih Lesser animals or organisms.
also
This is an especially big problem for the brain, where even slight changes can result in loss of memory or damage to a person's personality.
Please cite an example as to where this memory loss has actually happened.Amnesia occurs due some major accident,we dont know the reason of it clearly as yet.We dont seem to understand clearly as to what are the exact reasons for Amnesia leave aside the effects of other external elements.IMHO.I could be wrong though.

~~Zion
bye!
 
Km,

There's one more problem...
Even if we are frozen and our brains remain intact and function correctly,Can we or are we in a postion to go on sleep for such a long time during interstellar journey?We would also require a Matrix like world to keep us busy so that we dont wake up to our brutal reality....? isnt it?

Just some thoughts...

~~Zion
bye!

bye!
 
Interstellar journey and freezing are two diffrent subject matters. They have used 60 year old frozen sperm to make babies. It all depends on how slow the chemical and electrical activities are, when frozen.

Since you can sleep 8 hours, without going nuts...perhaps, one can be frozen while asleep and 8 hours would be like 800 years...

Interstellar travel and cryonics would depend on what type of technology we have in say hundred years. Assuming we make a breakthrough in artificial gravity such a way that we can build an aircraft carrier size space ship with nuclear ion propulsion while solve the cryonic issues....we would be ready to send a ship into deep space with people. That would happen whether by USA or Chinese.

This would not be a one way ticket, since there could be enough food on board for a life time and back with cryonics as the time dilation device. It could work. On the otherhand in hundred years, we would have computers powerful enough to maintain our brain engrams...so, may be the computers can keep our minds stored as a back up. That is an uncharted territory and many things are possible depending on what we discover or invent.....
 
If you are frozen you are not asleep.

If you have brain activity, you have degradation, and then it is pointless to be frozen in the firstplace.
 
Huh! what are you talking about? If you are alive, you have degradation, oxidation, viruses eating through your body...what that has to do with slowing down the activity through cryonics?
 
If you have cryonics, you have no need for some place to put your mind when you are using cryonics. Your brain is 'off'.

If your brain is 'on' during cryonics, then cryonics doesn't really have a purpose.
 
Dwayne, have you been listening to any of this stuff? Damage is caused when the water in cells freezes and expands. Freezing people in zero G won't change anything, water will _always_ expand and cause tissue damage.
 
Dwayne, it's a myth that astronauts explode if their suit tears. Decompression is certainly not good for you, but studies on animals have shown that as long as recompression happens within 60 seconds of exposure to a vacuum, the subject can make a full recovery.

You do seem to be confusing ZeroG and vacuums though? Sure, soft tissue expands in a vacuum, and organs redistribute themselves a little under ZeroG, as they aren't hanging off each other, but you need to separate the effects of each, and explain which you think is going to achieve what exactly, 'cos I'm not on the same page.
 
OK Dwayne, but expansion from what? ZeroG, or exposure to a vacuum? What did you ask NASA, maybe the good folks of SciForums can answer your questions?
 
Dwayne, you're confusing your terms again. Cells don't expand in microgravity. People appear a little puffy in low G or zeroG, because humans are designed to work in gravity, so when there is no downward pressure, the balance of pressure in our blood vessels, which are used to pumping fluid against gravity gets a little messed up, and it can make people look a little odd.

Soft tissue does expand in a vacuum however, is that what you mean? You must separate the terms and effects!
 
Dwayne, you are confused here. Why do you think cells expand due to zeroG or microgravity?

Sure, things float, but why do you think floating causes cellular expansion?

At normal temperature and pressure, inside a pressurised space capsule, body tissue doesn't expand due to lack of gravity. You may be getting confused because spacesuits aren't fully pressurised (usually they are at 1/3 atmospheric pressure) and are used in zeroG, so there are two effects in operation on the astronaut.

I'm not here to irritate Dwayne, I'm just asking specific questions. I spent a lot of time learning science, and worked for a University with a bunch of scientists. I'm just asking you questions and trying to lead you to an answer.

Here's a good basic article on the effects of microgravity on humans;

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ca...df+effects++microgravity+humans&hl=en&start=3

Here's the NASA web page devoted to microgravity;

http://microgravity.msfc.nasa.gov/

Please browse and see if you can find some backing for your theory.
 
If you have cryonics, you have no need for some place to put your mind when you are using cryonics. Your brain is 'off'.
Interesting Comment,Km do you have any ideas?
Persol,
My opinion is not very clear about this currently.Brain is "off" during sleep right(deep sleep) i mean,and that is only for recharge,isnt it? so after the recharge you"ll have to dream or have REM sleep for a Long period of time so that you dont Wake up!...I could have wrong impression...
Can Brain be Off really? i am not sure...How would you achieve that...:confused:
bye!
 
zion said:
Interesting Brain is "off" during sleep right(deep sleep) i mean,and that is only for recharge,isnt it?

Nope, the brain is merely in a different state when asleep, and very much certainly 'on'. There's still blood flow, electrical activity, all the signs of activity, just different patterns to during waking hours.

kmguru seems incredibly confused about freezing people, and forgets the brain damage issue occurs, irrespective of conscious state when freezing.
 
phlogistician said:
kmguru seems incredibly confused about freezing people, and forgets the brain damage issue occurs, irrespective of conscious state when freezing.

How so? Barring the ice crystals damaging the cells, how does the brain gets damaged when all chemical activity stops? That is what the freezing is all about, is not it? Please explain...
 
Actually I remember some discussion some time back that suggested the Body and the brain were frozen seperately, so even if the freezing wasn't a problem the re-attaching of the spine was. (Yeah I mean they cut off the head). However that was some time back.
 
If you freeze a person really fast, and under high pressure, would ice crystals still form?
 
kmguru said:
How so? Barring the ice crystals damaging the cells, how does the brain gets damaged when all chemical activity stops? That is what the freezing is all about, is not it? Please explain...

Ditto.
 
kmguru said:
How so? Barring the ice crystals damaging the cells, how does the brain gets damaged when all chemical activity stops? That is what the freezing is all about, is not it? Please explain...

Your post implied that it would be preferential to freeze people while they were asleep, or so it read to me. Mental state wouldn't make any difference, ice crystals would form regardless.

If that's not what you meant, sorry, but there are many misconception floating about on this thread, so I may have assumed you were under one too.
 
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