Futurama

Why Not Zoidberg?

People have been trying to prolong death for all of human history, preforming risky surgeries, praying to the right deities, or even something as silly as healthy lifestyle choices. Another option, something people usually over look, is Cryogenics, also known as cryonics. Today, Hundreds of people have spent their life savings on something that has only been proven in theory: immortality. Is cryonics a great way to avoid the inevitable, or is it a scam with a very pretty science fiction packaging?

Cryonics is the practice of freezing a person who has recently, I'm talking within the hour, died, of an incurable disease, and attempting to reanimate them when there is a cure in the future. This freezing process is carried out by the corpse having a permanent supply of liquid nitrogen. Cryonics was first theorized by Robert Ettinger, in his 1962 book, “The Prospects of Immortality”, Where he coined the term, "Cryonic Hibernation". The marvelous theories of this American author has spanned across all cultures, with cryonics facilities all over the world. The movement gained all the momentum that it did, because Ettinger's book was actually backed by plausible science. Within a short fifty-eight years later, there are over 300 people worldwide who have been cryogenically frozen and are awaiting a cure for their ailment.

Cryonics is, in theory, based off science. The Arrhenius Equation describes how when the body temperature is lowered, things like brain damage and decomposition slow down. In fact, all metabolic activity ceases. This has been proven not only by scientists, but by all housewives who own a refrigerator. Dropping the temperature is how scientists preserve organs and tissues for donation. In fact, the Brain can go periods of times without activity; a good example would be that for brain surgeries, doctors will actually administer Barbiturates to induce comas and flatten electroencephalograms (EEG), and then when the patients awaken, activity resumes normally. This is implying, that if the temperature is regulated and maintained, and the correct drugs are administered, a body could enter some sort of hibernative state, just as Ettinger intended.

Now that we slightly understand how someone could theorize cryogenics, lets look at its real world applications. I am fortunate enough to live in Arizona, where here in Mesa, we have the worlds largest cryonics facility, Alcor Life Extension Foundation, with a whopping 152 clients patiently awaiting a cure. While studying at Glendale Community College, I was fortunate enough to be taking Understanding Death and Dying as my psych class. We, as a class, were fortunate enough to get to go on a field trip to Alcor. I have not been the same since.

On our tour of the facility, I was walked through each step of their process. The first step once Alcor receives a patient is to put the body on ice. They then begin to take over respiration with a hand pump and restart circulation with an electric CPR device. They call this “suspended animation” (this is where the difference between brain-dead and clinically-dead come into play). They want the body to kick start its own circulatory system, without causing any brain activity. They then inject a series of medications into the patient; Propofol for starters, to ensure that the patient does not wake during the resuscitative procedure. Which apparently is a problem. A smorgasbord of other ingredients are injected into the system also, excitotoxity inhibitors, sodium citrate as an anticoagulant, epinephrine for higher blood pressure, and even Aspirin. This is all a pre-embalming injection, just to get the body situated for the drastic changes it is about to undergo.

A final, but probably most important, ingredient is injected: the Glycerol. As I mentioned, the body is put on ice instantly; the cadaver's temperature goal for cryopreservation is negative 200 degrees Fahrenheit. This is to achieve a process called vitrification. When water freezes, it forms crystals. When ice crystals form in cells, the cell wall is completely destroyed, rendering the cell, and thus the body, useless. When an object vitrifies, it is flash frozen so quickly, and to such a low temperature, that no ice crystals are able to form. To promote vitrification, cryogenicists inject cryoprotectants, such as Glycerol, to act as a biological anti-freeze. All of these chemicals are injected initially, into the intact circulatory system, as the first half of a two-part embalming process.

The next step in the cryopreservation process is draining all the blood and replacing it with a solution similar to the initial preservative. To do so, they embalm. This would be the un-intact circulatory system, the time when an incision is made to the jugular vein, and out spills whats left of you. Then the cooling process can safely begin. While cooling the body to -200 degrees Fahrenheit, they use a machine called a crackphone, to listen for the delicate noises of your glass-like organs shattering right before their eyes. Supposedly the noises of cracks and pops is normal, and I'm still confused as to if their just listening for fun.

By now you may be asking yourself, "What is the reversal process?" and that would be an excellent question, excellent because it is something scientists all want to know the answer to as well. There is no way to successfully bring somebody back to life after being cryogenically frozen, yet. Although individual tissues have been vitrified and then revived and then been transplanted, like sperm, eggs, and even corneas. We just simply do not have the revolutionary scientific knowledge to preserve consciousness throughout this whole process. One of the things that I found most rememberable on my field trip, was the silver silos that housed the individuals, and how when reading an MRI through the aluminum, you can actually measures these cryogenically frozen soul's brain activity. I like to imagine they are all dreaming away, hopefully none of them too sensitive to the cold.

If all of this sounds like it interests you, and you want to be a part of the cryonics revolution, then sign yourself right up! The only little hiccup you might encounter, is the cost. In Russia, a person can be cryogenically preserved for around $50,000 USD. But here in Arizona, Alcor charges $200,000 for whole body preservation. About half of that amount goes into a trust fund for a person to have in their future life, a sort of "Life-Insurance". Although, keep in mind, that no one has every been successfully reanimated after cryogenic preservation. Which begs the question, where is everyones money sitting? Where will it, or the people for that matter, go if the foundation were to go out of business?

There is an alternative, more cost-effective route however, where a patient only freezes their head; the implications are otherworldly with that one. Implying that science will be so far advanced that a doctor would simply clone a new body for the patient using just the DNA from their hair. Preserving only the brain could imply that scientists think that they will be able to just download your subconscious into a whole new body. I have to add, just doing the brain does give your family members a chance to bury, and memorialize you, considering they will never see you again. What a trip, waking up 1000 years after you died of lung cancer, just to go visit the graves of your penniless relatives. How mortifying, they all succumbed to death, like commoners.

What would happen once someone was thawed out in any time during the future? According to CryoBio Tech at The University of Seville, Caenorhabditis elegans, or C. elegans for short, is a worm that learned olfactory cues, actually responding to the smell of Benzaldeyde, and then was cryogenically frozen. Once the worm was completely frozen, scientists unthawed it, and it remained aware of all of its learned cues. Long story short, this worm learned queues from scents, and after being vitrified, and thawed, he still remembered the things he learned beforehand. So what does that insinuate for humans?

Someone who has survived cryopreservation would not only be in complete physical shock,have to have hormonal and physical therapy, and on top of that still have to cure whatever 20th century disease ailed them. In some cases, they would not even have their own body to wake up to. Based off of how the economy decided to fluctuate, your money could be worthless.They would be the only one of their friends and family alive, they would be lost, cold and trying to thaw out, alone and sick. but they would remember all of their memories, they would remember all their loved ones that they left behind. All of this sounds like science fiction, but for 300 some odd people, they are heavily relying on these breakthroughs to be a reality.

If scientists are willing to developed this intricate method of trying to preserve life, then scientists should attempt brain transplants now. Why go through the freezing process? The medical community could use bodies that died of sudden unnatural causes, like car accidents, and revive the organs and attempt putting a terminally ill person’s brain inside. It would cost about the same but we would have real time answers. Doctors could actually exercise the preservation and revival applications now, as soon as the person dies. If we are already willing to get our heads cut off and served as the rocks in a liquid nitrogen cocktail, why not try the transplant first? Practice could make perfect. Although, I am haunted with the notion this is all implying; that if we mastered this art, individuals could live on forever. That we are so afraid of death as a society, that some of us have actually given into the pipe dream of immortality.