Cryonics : A Reality Check

apparently,i used off for that implication.Umm...But Phlog,real question is still on...what happens during the inactive phase of Humans in Brain,It goes to sleep?(that would seem a natural solution).So how long can person sleep?,he has to be in a delerium to survive,isnt it?


bye!
 
zion said:
So how long can person sleep?
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I shouldn't have thought very long. Certainly not long enough for it to be useful for space travel. Freezing would be a great solution, as all biochemical reactions would stop, so if it could be done without causing damage, and resuscitation were feasible, you could keep someone on ice almost indefinitely.

If someone is asleep however, they a just at a fractionally lower metabolic rate, and having different brain patterns. So the body will still need food, water, and air, and need exercise, or suffer muscle atrophy (which happens really quickly).

A quick google has revealed that the longest a person spent in a coma was 37 years, 111 days, but they died just short of their 44th birthday, so if a state of coma was induced, it still doesn't sound very healthy, and there'd still be the atrophy problem.

So I don't think 'sleeping' is anything other than a convenient sci-fi cop-out clause.
 
Zion, Think of it like this, people in coma's suffer eventual damage to the brain through "inactivity", when the brain starts to lose stimulation it starts to regress. This is why if a patient wakes from a coma they have to re-stimulate the brain to generate the necessary neurological functions to be able to stand and walk etc.

Also while their asleep their body isn't taking nutrients in the correct way, in fact its running a on reserve. I wouldn't rule out that Hibernation was impossible based upon mammals like the bear, but there is only so long that a system that has been slowed down can last on reserves and then even when waking it's still going to suffer the neurological and physical problems when it comes to eating again, since the body would not be use to digestion etc.

Sleep itself isn't complete inactivity, it's more like the brain lowers it's power output to allow the cells to replenish a little, and the actual brain functions become minimal while asleep. Dreams stimulate the mind, so even if they don't make any sense they can serve a purpose (as well as generating REM [Random Eye Movement] otherwise you would wake up not being able to see from crystalisation.)

Another thing about sleep is sleeping at the correct time of the day/night. During the day the UV [Ultraviolet] Levels are drammatically increased, when we go to sleep at night the levels are lower, this allows our Pineal glands to produce Melanin, Melanin finds itself being routed around your body and when altered in a chemical raction produces Melatonin. Melatonin is responsible for dark pigmentation in hair, the reason why Pupils within an eye seem black and even Skin tone when you gte a tan. [In fact it can even protect against radiation, however not at a significant level enough to beat suncream.]

In later life, the Pineal gland becomes crystalised, and it's said that the Pineal gland is like an internal chronometer in the sense that when daylight breaks and the UV levels rise, the UV goes through the pineal gland stimulating you to rise. When older this crystalisation makes you sleep less and is also connected to why insomniacs suffer insomnia.

How long a person can sleep? I would guess about 3 Days before nutrition and liquids are needed (in a controled environment), longer than that and you risk your body needing to learn how to eat/digest again.

Some people believe sleep isn't even necessary, however the fact remains without sleep the bodies toxin levels increase.

Hope that gives you a good rundown of sleep.
 
I know we've had an arguement about what level Freezing damage occurs at, however I've been over the data again in a different subject and discovered I was right the damage is Molecular.

The understanding is this:
Cryogenics can freeze "Small samples" because they are Simple in comparison to larger organisms. The intension of Freezing or cooling is to actually interrupt the Mitosis of Cells (cellular subdivision), this point is where a stasis could occur however the degredation of cells at this point rests upon is molecular makeup and whether is suffers any degeneration over time or through freezing.
 
Stryder, the damage is NOT molecular, go read your source again. Please link it, so we can determine where you are picking up this misapprehension.

Cellular damage would only be molecular if cells were macromolecular, like diamonds are. Cells aren't macromolecular though, are they?
 
Long chain proteins are macromolecules too, but a cell is not comprised of a single molecule is it? So when the cell splits, it is not a _molecule_ being ripped apart, but a loose collection of molecules becoming dissociated. So the damage is _inter_ molecular, ie between molecules, not _intra_ molecular, ie within the molecule itself.
 
OK zion, explain your terminology, seems we're talking at cross purposes. Yes, cells comprise of macro molecular components, but they are not one large molecule, ie, the bonds holding them together are not just covalent or ionic bonds, but they are held together as lipids etc, so are _complexes_, but not macro molecules.

Why would you define a _cell_ as a macro molecule? Could you show me a chemical formula for a _cell_ do you think?
 
Dwayne, crucial point though, is that in microgravity, the volume of the cell doesn't change, it just not longer is stretched downward by gravity. So microgravity adds nothing.

Of course, you haven't proposed how you get a dead body onto a rocket and into microgravity fast enough to prevent brain damage setting in anyway, so even if microgravity would help (but it won't) there are serious flaws in your proposal.
 
DwayneD.L.Rabon said:
Well I disagree with you on the event of cryogenics in space, i think that it will work.
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Disagree all you like, so far you haven't shown anything that will prevent ice crystals from forming and causing cellular damage. Microgravity won't change the properties of matter, however, cells are cells.


i have not yet generated the math for the event, but i see it as very promising.
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Please do the maths, and link all your supporting evidence, and results.

As to the event of actually getting the deceased on the launch pad and into space in the appropiated time span, may be more challanging than the achivement of cryogenics in space.
prehaps a electric feild applied to the body would allow prelonged stablization of nerological tissues.
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How prolonged? If this was feasible, why bother with cryogenics at all?


something simular to the residual current found in animals that allow regrowth of severed limbs, such electric residual stimulation has proven appliable to humans in involantary healing of tissues and bones that have been broken or lacerated.
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Ah, it seems you are confused. The goal is stasis, ie, the complete lack of biological activity in the body. You talk about healing, and I think you are missing the point, that the person must be DEAD before they are frozen. Obviously, there would be no point freezing someone who died from a head injury, so whatever killed them would be an illness, or damage to the body. Zapping them with some undefined 'electric field' is not going to change the fact that they are dead.


As well i am not by nesscity looking for a change in the volume of the cell componets, but am looking at the plyablity of cell membraines, as exhibted by red blood cells. if i can gain a plyablity by the change in direction stress equal to 10% then i would have achived suffcient means to freeze the body without draining water and liqueds from the body by centrifuge. simplyfing the proccess.
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And like I said, gravity is just a force, it will not change the properties of a material. I f membranes were pliable enough in zeroG, they'd be pliable enough on earth.

I disagree with the opinion that mass retains as a aggreate in zero gravity, unless it is traveling at given velocity,that exceeds the rate of serpration due to zero gravity.
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Just what does this sentence mean, exactly?
 
Dwayne, you are missing some fundamental issues here. Firstly, the presence of gravity does not change the physical properties of matter. An iron bar is as stretchy in zeroG as it is on earth. Cells walls are as stretchy on zeroG as they are on earth. So what exactly is it that you think zeroG brings to the table?

This 'electric field', what is that exactly? How is it applied? What do you envisage it doing? Please be more specific.

That last sentence didn't actually mean anything, it was a string of words. Please rephrase what you were trying to say. I'm not trying to irritate you, but to help you over your misconceptions.
 
DwayneD.L.Rabon said:
Well yes you are trying to be irrating, you must be, because the physical properties of chemicals and elements do change with changing enviorment.

DwayneD.L.Rabon
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Got a source for that?

Some properties change due to environment, say, due to temperature, but I have _never_ come across a physical property that changes according to gravity!

Sorry Dwayne, but you do have misconceptions.

And no, I'm not trying to be irritating. I'm only trying to get you to back up your claims.
 
hey, i had a thought, what if we made some strange new chemical mix that you could inject into the body at zero-G, and that this chemical would circulate around the bloodstream for a few minutes untill the guy with this injection went into, say, a little room or something on the space craft that was filled with a fluid that had this same chemical in it. And lets just say that after he's in the room and everything's sealed, specially regulated EM radiation is piped into this room, where it triggers the chemical mix both within and around the brave soul to suddenly absorb a lot of energy our of the guy (a.k.a. body heat) to where he's in a frozen block of fluid within a few miliseconds. maybe the chemical retains and stores this energy, maybe it expels it as another form of EM radiation, but either way, you would have a way of absorbing body heat very quickly not only from the outside but also from within using the bloodstream, so it would be very evenly distrubuted and quick heat extraction. Oh yeah, to get the guy out lets say this chemical is reversable, with a different EM stimulus or something, and it suddenly releases a good deal of energy back into the guy, like, 2000 years later. It's just an idea, obviously we'd need to make this chemical and everything, but could it work?

Dan
 
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