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A 2-Year-Old Has Become the Youngest Person Ever To Be Cryonically Frozen

merbs writes: After losing a long battle with brain cancer, 2-year-old Matheryn Naovaratpong became the first minor ever to be cryogenically frozen. This article is the story of how a Thai girl was frozen in Bangkok and shipped to Arizona to have her brain preserved in liquid nitrogen, while medical science works on a cure. "Typically we’d move the head from the trunk of the body. We didn't know what their reaction would be from the family, the mortuary, from border officials; this has to go through a number of shipping venues, customs, the TSA and so on. To see a frozen head in a box might have raised a number of red flags. In the U.S. that’s not a big deal, but there, they may not be accustomed."

313 comments

  1. Previous record... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Was the previous record hold by Ian Solo?

    1. Re:Previous record... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Han Solo's lesser known brother?

    2. Re:Previous record... by war4peace · · Score: 1

      It's Han Solo with a pseudo-StarWars font typeface.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    3. Re:Previous record... by gauauu · · Score: 1

      Han Solo's lesser known brother?

      <nerd-alert>According to The Padawan Menace, (a silly lego Star Wars TV special) Han went by the name Ian when he snuck into the Jedi Training facility on Coruscant as a child.</nerd-alert>

  2. WHAT? by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ok.. I read this..

    "To see a frozen head in a box might have raised a number of red flags. In the U.S. that’s not a big deal, but there, they may not be accustomed."

    And I think.. what the fuck is wrong with this country???

    1. Re:WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Whats in the box!!!! - Brad Pitt from Seven

    2. Re:WHAT? by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 1

      I don't know, it seems a lot of people in the U.S. and other places are actually very comfortable talking about decapitated frozen babies.

      --

      Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

      Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    3. Re:WHAT? by rogoshen1 · · Score: 4, Funny

      it's probably pretty common in southern border towns.

    4. Re:WHAT? by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      We saw the movie. We know what's in the box.

      In Thailand, they haven't seen it yet, apparently.

    5. Re: WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey, watch yer language. I loves dis country. heads in boxes aint dat unusual in my line of work, if ya get my drift. Tink of it as "sending a message", so it's like texting, but wid eyeballs.

    6. Re:WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Clearly, Futurama has de-sensitised the U.S. to the existance of disembodied heads.

      BAN FUTURAMA NOW!!!

    7. Re:WHAT? by reboot246 · · Score: 2

      Should have added 7 more and put them in a duffel bag.

    8. Re:WHAT? by frovingslosh · · Score: 1, Insightful

      THAT is what you had problems with ???? What about the fact that this was classified as a SCIENCE story rather than a con job story or just a simple scam?

      --
      I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    9. Re:WHAT? by Immerman · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yep, even the headline is horribly inaccurate, it should be "A 2-Year-Old Has Become the Youngest corpse Ever To Be Cryonically Frozen". If she wasn't dead going in, she most definitely is now. And about as thoroughly dead as it's possible to be short of cremation. The cells have all ruptured, the person has left the building.

      The people selling cryonic preservation should be ashamed of themselves, especially in this case - they can't even stop decomposition, just slow it down. MAYBE eventually we'll master the technology to scan a brain and extract the memories, personality, etc. and install them in a computer or new brain capable of restoring stream-of-consciousness. In which case IF there's enough of someone's brain-sicle left to provide the necessary information, and IF the person potentially has something to offer worth the cost of "resurrection", MAYBE some of those frozen heads will get a mind-clone made of them. Assuming of course the company doesn't just chuck all the heads in the composter after the family stops paying attention.

      But a two year old girl who already lost half her brain tissue to attempts to remove the tumor? What possible benefit to anyone would there be in creating a mind-clone of that?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    10. Re:WHAT? by Grog6 · · Score: 1

      The Head of George Takei in 3001 says "Oh, My!!" :)

      --
      Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
    11. Re:WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You meant Se7en.

    12. Re:WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "To see a frozen head in a box might have raised a number of red flags. In the U.S. thatâ(TM)s not a big deal, but there, they may not be accustomed."

      And I think.. what the fuck is wrong with this country???

      Odd, I was thinking what's wrong with everywhere else???

    13. Re:WHAT? by JWSmythe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So you're saying that a dead 2 year old, who had already had half her brain removed and the other half was seriously damaged, and dunking that in liquid nitrogen with the hope that someday a new body could be built for her and she'd be perfectly normal again ... is a con?

      Oh ... ya ... it is ...

      I don't know how the fuck anyone falls for it. Really... Why would they think that even if their bodies were preserved that long, and the technology was invented to create what's missing, and repair all the damage done by the freezing process, that anyone would spend the 14 bazillion New Earth credits (or whatever currency there is in futureland) to bring some old fucker back?

      In her case, the could have just saved a DNA sample. The story is clear about the condition her brain was in. Half was gone. The other half critically damaged.

      I'd have to think that it would be questionable in futureland to resurrect a 20th century person, even if they were in pristine condition. Say 21 years old with much above average intelligence, who was taught everything that there is to know, with no medical issues, no trauma. Just frozen as-is without cellular damage. Why would anyone opt to wake them up? Just to ask "Hey, so what was life like in the 20th century?"

      The whole cryogenics "industry" is a huge con.

      If these people are religious in the least, they'd have to believe that the soul was trapped in that frozen body until it was awakened. If it wasn't, there would be no reason to reincarnate them. What if they picked the wrong part to freeze? Like, if the soul was really in the liver, or maybe in the spinal cord between C1 and C3. Oops, sorry, we cut that part off.

      And if they aren't religious in the least, why bother? So they can wake up as a curiosity in the future? "Hi Cro-Magnon. Fire hot. We have spoken languages you don't understand. And try to wrap your mind around these three seashells. No more poison ivy toilet paper for you. No, don't hit females with a club to make them your mate/slave."

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    14. Re:WHAT? by gl4ss · · Score: 0

      it's a thai. I'm surprised they even bothered with the freezing. country full of medical/magical/tech scams of varying nature.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    15. Re:WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody would spend the money except the foundation. Money for the return is set aside; that's why it requires a fat life insurance policy. Nobody doing this thinks it's some guarantee. But tell me, is it more or less realistic than hoping for a magic man in the sky to bring your "soul" to heaven?

    16. Re:WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a sorry state of affairs where a post so full of misinformation isn't modded into oblivion.

    17. Re:WHAT? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Why would anyone opt to wake them up? Just to ask "Hey, so what was life like in the 20th century?"

      Yeah, historians would love that. Being able to ask someone who was alive then what life was like 1000+ years ago would be a fantastic opportunity.

      It's still a scam of course, but I think in principal if someone found a better way to put my body in "stasis" where revival was demonstrably possible, and I had some currently incurable and fatal disease that might conceivably be beaten one day then I'd consider it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    18. Re:WHAT? by BlackPignouf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You're right, anyone in their right mind wouldn't fall for this scam.
      But I suppose that parents who lost their 2 year old kid after a long and painful illness aren't exactly in their right mind.

    19. Re:WHAT? by Holi · · Score: 1

      It's not the freezing that gets me. I understand that after seeing frogs and fish recover, but the whole cutting the head off thing, isn't the spinal column pretty integral to the brain. Who came up with the idea that someday they will have a cure for decapitation?

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    20. Re:WHAT? by Holi · · Score: 1

      What would a brain damaged 2 year old be able to tell you about life in the 21st century?

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    21. Re:WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, this one of the ways Democrats create their voters...

    22. Re:WHAT? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      You're right, anyone in their right mind wouldn't fall for this scam. But I suppose that parents who lost their 2 year old kid after a long and painful illness aren't exactly in their right mind.

      That's what makes this disgusting rather than merely depressing. It's on the same level as people claiming to be mediums contacting the recently departed: pure scum.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    23. Re:WHAT? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      You'd have better luck trying to clone the kid.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    24. Re:WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It won't cost 14 bazillion New Earth Credits, in practice, if it actually works and humanity doesn't destroy itself first. Of course, bringing back a brain-damaged 2-year-old would probably require friggin' nanites or brain-uploading, and far more tech than just what you'd need to bring back a not-so-damaged adult human. So maybe it would in this case.

      Anyhow, if they figure out how to do it, it's unlikely that some kind of fundamental cost (like the energy required to reach orbit) will make it prohibitively expensive. *If.*

    25. Re:WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know about you, but I keep my frozen heads in bowling ball bags at the lab. It makes them very easy to transport when necessary, and the little tags denote whose head is inside.

      Boy, was I embarrassed though when I showed up last Friday with J3-FF's head on league bowl night! Still, after I ran it through the ball polishing machine for about 20 minutes, I managed to bowl a 250. Started out a little dead, but I could really start hooking it as the head warmed up.

    26. Re:WHAT? by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

      I suppose it depends on if his memories were damaged.

    27. Re:WHAT? by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      You may have seen the movie, but I don't think I have. Wasn't Alfredo Garcia in the trunk of the car or in a plastic bag for most of that movie?

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    28. Re: WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only one letter difference...scum and scam.

    29. Re:WHAT? by JWSmythe · · Score: 1

      If that's the story I'm thinking of, we're not resurrecting the mammoth, we're cloning it. Those are usually introducing the DNA into somewhat comparable modern animals. It's not like the mammoth would wake up and say "Hey, what happened? Last thing I remember was eating frozen grass in the tundra." That's assuming mammoths could talk. :)

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
  3. Yeah, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Here in the US people ship frozen heads around all the time.

    1. Re:Yeah, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      Not necessarily frozen, but yea.

      On long days, our crew harvested more than 40 tons of lettuce, with each cutter responsible for more than 3,000 heads.

    2. Re:Yeah, by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Lettuce genocide.

      Right under our noses, folks. Never again.

    3. Re:Yeah, by blang · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yup, I use it to save money on my travels.
      Just ship my frozen head with UPS to nearest cryogenic lab, and get stitched up.
      Luckily three are lots of labs that have perfected the technique of splicing together the nerve threads, thawing the body parts, not to mention freezing the body parts without the use of poisonous chemicals preventing the water in the body from crystallizing and ripping the human flesh to shreds during the thawing process.

      Honestly, I think the whole cryogenics industry ought to be frogmarched to jail and never let out. Is it quackery, fraud, and cruel, preying on grieving relatives, selling false hopes, engaging in grotesque experiments with human remains.

      --
      -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
    4. Re:Yeah, by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Of course: the second amendment protects our right to be able to acquire those heads.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    5. Re: Yeah, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It really is crazy. Ice crystals are larger than capillaries, which the brain is mostly made of and heavily dependent on. So freezing a brain is a sure fire way to make sure it could never be repaired. There will never be any chance of blood flow after you've froze, expanded and destroyed the brains' circulatory system.

    6. Re:Yeah, by davester666 · · Score: 2

      Well, at least not at these prices.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    7. Re: Yeah, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google vitrification.

    8. Re:Yeah, by iris-n · · Score: 2

      Honestly, I think the whole religious industry ought to be frogmarched to jail and never let out. Is it quackery, fraud, and cruel, preying on grieving relatives, selling false hopes, engaging in grotesque experiments with human remains.

      There, fixed that for you. The major point of most religions is to comfort people from their fear of death. All the religions I can think of prey of grieving relatives, sell them false hopes of an afterlife, and perform some grotesque ritual with human remains.

      The difference is that unlike religions, cryonics is actually based in reality. Everything else is guaranteed to not work; but according to our current knowledge, cryonics is the best shot we have to actually cure death.

      Of course it is highly unlikely to work, but it is a completely different league than burying (or burning) a body and hoping that some god will grant that soul eternal life in some paradise.

      --
      entropy happens
    9. Re:Yeah, by Lord+Apathy · · Score: 1

      I prefer to put my faith in science. Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy is a series of books based on what happens when our technology becomes so advanced we know what happens after death.

      So what does happen after our technology does become so advanced we can bring anyone back from the dead?

      --

      Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification

    10. Re:Yeah, by iris-n · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the book reference, seems cool, I'll check it out.

      Well, there will be major social changes, that's for sure. But bringing people back from the dead it's a minor thing, as realistically we'll never be able to bring back anyone that did not take precautions to be ressucistable, and these will remain a small minority for the foreseeable future.

      I think the largest impact will be when technology to radically extend lifespan and life quality (cure ageing) becomes widespread.

      --
      entropy happens
    11. Re:Yeah, by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      I prefer to put my faith in science

      The only real chance of resurrecting the dead is to invent time travel, and go back to a time before they die, then use your super-magic science to cure their diseases.

      It's just an engineering problem, right?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    12. Re:Yeah, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      iris-n, can we clone you? The world needs more people capable of thinking and basic logical deduction and the ability to punch stupid people in the face with that logic.

  4. Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by timrod · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can remember reading several articles which stated that cryonics doesn't work because the freezing process is not perfect - it does not stop decomposition, which older frozen specimens were starting to show. Why do people still spend money on this?

    1. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why do people believe in an Invisible Sky Wizard? Why do people play the lottery? It's called Hope and as irrational and non-sensical as it may be it's an essential part of the Human condition.

    2. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 3

      I don't think I would get myself frozen, but to take the opposite point of view for a second, no one has any idea what is going to be developed in the medical field. If somehow we can eventually get cells to regenerate themselves and recreate a human body, who really knows what amount we will need replace. Maybe the freezing process will slow the decomp. ENOUGH.

    3. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by mariox19 · · Score: 2

      Pandora brought the box of ills and opened it. It was the gift of the gods to men, outwardly a beautiful and seductive gift, and called the Casket of Happiness. Out of it flew all the evils, living winged creatures, thence they now circulate and do men injury day and night. One single evil had not yet escaped from the box, and by the will of Zeus Pandora closed the lid and it remained within. Now for ever man has the casket of happiness in his house and thinks he holds a great treasure; it is at his disposal, he stretches out his hand for it whenever he desires; for he does not know the box which Pandora brought was the casket of evil, and he believes the ill which remains within to be the greatest blessing, it is hope. Zeus did not wish man, however much he might be tormented by the other evils, to fling away his life, but to go on letting himself be tormented again and again. Therefore he gives Man hope,- in reality it is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of Man.

      — Friedrich Nietzsche

      --

      quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.

    4. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by NotDrWho · · Score: 3, Informative

      Any sort of freezing process destroys every cell wall, basically. The ice crystals that form from the water in our cells are like little glass spikes. There is no coming back from that. You have about as much change of resurrecting a cow from ground up beef.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    5. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To hope is to long for circumstances to change. That is to say, one rejects what is real and wishes instead for a fantasy.

      Fundamentally, hope is a rejection of truth, and hence the antithesis of enlightenment.

    6. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by sexconker · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Which is why current processes remove as much fluid from the body as possible, inject various chemicals, and freeze as quickly as possible to prevent the formation of ice crystals.

      Animal tests from decades ago show that even "standard" freezing and thawing results in a living, resurrected animal for a few hours.

    7. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by war4peace · · Score: 1

      How much change is that? Does it fill a pocket? Might buy myself some nice things with a pocket full of change.
      (depends on the currency though)

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    8. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by pla · · Score: 2

      I can remember reading several articles which stated that cryonics doesn't work because the freezing process is not perfect - it does not stop decomposition, which older frozen specimens were starting to show. Why do people still spend money on this?

      See, you've looked at this entirely the wrong way.

      Yes, all these suckers currently having their heads frozen have basically wasted their money. But instead of pointing and laughing, look at it this way - We might someday benefit as a result of using these corpsesicles as guinea-pigs to learn how to slow the clock of decay that starts at the moment of death.

      No, Walt Disney and Matheryn Naovaratpong will never see this universe again; but what we learn from them might buy us an extra five minutes to get proper treatment after a heart attack or stroke.

      So, ix-nay on the "wasting your money" bit! Instead, encourage your rich but scientifically-ignorant friends to "preserve" their bodies "for the future"!

    9. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by stevedog · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, hope is a belief that the world and everything in it has potential energy, and that under the right circumstances that can be converted into "kinetic" energy (i.e., the force of change). It is the belief that just because the ball is not moving does not mean the ball cannot move. It also means that just because a person believes that they have no value (or perhaps even currently do not seem to have much value) does not mean that they are, in fact, incapable of having value or of someday recognizing what their value is or could be.

      If "enlightenment" means believing that the world cannot be anything other than it, in its present state, currently is, then I do not want to be enlightened, because my enlightenment would be invalidated one nanosecond later, since even in that time the world would have done that which I had assumed to be impossible, and changed.

    10. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Beautifully refuted. Thank you.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    11. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by quantaman · · Score: 1

      I can remember reading several articles which stated that cryonics doesn't work because the freezing process is not perfect - it does not stop decomposition, which older frozen specimens were starting to show. Why do people still spend money on this?

      Disregard cost and even at the worst their outcomes won't be any worse than the control group.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    12. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but so has the whole Space Nutter mythology of colonizing the universe and getting off this rock, but you don't see anyone stopping those stories.

    13. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Narishma · · Score: 2

      Do you mean the animal lives for a few hours after being unfrozen, then dies or that it is frozen for a few hours, then unfrozen and continues to live?

      --
      Mada mada dane.
    14. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by jbmartin6 · · Score: 1

      I believe those tests were of cryogenic suspension, which takes a living animal and slows the metabolism down. I did not find any mention of tests involving animals fully frozen into a completely inert state that were ever revived.

      --
      This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    15. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

      And "foolishness" is believing that, because MUCH is possible, then it follows that EVERYTHING must be possible.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    16. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what bullshit.
      i have hoped I'd get my project done on time and then... sometimes it turns out it actually does!
      For that to be the rejection of reality, reality would have to be pre-determined.
      Hope is simply wanting an outcome to take place. the odds of that happening are irrelevant

    17. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1

    18. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by itzly · · Score: 1

      I can remember reading several articles which stated that cryonics doesn't work because the freezing process is not perfect

      They get freezer burn.

    19. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2

      And at 2 years old, the body might be able to even develop and learn from scratch again.

    20. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Cramer · · Score: 1

      In fact their method of freezing pretty much ensures you can NEVER be unfrozen. 1C per hour means some pretty large ice crystal will be forming that will completely shred cell membranes.

      Until they've successfully unfrozen someone, it's just a fad for the rich and/or stupid.

    21. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by pjt33 · · Score: 1

      The original word for the final evil in the box, elpis, has roughly the same range of meaning as the Spanish esperanza. Linguistically it's as likely that the thing which remained trapped in the box was expectation of evil as that it was hope, and if that's understood as foreknowledge of the evil that will befall you then it's both easy to see why Zeus (or Hesiod) would consider it worse than those which escaped and to hold the aetiology as consistent with the state of things which it's supposed to be explaining - whereas positive hope is clearly not outside the range of human experience.

      TL;DR: Nietzsche is probably working with a bad translation of the Greek.

    22. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Chalnoth · · Score: 2

      There's, "Maybe we'll someday be able to do this, and that would be really cool," there's, "This is currently in development and should soon be widely available," and then there's, "This is fundamentally impossible and there is no conceivable way it would ever work."

      Cryogenics falls into the last category. This will become especially clear if you read up on what they actually did to the girl's dead body. There's more than enough amazing stuff in the first two categories to retain wonder for the future. We don't need to pretend that one day frozen corpses will be brought back and able to walk on top of that.

    23. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope my wife will give me a blowjob when I pop upstairs shortly

      I'd say the odds are good, so go fuck your fortune cookie wisdom and enlightenment.

    24. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by cfalcon · · Score: 2

      I mean, doesn't everyone know this? The entire idea is predicated on, not the future having good "thaw tech", but upon the entire set of techs that could be curative in some fashion, along with a desire to resurrect people to begin with. Many of those who are frozen are essentially saying "at some point you'll have some machines that can read what I am from my frozen cells and make a copy of me". I mean, most cryo patients are just a frozen head at this point, so clearly "can thaw and somehow repair cellular damage" is secondary to "...also entire body missing".

    25. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps they will find a fix for the problem before decomposition. Perhaps a 0.0000000000000000000000000000001%chance of them being reawakened seems to them more than the 0% chance of them being reawakened if they dont sign up for it to happen when they die.

      (substitute X+0.00000000000000000000001 vs X if you want to be pedantic and inject the possibility of some other awakening possibility)

    26. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Cramer · · Score: 1

      1C per hour is "quick"? (it fact, that's the perfect method to make crystal clear ice.)

    27. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by tnk1 · · Score: 1

      Hope is our understanding of quantum mechanics. The cat should be dead, but it doesn't actually have to be until we open that box. And sometimes it isn't.

      It's an essential part of the human condition because it represents a useful, if frequently futile, understanding that unexpected things actually do happen to our benefit. Occasionally.

    28. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They actually inject preservatives to prevent formation of ice crystals, and to mitigate other problems. We figured out how to freeze various kinds of human tissues so that they remain viable.

      Whether or not existing methods are sufficient or performed properly to preserve such a large organ, let alone whole body parts with multiple different tissues, is another matter entirely. But there's no reason to think that it's absolutely impossible. We can chill the entire body to nearly freezing for quite long periods of time, and that requires that various preservatives are properly distributed throughout the entire body to prevent cell damage.

      Fundamentally, it's really just a matter of doing it at scale. We've solved many of the more difficult problems so well that they're used in hospitals every day.

    29. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by blang · · Score: 1

      True.

      And another inevitable part of the human condition, is that there will be plenty of individuals grasping on such false hopes, and just as many individuals ready to take advantage of the suckers.

      --
      -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
    30. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Darinbob · · Score: 2

      I reject your reality and substitute my own.

    31. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nietzsche was a philologist... Pretty sure he had that bit covered.

    32. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      And in the future we may be able to reverse this decomposition and use all these corpsicles are slave labor for the rich and powerful.

    33. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by seven+of+five · · Score: 1

      Actually, the science for cryonic preservation is advancing. Don't forget, there are thousands of people walking around today who, as embryos, were frozen in LN2 for years. Although there have been no successful resuscitations for frozen mature individuals to date, you really can't prove it can't happen. There's nothing in physics that says therapies can't be developed to repair cells (they don't burst, they dry out). There's just nothing in medicine yet for it.

    34. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by blang · · Score: 2

      The odds are not irrelevant at all. In fact they are essential when it comes to separating from false hope and real hope and wishful dreaming.

      When the odds are impossible, with chance of a positive outcome at exactly zero, the hope is irrational, at least if you know or should know that it is 0.
      When the odds are possible, such as a one billionth chance of winning the lottery, the hope is slim, although rational. If your estimation of the probability is far removed from reality, then also this hope would be irrational. For example, I can buy a lottery ticket, but expect on continuing with that the rest of my life without seeing a profit. I can hope to win, rationally. However, if you go and buy a lottery ticket, and then proceeds to buy a new ferrari and a house as if you'd already won the lottery, then your hope is irrational.

      When I at my ripe age enter a marathon trace, I don't hope to win. I can hope to finish in 5 or 6 hours or whatever it is, several hours after teh winners have crossed the goal line. I could hope of being among the top contenders in my age group, or even win the age group. If I hoped to win the whole thing, not only would I be irrational, I'd probably cause severe harm to health trying to compete at a level far beyond abilities.

      Likewise, if your project has 3 weeks worth of effort remaining before it is anywhere near done, but the deadline is in 30 minutes, then the hope of making that deadline is irrational, and trying to rush things to make that deadline would probably do more harm than good..

      --
      -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
    35. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Greyfox · · Score: 1

      People have been trying techniques to beat death for thousands of years. Back in the day you'd build a pyramid and be mummified. The alchemical search for the philosopher's stone led to the birth of chemistry. A good bit of the early exploration of the USA was motivated by a fountain of youth. Well that and a city made of gold, because if you're gonna die you may as well dip your balls in gold on a daily basis before you do. NPR did a story on one of those cryogenic institutes a couple years ago, they didn't even last 10 years before they went bankrupt and let their... clients... thaw out. At least we remember the names of a lot of the guys with pyramids 5000 years later. Arguably that was a more successful technique, although in either case all those guys are still dead.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    36. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by xmousex · · Score: 2

      there is no coming back from that today.

      it is not impossible for a regenerative process to one day be capable of solving this issue. it is also not impossible that the cryo methods will improve over time to reduce the amount of damage done. in time the two points will meet along the way somewhere and we will have the first restored person.

      they may have the total iq of a pile of regurgitated watermelon, but they will have functioning neurons again in a way that resembles life.

      the alternative for most of these people would be a box in the ground or a tube of ashes, how is that fate any better then one that gives science a playground?

      i would do it. there are things that we can learn in this process. It might not be about eternal life but it could continue to help develop medical processes that further aid in combat medicine, traffic accident survival, advanced forms of cancer surgery or organ transplantation. If my body is dead anyways why not?

    37. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not an essential part of any condition. People survive all over the world without it. Just look at the US.

    38. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    39. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      At least it will supply the future with a few extra corneas, dura mater, etc.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    40. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope.

      Hope is the irrational belief that, in this utterly random universe where heart-rending tragedies and glorious triumphs occur side-by-side, where longevity, size, or celestial importance are meaningless before the cosmic dice, and where the fools and the wise stand blindfolded at the wall waiting for the coin flip to see who shuffles-off next, that somehow the universe is ever-so-slightly tilted in your favor.

    41. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by blang · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure they have not approved of being used as guinea pigs. So those experiments would be a no-go.

      --
      -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
    42. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by jordanjay29 · · Score: 1

      Are contracts valid once you're dead?

    43. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by joh · · Score: 2

      Hope, and judging that rotting over weeks or rotting over decades in the worst case will mean they will end up the same way, just slower.

      The next step will be (probably destructive) high-resolution scanning of the physical brain structure and then saving the scan data in the hope that one day we will be able to "decode" that data and "run" the brain on some other hardware by emulating it's biology. At least that data will keep fresh much, much longer (potentially). Baby steps to immortality. There's nothing wrong with trying.

      Effective immortality will be the most lucrative product ever. Sooner or later we will grow some of us into ghosts and maybe even gods. And they probably will be the same ill-tempered, asshole-gods as all of them are. Well, or not. At least we should try.

      Do you really want to die in the same body you were born in? Like a fucking animal?

    44. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Baloroth · · Score: 2

      Insects can be, but that's because freezing during the winter and thawing during the summer is part of many insects survival system. Some larger animals can do this as well, IIRC, but they have specially developed systems for it that basically replace most of the water in their bodies with an anti-freeze solution. In theory it's possible to do something similar with humans, but we're nowhere near the technology to do so. Modern cryogenics might be good for preserving human tissue for future analysis (to observe genetic drift and the like), but that's about it.

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    45. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You also have to consider what they are paying for. Freezing and storage. Even if science did come up with a way to bring these people back to life, who the hell is going to pay for it? To thaw the brain and re-grow the body is going to be incredibly expensive.

    46. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      People are a) stupid and b) very much afraid of death. Hence they are easy marks for this scam.

      The reality of things is that there is no suitable cryo-technology at this time that allows even reasonable-quality freezing of anything much larger than a single cell. Crystals will form, it takes far too long and storage temperatures may be far too high for long-term storage. Also, the person is dead at the time this is done which may well be to late for any recovery. The other problem is that for the foreseeable future, cryo-revival will be infeasible and after that exceptionally expensive. Why would anybody revive strongly damaged legally dead people when making new ones is so easy and there are already too many anyways? And then there is the little problem that anybody revived will be displaced in time, with nobody they knew still alive.

      This whole thing is just one of the tributes the time-honored tradition of separating stupid people from their money.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    47. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by gweihir · · Score: 0

      "Hope" is never rational. It is an evolutionary mechanism that keeps people going in two circumstances: 1) Then they have grossly miss-estimated the actual risk to them (a very common problem, see for example all the morons that are afraid of terrorism but are willing to drive a car), and 2) when most are going to die, but a tiny number may be enough to keep the genetic group going.

      What is rational is actual risk management with real numbers. Your 1 in 1 Billion is not relevant, as the change that you will be killed by a freak accident soon is already far, far higher and hence completely supersedes that small chance. As such it is not rational at all to even consider it a possibility, except in a theoretical sense. Life is messy, and assuming that very rare things will never, ever happen to you is the only rational course of action. Anything else opens you up to scams and prevents you from taking control of your situation. That is also called dysfunctional.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    48. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by DamnOregonian · · Score: 1

      You're already like +1832, Insightful, so I'll save my mod points-
      You're a word-smith. Beautifully written.

    49. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      What does Phil have to do with all this?

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    50. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      Effective immortality will be the most lucrative product ever.

      Facebook?

      God, I hope not.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    51. Re: Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only evil you're gonna find in that box is that I farted in it.

    52. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Who said anything about 1C per hour?
      You? Yeah, you.

    53. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by sexconker · · Score: 2

      Lives for a few hours after being unfrozen.

    54. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If you think the ignoratio elenchi logical fallacy is beautiful.

      The poster "refuted" the argument by re-defining the terms. His use of the word "hope" is entirely different than the poster's use of the word "hope." Since they aren't talking about the same thing, the point made is irrelevant.

    55. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 1

      Nothing is possible unless proven to be possible

      vs

      Anything is possible unless proven to be impossible.

      --
      while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
    56. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Beautifully refuted. Thank you.

    57. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody is requiring you to attain enlightenment. You are free to wallow in pettiness all you want.

    58. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Well, since the original poster used their own completely arbitrary definition of hope specifically crafted to make their "point", I think missing the point is exactly the right way to refute it. (Hint - if you have to resort to Latin to make yourself sound smart, you probably aren't actually doing so.)

      >To hope is to long for circumstances to change. That is to say, one rejects what is real and wishes instead for a fantasy.

      Longing for circumstances to change has been the root cause behind virtually every social and technological advance in the history of humanity. Someone wishes there were a better way to get the hide off this animal than chewing through it with their dull omnivore teeth. They think of ways that wish might be granted, and come up with the idea of using the sharp edges of broken stone or bone to do the job. To equate longing for change with rejecting of reality is to dismiss all advances of the human race. Hope isn't a rejection of reality, it's a rejection of the immediately apparent limitations of reality - whether that leads to dwelling in fantasy or attempting to change things is entirely dependent on the character and capacity of the person doing the hoping.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    59. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I think the idea is to someday scan the brain-sicle and create an entirely new brain (real or virtual) based on the template. Which of course assumes that all the necessary information is preserved in the structure rather than in standing-wave patterns or in a biochemical medium that will inevitably decay even in cryogenic conditions.

      The original is, as you say, almost certainly irrevocably dead, but I suppose the idea that a mind-clone of them may someday exist appeases some overlarge egos. Of course even that requires that the heads be sufficiently well preserved until then, which given the current state of both cryonics and neuroscience, not to mention the fact that the customers are generally already dead and can't offer oversight, seems... optimistic. And even if they are, there's the question of why anyone would bother creating mind-clones of a bunch of dead people with overlarge egos. Maybe if you had the head of Einstein, Ghandi, or some other figure who might have something to offer there would be a chance - but a two year old girl whose already lost half her brain to tumor-removal attempts?

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    60. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nietzsche was a smeghead.

    61. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Chalnoth · · Score: 1

      Right, but I'm pretty sure it's well-established that memories are storied biochemically, and the biochemical structure doesn't survive freezing let alone sitting in a freezer for a century or more.

    62. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Dragon+Bait · · Score: 2

      To hope is to long for circumstances to change. That is to say, one rejects what is real and wishes instead for a fantasy.

      Fundamentally, hope is a rejection of truth, and hence the antithesis of enlightenment.

      I completely disagree. When I proposed to my wife, I hoped she would say yes. Hope was the desire for a specific outcome without knowing that outcome in advance. Since she is now my wife, my hope was not a rejection of what is real.

      Now, hope without action is pretty stupid. Hoping that she would be my wife without actually taking the steps to court her and eventually pop the question would be rather foolish.

    63. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "If "enlightenment" means believing that the world cannot be anything other than it, in its present state, currently is, then I do not want to be enlightened"

      Good you used the conditional.

      Since enlightenment is not what you pose it to be, all your discourse is moot.

    64. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because Nietzsche was only interested in relaying the original meaning of the myth?

      Nietzsche was many things beside philologist. And he certainly wouldn't have been the first person to retell an ancient myth to fit to his own sentiments, priorities, and perspectives. The most insightful philosophers do this.

      One of the most important reasons to study Socrates and Plato is to habituate yourself to reading between the lines, to distinguish narrative from meta-narrative, and to identify the arguments in the critique, which may be contrary to both narratives. Though, I'm not suggesting Nietzsche was being that sophisticated in this particular case, or even that he wasn't simply mistaken. Just that there can be many layers, and none of those layers pay much respect to historical accuracy. So your argument is not even remotely persuasive.

      Anyhow, your argument rests on the assumption that Nietzsche was a good study of Greek. Even if he was the best scholar of ancient Greek and Greek culture in the entire world, modern scholarship is still superior in many regards.

    65. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Wycliffe · · Score: 1

      There's more than enough amazing stuff in the first two categories to retain wonder for the future. We don't need to pretend that one day frozen corpses will be brought back and able to walk on top of that.

      It's not even the whole corpse. Just a head with half a brain. Even IF the freezing was done correctly, there is not techology anywhere on
      the horizon that can either create a new body for her or clone her into a biological or electromechanical body. No where close. Curing
      cancer is the least of their worries, they need several major advances in several industries to restore a healthy human if they ever can.
      And assuming they can in 50 years and her parents are still alive, they are now close to 80, would they really want to raise a two year
      old at that point? But it's not going to be 50, probablty not 100, so they will be long dead.

    66. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, the article did. But who said anything about reading the article before commenting?

      [The procedure] involves moving the patient onto an ice bed, coating her in freezing materials, artificially restarting the heart with a “heart-lung-resuscitator,” administering over a dozen different medications, draining the blood and replacing it with medical grade antifreeze, opening the chest cavity to attach the major blood vessels to a machine that flushes out all remaining blood, then slowly lowering the body’s temperature, at a rate of 1 Celsius every hour. (After two weeks, the body reaches deep cryofreeze at -196 C.)

    67. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're really taking things out of context here. The question was originally why do people continue to believe things that have been proven to be not possible? The answer given was that people like to believe things that aren't true because it makes them feel good. That's what was meant by the word "hope". You're using an entirely different definition that involves change, value judgements, and relative belief system. That really has nothing to do with truth statements about whether decomposed flesh is somehow magically going to be transformed into living tissue again. If you accept that the decomposition is happening, it's like saying you hope that someday we'll be able to transform the ashes of someone cremated into a living, breathing person again, because hey, potential energy can become kinetic energy.

      If this were a dictionary, the author was using definition 1, while you're using definition 2. In logical reasoning his is called equivocation.

    68. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "Some larger animals can do this as well, IIRC, but they have specially developed systems for it that basically replace most of the water in their bodies with an anti-freeze solution. In theory it's possible to do something similar with humans,"

      Larger beings, say, frogs, survive being frozen... by *not* being frozen.

      As you say, they are able to get into a suspended animation state and their fluids work like an anti-freeze solution. This allows them not to freeze under below-zero Celsius conditions. But if the temperature goes low enough, they will indeed freeze -and forever die.

    69. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      ""can thaw and somehow repair cellular damage" is secondary to "...also entire body missing"."

      It makes sense. The premise of being able to recover the personality out of a frozen rotten brain is so ludicrous that if by a miracle that happened, producing a full new body out of DNA looks like child's game in comparation.

      It also makes sense from the scammer's point of view: after all freezing a whole body in a convincing -even though unworking, way takes money so by lowering their running costs they open the scam to a larger target.

    70. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Beck_Neard · · Score: 1

      Can you link to those cited articles? Afaik the 'decomposition' process in liquid nitrogen is incredibly slow, almost insignificant.

      You don't need to have a 'perfect' freezing process anyhow. The fundamental assumption of cryonics is that future medical science will be able to reverse many of the damaging effects of freezing and decomposition.

      But I've seen a common pattern among people to try to keep convincing themselves that death cannot be prevented no matter what. "Freezing causes ice crystals which damages your cells!" No, wrong. None of your cytoplasm freezes - only your intercellular fluid, and current cryonics procedures use various methods to reduce or eliminate this. "Frozen organisms can't be revived!" Again, no, plenty of unicellular and multicellular organisms have been frozen and thawed with perfect restoration of life. Humans just happen to be particularly difficult due to being very large and hard to cool uniformly.

      If anything, 99% of the criticism of cryonics that I see is junk science. Cryonics depends on a lot of unproven assumptions, sure, and there's absolutely no guarantee that it will work, and there's probably 90% chance it won't. But I think a 10% chance is worth pursuing.

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    71. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Immerman · · Score: 1

      Has it been? Last I heard there were lots of hypothesis, lots of conflicting results, but not much conclusive evidence for how memories are stored in humans. Flatworms can eat each other and at least apparently gain memories, which does suggest that *they* store memories biochemically, but I don't recall ever hearing about similar results in higher animals, and life tends to explore a lot of options. Heck, eyes independently evolved what, at least nine different times that we know of? I imagine complex memory has probably evolved a few different times as well. And personality almost certainly has at least a component that's heavily structural.

      Besides, if human memory were (strictly) biochemical you'd think eating the raw brains of your enemies would have become far more popular. Especially the ones holding secrets or great knowledge.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    72. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is fundamentally impossible and there is no conceivable way it would ever work."

      Cryogenics falls into the last category.

      I think you mean cryonics. Cryongenics is certainly perfectly workable

    73. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      You're not helping develop the process by paying big money to a scammer who uses an already-developed process. Leave that money to medical research in your will, and donate your organs which can actually already save lives today.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    74. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      If they weren't, the whole concept of a will would be out of the window.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    75. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any sort of freezing process destroys every cell wall, basically.

      Destroys the cell wall huh? Good thing humans aren't plants and don't have cell walls then.

    76. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could you please link to some of the articles you mentioned?

    77. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by mjwx · · Score: 1

      There's more than enough amazing stuff in the first two categories to retain wonder for the future. We don't need to pretend that one day frozen corpses will be brought back and able to walk on top of that.

      The last thing we need are walking corpses, especially the bitey kind.

      Also, Cryogenics isn't about freezing dead people and thawing them out dead to bring back to life. It's about freezing live people and thawing them out alive. If it every works (not like our fundamental understanding of what is "impossible" has ever changed in the past) there will be no corpses involved.

      This will become especially clear if you read up on what they actually did to the girl's dead body.

      When the summary mentioned a frozen brain, then a head going through customs, I kind of assumed the girl was dead before the procedure occurred.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    78. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Possibly but unlikely after the great neural pruning that happens at about 12 months of age.

    79. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Chalnoth · · Score: 1

      In the US, at least, it's illegal to freeze somebody until after they've died. True believers still think that maybe someday the advanced technology will allow them to be resuscitated. But the freezing process destroys any possibility of that happening (there's no way to freeze human organs fast enough to prevent the formation of ice crystals, and those ice crystals shred our cells).

    80. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How anti-Nietzchean statement! If God is dead and übermench is upon us, we have the responsibility of shaping the circumstances to our liking (and "hoping"). Nietzsche obviously didn't like the submissive sheeples of the form of Christianity prevalent in his community. That said, accepting and embracing change is one of the most difficult things in human existence as most people are scared of dying, or attached to living forever.

    81. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have about as much change of resurrecting a cow from ground up beef.

      Or an ass-backwards president of the planet Spaceballs after a teleporter accident.

    82. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thawing is a much bigger problem than the freezing.

    83. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by nbauman · · Score: 1

      Works on rats. Sorta.

      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
      J Physiol. 1955 Jun 28; 128(3): 541–546.
      PMCID: PMC1365902
      Reanimation of rats from body temperatures between 0 and 1 C by microwave diathermy
      R. K. Andjus and J. E. Lovelock

      Of course, nobody has frozen a rat solid, put him away in a freezer, and then reanimated him.

    84. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by nbauman · · Score: 1

      There's, "Maybe we'll someday be able to do this, and that would be really cool," there's, "This is currently in development and should soon be widely available," and then there's, "This is fundamentally impossible and there is no conceivable way it would ever work."

      Cryogenics falls into the last category. This will become especially clear if you read up on what they actually did to the girl's dead body.

      I can't imagine how anyone could ever be reanimated after that treatment.

      But I do understand their argument, which is, "Given enough time and progress, we'll be able to reverse any damage. Eventually, we'll be able to recreate a new human body and implant the restored brain in it."

      They're arguing from infinity. It's hard to argue against infinity.

      You can say, "You can't do this any time during the next N years." They say, "Well, you haven't proved that we can't do it in N+1 years."

      You say, "Scientists today can't imagine repairing the damage you do to brain cells by freezing." They say, "New technology is always doing things that everyone previously thought was impossible."

      I suspect they may run out of time first, when the universe is finally reduced to its final entropy.

      Lucky for them, nobody will be around at that time to say, "I told you so."

    85. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by nbauman · · Score: 1

      And even if they are, there's the question of why anyone would bother creating mind-clones of a bunch of dead people with overlarge egos. Maybe if you had the head of Einstein, Ghandi, or some other figure who might have something to offer there would be a chance

      I think they set up a fund that grows interest at something like 3% a year, and invest a dollar. By the time they're ready to be reanimated, each of them will have accumulated enough interest to be richer than Google.

      I for one welcome our new reanimated overlords.

    86. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What they are actually doing is vitrification, not freezing. Quite different; it preserves the neuronal structures.

    87. Re: Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Beautifully refu... *pew pew* *thud*

    88. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Legal death and information-theoretic death are different things. That is the principle cryonics operates on. They don't see someone as dead until the information in the brain is lost. The legal definition of death has evolved over the centuries as medicine advances. Eventually it might reach a point where your not dead until your information-theoretic dead.

    89. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "That's not enlightenment, now watch me not actually support that statement and instead declare your statement moot."

      Basically, a troll. Well done.

    90. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, in humans cell fluid is all just sort of mixed together in a jumble. No need for your barriers, man! Our fluids are FREE!

    91. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by karlandtanya · · Score: 1

      So, what? Pi is irrational. But it's still Real.

      --
      "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
    92. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Holi · · Score: 1

      Hope is neither of those things. Hope is a desire for a specific outcome.

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    93. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Or in 20 years, someone will raid all the bank accounts and run away with the money. Or in 100 years, the government will seize the bank accounts and order the bodies dumped.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    94. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Holi · · Score: 1

      >Also, Cryogenics isn't about freezing dead people and thawing them out dead to bring back to life. It's about freezing live people and thawing them out alive. Then why are they loping off their heads?

      --
      Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
    95. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      The ice crystals shredding organs is why they only froze the head. It has been solved for the brain, but not other organs (except the skin) yet.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    96. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Immerman · · Score: 1

      I'm fairly certain dead people have no legal rights, nor do hypothetical new copies that might be created at some point in the future. That money belongs to whoever controls the fund, not the corpses - so I suppose as long as they can be trusted not to enrich themselves at the expense of a bunch of slowly rotting meat, sure there might still be funds available. But nobody is being reanimated, at best they're being copied.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    97. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Why do people still spend money on this?

      Because there are cynical con men who are prepared to accept it.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    98. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by xmousex · · Score: 1

      You have a negative impression of the company, you believe they are scammers. Thats fine but it is suspicion, not fact. They are doing exactly what they claim. What they are doing can result in a future restoration. The practice of already developed processes is still a form of research that furthers the field. The current demand and increasing demand creates capital that pushes research forward. Better procedures are less likely to get developed if there isnt a current pressure for it now and that is what this organization does contribute, a need and financial pressure for better processes to be developed. The idea that this is just throwing money away is your opinion only. There is absolutely NOBODY who is getting rich off of this, there are far better ways to go about ripping people off.

      One thing negative that is fair, these early adopters are highly unlikely to really experience resuscitation. But this path can only experience eventual success when there is a constant ongoing pressure of early adopters to push the field.

    99. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      No, hope is a belief that the world and everything in it has potential energy, and that under the right circumstances that can be converted into "kinetic" energy (i.e., the force of change).

      We are stardust, we are golden, something something something about a garden.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    100. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by tehcyder · · Score: 1
      This whole thread merely demonstrates that words can have more than one meaning. "Hope" self evidently means different things to different people.

      It's like discussing "love" where to one person it means the feeling of communal happiness at a music concert, and to someone else fucking a weasel.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    101. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      PR plus lack of obvious public disdain = I guess it must be worth a try.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    102. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      What does Nick have to do with all this?

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    103. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      To hope is to long for circumstances to change. That is to say, one rejects what is real and wishes instead for a fantasy.

      Here is my refutation of this. Hope and being grounded in the Here and Now (present reality) are not mutually exclusive, nor did he present any argument suggesting they are.

      I am FULLY AWARE that today's world sucks in many ways, I HOPE that the suckage will change when real grownups start to run the world instead of mental three year old who react based on emotional arguments, rather than logic and thought.

      My hope is not fully dependent upon what is the "now". I realize that my chances of my hope coming to fruition is between slim and none, simply because the powers to be think the best person to run for president for the Democrats and Republicans are Clinton and Bush.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    104. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      Two major flaws of thinking:
      one, "believing that, because MUCH is possible, then it follows that EVERYTHING must be possible."
      The other; believing that because it's obvious that 99% of something is BS, then it follows that the other 1% must also be BS.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    105. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      When I proposed to my wife, I hoped she would say yes; so when she didn't, I froze her severed head in liquid nitrogen in the HOPE that in time she would change her mind.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    106. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by JimFive · · Score: 1

      I think they set up a fund that grows interest at something like 3% a year, and invest a dollar. By the time they're ready to be reanimated, each of them will have accumulated enough interest to be richer than Google.

      That math clearly doesn't work out. At 3% a year an investment doubles in 24 years. So in 96 years that dollar doubles 4 times to become $16. To get to $1 million you need to double at least 20 times which will take 480 years. But really you never get to $1 million because you have to keep the lights on.
      --
      JimFive

      --
      Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
    107. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by gregor-e · · Score: 1

      Actually, cryonics attempts vitrification, not freezing. Patients are prepped with cryoprotectants that draw water out of cells and also replaces some of the water in cells to prevent freezing. Wikipedia has a good introduction to cryonics.

    108. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by gregor-e · · Score: 1

      Here's a letter signed by 61 scientists, some of whom you've undoubtedly heard of, who assert that cryonics is legit.

    109. Re:Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by penguinoid · · Score: 1

      I can remember reading several articles which stated that cryonics doesn't work because the freezing process is not perfect - it does not stop decomposition, which older frozen specimens were starting to show. Why do people still spend money on this?

      Why is this modded up? A thing does not have to be perfect to be good enough. Vinyl records, CDs, flash memory, magnetic memory, none of these is perfect and all decompose over time, yet they work well enough. The question is merely whether the brain's important data is preserved long enough for technology to advance to the point the person can be recovered. You ask why people would spend money on the best chance anyone has ever gotten of living? Perhaps a better question would be why people spend so much effort and resources on things like diet, exercise, end-of-life medicine, or religion, all with a guaranteed mortality rate of 100%.

      Cryonics works, it is survivable. It works for sperm, eggs, embryos, small mammalian organs, all of which can be thawed and remain undamaged. Things are more complicated for large, recently deceased organs like a dead brain -- but your odds of surviving are immeasurably higher with cryonics than as compost. Perhaps it will be necessary to scan the frozen brain molecule by molecule, and 3D print a new body (like they are now beginning to print organs), or perhaps upload as a simulation.

      I think the odds are pretty good that we can acquire the necessary technology before cryogenically slowed decomposition destroys the vital information. Perhaps a better question is not whether you can be revived, but rather whether anyone will want to. It probably depends on whether the world's population is still growing like in developing countries, or whether it is declining like in developed countries.

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    110. Re: Hasn't this been proven to be junk science? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you were able to eat the brain of your enemy and gain their memories; would you rise from your feast hating yourself?

  5. Youngest ever? False. by bondsbw · · Score: 1

    My son was frozen through embryonic cryopreservation.

    (I'm not actually equating the difficulty of resuscitation at embryonic stage with that of a live-born human. It's a complete difference in magnitude and difficulty, obviously.)

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  6. Obligatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *Fry sees a balloon go past saying 'Happy New Year 3000!'*
    Fry: Wait a minute, is that blimp accurate?
    Leela: Yep! It's December 31st 2999.
    Fry:*thinks how far he's time travelled* My God! A million years!

  7. TSA by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    this has to go through a number of shipping venues, customs, the TSA and so on...

    "Oh look, wavy tiramisu! They won't notice if I give some to my pals..."

  8. Re:Youngest ever? False. by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 0

    The start of personhood is a philosophical debate. It has no scientific answer, but in red states a definition of when cells become a person is going to be shoved down our throats. I don't rightly know if that embryo is a person or not, but I think we should agree we don't really know.

    Trying to legislate that, in my humble opinion, is legislation of the same ilk as defining the legal definition of pi.

  9. How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by NotDrWho · · Score: 2

    Not to be too harsh about it, but presumably, brain cancer ravished her brain, right? Even putting aside that cryogenic freezing is bullshit pseudoscience to begin with, how exactly would finding a cure for brain cancer in the future help someone who already had their brain destroyed by it? That's like giving FDR the polio vaccine and expecting him to walk again.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    1. Re:How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Well, the kid was only 2 years old. You could presumably clone them and the kid would just be reset at birth. Sure, the kid would have a different personality because of different life experiences, but the kid should look pretty much the same. This brings up a good point. Why try to cryogenically preserve such a young child. It's not like they have any idea about what is actually going on. If you were able to revive them, they wouldn't have much of a recollection of their previous life. Most people don't remember events from when they were 2 years old.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by rubycodez · · Score: 0

      No worries, by decapitating her and hacking her brain out of her skull, she is forever dead for sure. Even if the totally absurdity of current cryopreservation worked, which of course it can not as it destroys tissue.

    3. Re:How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by NotDrWho · · Score: 2

      It would be no less effective and much less cruel to forgo the $50,000 cryogenic freezing and just sell the grieving parents a $100 "Time Travel Rescue Promissory Note," promising that when time travel is invented in the future, your company will come back and save their kid before her or she dies.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    4. Re:How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      You've just inspired my startup, I may owe you royalties.

      Slashdotters can send me $100 plus $2 shipping for my special Time Travel Genome Beacon Kit. Recovery from the future will be enabled by the rescuers locating your DNA on portions of this Kit's absorbent material from which they will clone you. Biopsies of your intestinal lining are deposited on the material while cleansing the anus after a bowel movement, simply flush the beacon strips into your city's effluent waste system. The Time Travel Genome Kit's joined material collection squares are wrapped around a handy tubular cardboard mounting system for hanging in your washroom.

    5. Re:How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that once the girl dies the fact that no time travelers showed up to prevent it would prove you a fraud.

    6. Re:How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why try to cryogenically preserve such a young child. It's not like they have any idea about what is actually going on.

      They are doing it for the parents, not the child.

    7. Re:How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or the parents could just have sex again.

    8. Re:How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      Not at all, you and the plaintiffs clearly just don't understand time loops; why it's obvious you've only seen Loopers zero or one times. Your just in the first incomplete iteration of the first loop; after the rescue everything will be fine and dandy in the 2nd iteration and you'll be happy.

    9. Re:How are you going to "cure" a ravaged brain? by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

      Most people don't remember events from when they were 2 years old.

      When they are still 2 years old, they do.

  10. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Holi · · Score: 1

    PI has a definition already, it is the ratio of a circles circumference to it's diameter.

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  11. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But has he been unfrozen? I assume so, but only because I know what you're talking about.** A customs official in Thailand might have no clue.

    ** And because I presume you're not an Evangelical wacko who would refer to a frozen embryo as your son. Not that Evangelicals would actually do that, come to think of it. Which is telling, I think.

  12. Not fully junk by damn_registrars · · Score: 5, Insightful
    They are still working on better chemical cocktails for cryopreservation. We know we can do this with single-celled organisms and there is some evidence it works on organs as well. It might be questionable science, in that you might pay in and never wake up again, but it isn't really junk science.

    Why do people still spend money on this?

    It gives them hope. Does it harm you for them to spend their money this way? Sure there are other things they could do that would likely be more beneficial for mankind as a whole, but there are worse things, too.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:Not fully junk by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is junk science, some creatures can indeed be frozen and revived because of unique properties of their physiology. Humans cannot.

      In fact, by decapitating this girl and digging her brain out of her skull, they've guaranteed she is forever dead.

    2. Re:Not fully junk by Daniel+Hoffmann · · Score: 1

      > Does it harm you for them to spend their money this way? Sure there are other things they could do that would likely be more beneficial for mankind as a whole, but there are worse things, too.

      Just like fake fortune tellers then?

    3. Re:Not fully junk by cfalcon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...no?

      There's no way to make any sense out of a fully decomposed corpse. There's understood ways to make some sense out of frozen cells.

      For your assertion to be correct, we have to assume that the damage done to cells during the vitrification process is somehow much worse and irreversible than the wholesale consumption of those cells by microorganisms and/or the complete decomposition of the majority of organic compounds, and that the structural preservation brought about by vitrification is not helpful in any way.

      Granted, we don't know future tech. But it seems like a super good guess that one of these things will be true:

      1)- Today's cryo patients are forever dead, AND anyone else who dies today and is not preserved is forever dea.
      2)- Today's cryo patients could be revived in some fashion with some level of tech, but anyone else could not be.
      3)- Anyone, living or dead, could be revived in some fashion with some level of tech.

      The case where "Those who decay can be revived, but cryo patients cannot" seems EXTREMELY unlikely- less likely than (2) and (3), both of which are pinned on thin hopes to begin with.

    4. Re:Not fully junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It gives them hope. Does it harm you for them to spend their money this way? Sure there are other things they could do that would likely be more beneficial for mankind as a whole, but there are worse things, too.

       
      Every Frozen body part takes has a cost in CO2!! So yes it is hurting me!

    5. Re:Not fully junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Three guys are sitting around a campfire.

      Guy 1 says "I wish we could find a unicorn."
      Guy 2 says "I hear you can bait them with sugar," and throws some sugar into the air
      Guy 3 says "Unicorns aren't real; hunting them would be a waste of time."
      Guy 2 replies "Well, at least I'm TRYING!"

    6. Re:Not fully junk by phorm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, and it's pretty much just a brain, because the other half was already destroyed by cancer.

      That part doesn't make much sense to me at all.
      Spinal Damage. Stopped Heart. Sure.
      Brain injury that prevents consciousness but doesn't seem to impact primary function, maybe.

      But half her brain is gone. What are they preserving, exactly?

    7. Re:Not fully junk by blang · · Score: 1

      That is the worst super good guess I have ever seen.

      Could I interest you in this bridge I have to sell?

      --
      -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
    8. Re:Not fully junk by quantaman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It is junk science, some creatures can indeed be frozen and revived because of unique properties of their physiology. Humans cannot.

      In fact, by decapitating this girl and digging her brain out of her skull, they've guaranteed she is forever dead.

      So we're very unlikely to be able thaw her brain and have it work again.

      But that's not the only option. Even in a brain frozen and turned into mush there will still be a lot of information preserved, how do you know that preserved information is insufficient to recreate a human consciousness?

      Remember we're potentially talking about hundreds of years in the future, it's entirely plausible to assume we're talking a full theory of consciousness with nanites and a brains uploaded into computers. Are you really so certain consciousness couldn't be extracted from those brains?

      --
      I stole this Sig
    9. Re:Not fully junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How are they supposed to revive this girl without a body or even a head to encase her brain in?

    10. Re:Not fully junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      People have a natural way to create new human consciousnesses that we already have more than enough of in the world. Why would we want to bring this child back? How long has her family paid up on keeping her frozen?

    11. Re:Not fully junk by Altrag · · Score: 1

      Humans cannot.

      Says who? We may not have all of the knowledge necessary to do it (and perhaps we never will.. biology is hard!) but I'm pretty sure there's somewhere around zero evidence that its fundamentally impossible.

    12. Re:Not fully junk by biff-mo · · Score: 2

      It is junk science, some creatures can indeed be frozen and revived because of unique properties of their physiology. Humans cannot.

      So far it has been proven that organs can be cryopreserved and restored to full function. A rabbit kidney was extracted, cryopreserved to liquid N2 temps, re-warmed, and implanted into a living rabbit. It survived solely on that kidney for 48 days until it was euthanized to study the kidney. Physical and biological aspects of renal vitrification

      In fact, by decapitating this girl and digging her brain out of her skull, they've guaranteed she is forever dead.

      Here's a concept that you may not have heard of before: Information-theoretic death.

    13. Re:Not fully junk by hey! · · Score: 2

      Does it harm you for them to spend their money this way?

      Not directly. Not as an individual. But diverting resources to quackery is bad for society; not so bad in this case that it's high on my list as "health supplements", but not totally benign either.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    14. Re:Not fully junk by swillden · · Score: 1

      In fact, by decapitating this girl and digging her brain out of her skull, they've guaranteed she is forever dead.

      As opposed to what? Cremation? Burial in a box at temperatures well above freezing? You can't seriously argue that this approach makes it less likely that she could be repaired and restarted at some point in the future than typical corpse disposal methods.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    15. Re:Not fully junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one is working on a cure for Dead, and no one will. Why don't these Cryo-Con men just take a finger, freeze it, and promise to clone a new body in the future. Then they can have a medium contact the dearly departed and have them re-inhabit their new temporal home?

    16. Re:Not fully junk by cfalcon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No thanks on the bridge, but perhaps you should consider rereading this part, and remembering how logical OR works:

      " it seems like a super good guess that one of these things will be true:

      1)- Today's cryo patients are forever dead, AND anyone else who dies today and is not preserved is forever dea.
      2)- Today's cryo patients could be revived in some fashion with some level of tech, but anyone else could not be.
      3)- Anyone, living or dead, could be revived in some fashion with some level of tech."

      If you dispute that this is a super good guess, then you are claiming that the logical opposite of this is likely. The logical opposite is that "Today's cryo patients are forever dead, BUT patients who die and are incinerated or buried normally are revivable".

      Is that your belief? If you believe that cryo makes someone LESS likely to be revived than turning them into dust and sprinking the dust in a forest, at least link me some good high level druid spells, k?

      Note: If you merely believe that the odds of cryo patients being revived are the same as standard methods of treating the dead (burying or incineration), and that those odds are ZERO, then you are saying that my "super good guess" is without doubt true, based on the first term.

      Nothing in my post claims that cryo produces revivable patients. But it does dispute the above post, that cryo makes people LESS revivable. That should be trivially bullshit.

    17. Re:Not fully junk by cfalcon · · Score: 1

      Presumably at some distant point in that future, those would be trivial problems. I suspect that is the position of the cryo community, certainly the neuropreseverationists.

    18. Re:Not fully junk by cfalcon · · Score: 1

      I think you are making a lot of assumptions about the limits of future tech.

      If you assume that it's possibly reasonable to freeze a whole brain based on the possibility of a vastly advanced future tech (and future denizens willing to employ it to your benefit, as you intend now), then within THAT space the odds that enough is preserved in that "half a brain" to reconstruct a person is pretty good.

      Also, remember that what we DO know does involve some redundancy to memories, and a combined structural, electrical, and chemical consistency to many elements of mind. So that's probably not your big stopping point- it's the odds that this is something that happens in the future in the first place.

    19. Re:Not fully junk by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "I think you are making a lot of assumptions about the limits of future tech."

      Yet sensible assumptions.

      "If you assume that it's possibly reasonable to freeze a whole brain based on the possibility of a vastly advanced future tech"

      There's no relationship between being able to properly freeze a whole brain *tomorrow* and doing it today. As per our current knowledge we know that it might possible to freeze and recover a brain *in the future*. We know for sure we can't freeze a brain in a recoverable manner *today*.

      "then within THAT space the odds that enough is preserved in that "half a brain" to reconstruct a person is pretty good."

      And here comes the non sequitur. Nothing is said about the vastly more difficult -to the point to deem it impossible, of recovering an unproperly frozen brain. Even with a properly frozen brain, is still to be seen what is to be recovered after that. Much less about recovering parts that were lost. Much, much less about recovering parts that were never there to start with, as it is the case here.

      Mix all and it's obvious all you have is a scam based on the false hopes of those suffering parents mourning their forever-lost child.

    20. Re:Not fully junk by turbidostato · · Score: 1

      "You can't seriously argue that this approach makes it less likely that she could be repaired and restarted at some point in the future than typical corpse disposal methods."

      No need to. It's enough to say that it is as much likely. Which it is.

    21. Re:Not fully junk by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      The slightly reduced likelihood of revival is because of the very very obscure chance that the girl might be discovered to be still alive after all if not frozen. That negligibly above zero chance is greater than the chance of reviving today's cryo patients whose biochemical information has been destroyed by freezing.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    22. Re:Not fully junk by Gavagai80 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If the money spent on cryogenic freezing were donated to cancer research, more cancers might be treatable by now.

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    23. Re:Not fully junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When and where are these three guys sitting around a campfire? If you substitute "unicorn" for some other imaginary animal, such as the duck-billed platypus, it changes the argument a bit. Once upon a time, the duck-billed platypus was a ridiculous hoax and the preserved samples were "known" to be made out of two different animals sewn together. Giant squid the length of ten men were ridiculous sailor stories. For that matter, in some places and times, so were gigantic sea beasts that sprayed plumes of water out of their heads and so were gigantic land animals that could crush a man with their long noses. Unicorns aren't real, but a log of really fantastic creatures, and the people who insist on sitting at home and never going out to look because none of them are real are wrong more often than not.

      Same thing is true of cryopreservation. Those cryonically preserved today will almost certainly never be revivable, but that doesn't mean that nothing will come of the technology. For example, freezing of transplant organs to keep them viable longer may be entirely possible. Freezing a person in order to preserve them may also someday be possible.

    24. Re:Not fully junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      " the very very obscure chance that the girl might be discovered to be still alive after all "

      Jesus, I know some don't read the article, but this is full fucking ludicrous.

      But even forgetting how awful that sounds, why would even think that ALL biochemical information has been destroyed by vitrification? Cell membranes being ruptured is incompatible with life, but it is a far cry from all info lost.

    25. Re:Not fully junk by omnichad · · Score: 1

      She regained consciousness and a lot more with half a brain. Read the article.

    26. Re:Not fully junk by phorm · · Score: 1

      Believe it or not, I did read the article.
      It said she regained consciousness after drilling her skull and removing half the tumour. It's after that that it says they did chemo, radiation, and more surgeries which lost 80% of her left brain and paralysed her. After that she regained some vision and mobility, but the cancer still spread to the remaining brain.

      So from the sound of it, there wasn't a whole lot of brain left. 80% of the left is gone, and the right had already been eaten away by cancer as well.

    27. Re:Not fully junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "No one is working on a cure for Dead, and no one will."

      and why is that? why do most think that "dead" is somehow the correct outcome to our existence? it is natural , yes, but if we wanted to live naturally then give back all the vaccines and cures we have currently produced. I can't understand why people hold death to be the way things should be for us, if it does not have to be.

      If it's this planet and/or overpopulation you worry about then you are too late already. Your only real option is for us to move off of it... the sooner the better... and if we are ever going to move off of this planet by spreading out into the universe, then we will need as many people as we can get to do so.

    28. Re:Not fully junk by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Still,

      But half her brain is gone. What are they preserving, exactly?

      She was conscious after that. And had regained vision and mobility. Yes, the cancer spread after that, but that wasn't what I was refuting.

    29. Re:Not fully junk by Shortguy881 · · Score: 1

      Interestingly, there is research in a drug/gene therapy that uses electrical current to make a cell membrane porous but retain its structure. Something like this could, in theory, be used to stabilize cells during the thawing process. Granted this is a combination of various technologies still in their infancy, but to deny that something is possible is more foolish.

      For example, you'll look like a fool when the first genetically altered horse with a narwhal horn shows up.

      --
      Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
    30. Re:Not fully junk by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Those cryonically preserved today will almost certainly never be revivable, but that doesn't mean that nothing will come of the technology. For example, freezing of transplant organs to keep them viable longer may be entirely possible. Freezing a person in order to preserve them may also someday be possible.

      No one is saying there shouldn't be research into this. That doesn't mean you should accept money from desperate people when you know they will never be brought back to life.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    31. Re:Not fully junk by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      " the very very obscure chance that the girl might be discovered to be still alive after all "

      Jesus, I know some don't read the article, but this is full fucking ludicrous.

      But even forgetting how awful that sounds, why would even think that ALL biochemical information has been destroyed by vitrification? Cell membranes being ruptured is incompatible with life, but it is a far cry from all info lost.

      What they should do is encase the brain in amber, as the Jurassic Park documentary showed that this will allow bringing back to life even if it's hundreds of millions of years in the future.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    32. Re:Not fully junk by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      ...no?

      There's no way to make any sense out of a fully decomposed corpse. There's understood ways to make some sense out of frozen cells.

      For your assertion to be correct, we have to assume that the damage done to cells during the vitrification process is somehow much worse and irreversible than the wholesale consumption of those cells by microorganisms and/or the complete decomposition of the majority of organic compounds, and that the structural preservation brought about by vitrification is not helpful in any way.

      Granted, we don't know future tech. But it seems like a super good guess that one of these things will be true:

      1)- Today's cryo patients are forever dead, AND anyone else who dies today and is not preserved is forever dea. 2)- Today's cryo patients could be revived in some fashion with some level of tech, but anyone else could not be. 3)- Anyone, living or dead, could be revived in some fashion with some level of tech.

      The case where "Those who decay can be revived, but cryo patients cannot" seems EXTREMELY unlikely- less likely than (2) and (3), both of which are pinned on thin hopes to begin with.

      There is also the question as to why future generations will find it desirable to revive those long dead who have neither any resources to finance their existence nor any sort of experience which will prepare them for the world in which they find themselves awake. Imagine if cryogenics had begun in the past and the awakening process had been perfected now. "I'm able to read and write and in the past I have been able to support myself as a scribe. Hey, is that fellow an escaped slave? Shouldn't his master be notified?"

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    33. Re:Not fully junk by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      It is junk science, some creatures can indeed be frozen and revived because of unique properties of their physiology. Humans cannot.

      In fact, by decapitating this girl and digging her brain out of her skull, they've guaranteed she is forever dead.

      So we're very unlikely to be able thaw her brain and have it work again.

      But that's not the only option. Even in a brain frozen and turned into mush there will still be a lot of information preserved, how do you know that preserved information is insufficient to recreate a human consciousness?

      Remember we're potentially talking about hundreds of years in the future, it's entirely plausible to assume we're talking a full theory of consciousness with nanites and a brains uploaded into computers. Are you really so certain consciousness couldn't be extracted from those brains?

      "I don't know how to clone a nose" https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    34. Re:Not fully junk by gzuckier · · Score: 1

      "Rammer" by Larry Niven, 1971: The future is annoyed at the past for leaving them all these corpsicles which expect to be revived and supported, so they give you a few days to express some sign of possibly being useful to society in some way and if not, then...... Most get the ...... option.

      --
      Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
    35. Re:Not fully junk by gregor-e · · Score: 1

      There are hundreds of thousands humans alive today who spent months or years in cryosuspension as embryos.

    36. Re:Not fully junk by gregor-e · · Score: 1

      Cryonics Institute charges $28K for whole-body suspension. A fancy casket, funeral, flowers, burial plot, etc. can easily cost more than that. By spending that cash on cryonic suspension, there's a long shot of coming back in some form or other. Being turned into air pollution or worm poison is pretty much guaranteed to leave your body unrecoverable. Not much of a wager.

    37. Re:Not fully junk by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

      That doesn't mean you should accept money from desperate people when you know they will never be brought back to life.

      Why not? If it makes the desperate people fell better to give away their money, why should it not be accepted?

    38. Re:Not fully junk by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

      Like the Robocop remake but with a robo skull too.

    39. Re:Not fully junk by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

      I use to have a friend who's brain (and skull) was half gone. His mother had smashed it when he was a toddler. But he was a fully functioning adult.
      I had another friend who's toddler nephew got shot in the head, damaging a good portion of his brain. I didn't know him past his childhood, but last I saw him he needed glasses but was otherwise fine.
      A toddler's brain is quite resilient...

  13. So in 300 years... by Lucas123 · · Score: 4, Funny

    After curing the cancer in 25 years, and tthen 275 years later when we figure out how to reanimate frozen brain cells, this kid's going to be like, "What do you mean I'm an orphan?"

    1. Re:So in 300 years... by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 2

      "And didn't anyone think I'd need a body too? A vajayjay and a uterus would have been pretty fun and useful at some point, don'tcha think? WTF people!" May as well just sign her frozen head up on Halloween to be the first shot from the pumpkin chucker into the river. That's about all the fun she's going to have at this point, reanimated or not.

      --

      Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

      Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    2. Re:So in 300 years... by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Being a brain in a jar is so much more convenient though. No more itchy spots between the shoulder blades that you can't reach, no need to interrupt your MMO raid to go poop, no more getting kicked in the nads, no need to worry about bad hair days. Just relax in the soothing warm gel.

    3. Re:So in 300 years... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After curing the cancer in 25 years, and tthen 275 years later when we figure out how to reanimate frozen brain cells, this kid's going to be like, "What do you mean I'm an orphan?"

      It's far worse than that. These selfish parents tortured this poor little dying girl. From the article:

      Over the next year, the two-year-old would receive 12 brain surgeries, 20 chemotherapy treatments, and 20 radiation therapy sessions. Einz lost 80 percent of her left brain

      That's insane and wrong. Then after she finally dies, they mutilate her body.

    4. Re:So in 300 years... by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 1

      Just relax in the soothing warm gel.

      Forever, maybe (does apoptosis still occur in this situation? Hmmm). Staring at the wall of the jar. Maybe through it, if they are courteous enough to make it of glass. Then you get to stare at all the jerks who put you in that prison, watching them ogle how you function or not.

      The more they play with this life extension bullshit, the more I hope to be allowed a dignified and painless death.

      Death is NOT the enemy. It's just the last inn at the side of the road after a (hopefully) long, long journey.

      --

      Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

      Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    5. Re:So in 300 years... by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 1

      Shh...be careful. The pro-lifers will ass-rape you for expressing these sentiments. She should have been chemotherapied into a vegetative state, then held on life support until her heart rotted to mush, citizen!

      --

      Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

      Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    6. Re:So in 300 years... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a reasonable concern, which is why her parents signed up too.

      If the day somehow arrives when humans can resurrect their dead, at least Matheryn won’t be alone. Her parents have pledged to become members of Alcor, too, so they might be reanimated together in some better future.

    7. Re:So in 300 years... by Whiteox · · Score: 1

      Well my Grandad knew Hans Delbrook personally. Hans was a genius and it was decided to preserve his brain in a jar at the brain depository. A decade later, it was destroyed by a clumsy thief. A pity, as rumor had it that there was a re-animation experiment going on at the time. It would've been nice to have him back according to Gramps.

      --
      Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
  14. The whole thing is obviously stupid by JustNiz · · Score: 2

    Why did they remove the head? It seems to me the lack of a body is what's going to not get you unfrozen in the future, not the cancer. The cure for cancer is probably a whole lot morel likely lthan any time when we can sucessfully graft a head onto a whole new body, or cause the head to grow one.

    Then of course there's the whole question of why anyone in the future would even want to go to the expense and effort of defrosting and curing you when there's already too many people in the world, and also a whole lot easier and more pleasurable ways of making more should you want to.

    1. Re:The whole thing is obviously stupid by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

      More to the point, in my opinion. Even if they could bring you back, and even if there was no need to worry about overpopulation, and even if it were easy and energy an infinite resource. Why would they? Even assuming money means anything, these people are not putting away any money to pay to be brought back, they just pay to be frozen. And along with you they would likely have the ability to raise billions of people from their graves. But I do not see any culture ever believing that it is ethical to raise the long dead back to life just because they can. Abraham Lincoln and Genghis Khan will probably be brought back to life at some time, just for curiosities sake. But some nobody from china in modern times? Never.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    2. Re:The whole thing is obviously stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah because it's not like some crackpot is already attempting the first body transplant next year! Seriously these comments are depressing, basically "man will never fly", "man will never reach the moon", "we have discovered all we will ever discover"... Yes it's fringe, but all progress is.

    3. Re:The whole thing is obviously stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't the idea that in the future they will be able to recreate your brain digitally? The point of cryogenics, I thought, was to preserve as much information as possible about the current state of your brain.

    4. Re:The whole thing is obviously stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why did they remove the head? It seems to me the lack of a body is what's going to not get you unfrozen in the future, not the cancer.

      Head transplants appear to be in the works.
      http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-15-2015-1.3033488/first-human-head-transplant-attempt-faces-harsh-criticism-1.3033519

  15. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    They will declare such cells "corporations" to give them legal personhood

  16. You can't make this stuff up by Indigo · · Score: 1

    "To see a frozen head in a box might have raised a number of red flags. In the U.S. that’s not a big deal..."

    1. Re:You can't make this stuff up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What, you don't purchase your frozen heads on e-Bay?!

    2. Re:You can't make this stuff up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You kinda lose interest after the fifth tortoise with Danny Trejo's severed head on its back wanders across the border into the country...

    3. Re:You can't make this stuff up by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      What, you don't purchase your frozen heads on e-Bay?!

      You can get 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag from Amazon for $10 bucks.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  17. Re:Youngest ever? False. by MickyTheIdiot · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The point went whizzing over your head, apparently.

    There have been legislatures that have attempted to pass bills that would have legally set the definition of pi to a set number (or at least implied it). This happened in Indiana in the late 1800s.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

  18. Sheesh by AkkarAnadyr · · Score: 3, Funny

    These kids today, with the frozen heads and the music ...

    --

    I bought this house and you know I'm boss
    Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off

  19. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

    Did this have to do with In-Vitro Fertilization?

  20. Because Grief is a harsh mistress by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's why they do it. Loosing a child is something that hurts an awful lot. Watching them die from cancer has to be gut wrenching.

    Spending a few bucks to feel maybe somewhat better? Priceless.
    Pain is a motivator for many things.

    I am not sure this was the best choice for a 2 year old child's remains. But then again what do I know. I'd pet Cemetery my kids if that shit was supposed to work and I could try.

    1. Re:Because Grief is a harsh mistress by blang · · Score: 1

      It is disrespectful to the child.
      Instead of resting in peace in the same tradition as her forefathers, which is how most people prefer to be disposed of, she is condemned to eternal undeadness in a freezing facility like some freak. And not by her own choice. I find this whole industry grotesque and morbid.

      --
      -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
    2. Re:Because Grief is a harsh mistress by xmousex · · Score: 1

      this makes absolutely no sense. her forefathers are not resting in peace they are non existing rot piles in boxes under the ground. "resting in peace" is a falsehood itself we just say it as a weak form of death acceptance.. There is no eternal undeadness in her situation that is any different from the corpse underground except for the remote possibility that someone might be able to revive her someday. And if not, she is just as equally dead as anybody else. Her tissues are simply not rotting away, thats the only difference, she is dead but her deterioration has been halted. Any disrespect is imagined or cultural based invention, but no actual perceivable trauma has occurred. The girl isnt sitting there crying about it and neither are the parents. Who is being harmed and how?

    3. Re:Because Grief is a harsh mistress by blang · · Score: 1

      Nonsense.

      Regardless of religion, all cultures from far back have a concept of peace in death. Death brings peace. Even if peace just means absense of motion. The idea of people being brought back for dead is considered creepy. They are called zombies, exception I guess is the jesus zombie, which was a well publicized parlour trick.
      Even atheists care about what happens to their remains.
      Some happily give their remains to science, some prefer to get incinerated and sprinkled, others prefer to get buried 6 feet under. I am sure a small minority would be content to be stuck in a freezer instead of incineration of being eaten by worms, but culturally, most humans do not swing that way. Nither do they prefer to be hoistred on a pole and used as a flag, or displayed in a circus side show as a freak.

      It might be based entirely on superstition that we need to treat the dead with some respect. In reality, it is the Memory of the dead ones we must treat with respect, and if teh dead one is sent off in a freakish way, that overshadows the other memories of the dead one.

      So yes, deep freezing teh girl is a horrible thing to do, and is extremely disrespectful to the girl. Grief can cause people depression, and depressed people can do crazy things, These are mitigating circumstances, but it is still a fact that the girl is being treated with the utmost disrespect.

      That you speak otherwise just shows how ignorant you are about the world, humans, and culture. You might think you are being neutral and scientific, but you really are just being pedantic AND ignorant. Science does not exist in a vacuum.

      --
      -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
    4. Re:Because Grief is a harsh mistress by xmousex · · Score: 1

      your entire argument is "because superstition"

      there will come a time when people must move forward.

      new views, new ideas, new opinions based on new information.

      those people need leaders.

    5. Re:Because Grief is a harsh mistress by blang · · Score: 1

      agreed.

      i suggest you chop your own head off and send to a cryogenics lab, while it is still functioning, and not cancer-ridden.

      maybe you can be thawed out and can be their leader in 2150.

      And if you find my comment morbid, we have a circular argument going here.

      Fucking moron.

      --
      -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
    6. Re:Because Grief is a harsh mistress by xmousex · · Score: 1

      not even in the same realm of discussion. nice try though

  21. Re:A 2 year old? by TWX · · Score: 1

    Heh. There was an episode of House where as an aside, the topic of the over/under age on attempting significant risky medical procedures on children was brought up. House asserted that the age was seven.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  22. Just like modern software by penguinoid · · Score: 2

    Kids these days can't write DNA code that won't suddenly freeze.

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  23. while medical science works on a cure. by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

    A cure to having your body, face, and entire skull surgically removed? Good luck with that.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  24. Re:Youngest ever? False. by bondsbw · · Score: 1

    Yes.

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  25. Re:Youngest ever? False. by bondsbw · · Score: 1

    Yes, he is 4 months old now.

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  26. Re:Youngest ever? False. by ibpooks · · Score: 1

    It's an interesting question, but I think you mean he was born 4 months ago. But since he was frozen as an embryo how old is he really? A couple years?

  27. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The apostrophe has a definition already, it's means it is.

  28. Cryonic, not cryogenic, and some thoughts by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    The headline gets it right, but the summary gets it wrong. Does no-one watch QI around here?

    TFS's headline is also a lot better than TFA's:

    The Girl Who Would Live Forever

    Ugh.

    This whole thing strikes me as a little ridiculous, and the fluffy tone of the article really doesn't help.

    The core of Einz’s two-year-old being now rests in cryofreeze in Arizona

    40% of the "core of her being" (80% of the left hemisphere) had already been destroyed during surgery to treat the caner.

    in wait of a cure, and a means to regrow her body.

    By which time, unless they get themselves frozen as well, her parents will be long dead. For that matter, her country and her culture (not that she'll remember much of it, having spent most of her tragically short life in hospitals) will probably be long dead as well.

    Far more likely, I suspect, is that the technology will never come into being at all, or our current procedures will turn out to be so lacking as to make the attempt impossible in her case.

    As harsh as it may sound, and as a non-parent I really have no decent insight into their mindset, I think it might have been best for the parents to say their goodbyes, to grieve properly and learn to do their best to live their lives without their daughter.

    And instead of being frozen in a vault somewhere to await a ressurection that may never happen, her brain could instead have been further studied to aid in the fight against this disease in those still living.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Cryonic, not cryogenic, and some thoughts by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

      I have 2 kids and I have some sympathy for the family and I can say that before having had my kids I wouldn't have.

      According to the article both the parents are doctors so it would be fair to assume they are not stupid. They probably know that there is almost no chance of their daughter ever being restored, in fact they probably know it better than most. It would also be fair to assume that both being doctors that they are well paid, so $40,000 may not be that large an amount of money.

      If one of my girls was dying and there was a random highly unlikely treatment I could try for $40k I can safely say I would do it. Would I get one of them frozen? Probably not but more for the points you made about everything from her past being long dead. The author Peter F. Hamilton actually uses suspension, where people are frozen for 1000 years or more, as criminal punishment in some of his novels.

      As for the research, brain cancer in children is extremely nasty. It moves very very quickly and is fatal pretty much every time. It is also not that rare. The medical institutions will have already had everything they could use for research from her already. Having taking most of the left hemisphere there was little more her body could have been used for.

    2. Re:Cryonic, not cryogenic, and some thoughts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > As harsh as it may sound,

      If I get someone to sob and inflect enough while they talk to you, you'll change your mind, and even pay money towards something like this. It's awesome.

    3. Re:Cryonic, not cryogenic, and some thoughts by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      If I get someone to sob and inflect enough while they talk to you, you'll change your mind, and even pay money towards something like this. It's awesome.

      You've got no idea what I'd do.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    4. Re:Cryonic, not cryogenic, and some thoughts by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

      I have 2 kids and I have some sympathy for the family and I can say that before having had my kids I wouldn't have.

      4 kids here and I have to agree with that... it's kind of appalling that so many people believe a 2 year old is not really a person and has no memories that hold any value, but I suppose I can understand how someone that has had only brief interactions with 2 year olds can think that. A 2 year old is definitely a person with thoughts, feelings, memories, and a personality, and if I lost one of mine at 2 and thought there was even a slim chance at preserving them, I'd do it. I still think it's rather silly to get all attached to fetuses and embryos though.

  29. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then logically everyone who has miscarried should be charged with manslaughter, and child neglect, for not keeping their child safe.

    Every empryo which fails to implant in the uterus is obviously a failure of the mother.

    Do you really want to go down that road considering how many natural cases of that there are?

  30. Abuse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I get that she has cancer, but who in their right mind would let someone do this to their child? Just let her die in peace.

  31. Let it go.... by Dareth · · Score: 1

    Let it go....
    Turn away and slam the door!

    I don't care...

    --

    I only look human.
    My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
  32. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Age is normally expressed from birth, rather than conception.

  33. Cyanogen cryogen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Arrggh two words that look and sound almost alike in back-to-back posts. I'm sooooo confused. Arrggh!!!!

  34. Re:Youngest ever? False. by bondsbw · · Score: 1

    We transferred 2 from two different IVF cycles, so around either 14 months or 17 months.

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  35. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 0

    While you are 100% accurate about when "personhood" begins (being Philosophical), we do know that premature babies as young as 24 weeks of gestation have been born, and survived. Would you at least say that was at least one likely boundry of "personhood"?

    The problem is, that the Blue State abortion fanatics refuse to establish even a baseline, because they know that once that line is drawn in the sand, it can be argued for movement. They refuse to even define the line in the sand, because they are just as fanatical as the Red State crowd on this issue.

    Making it about Red State anti scientific types, when it is much more nuanced than that, is a disservice to the discussion.

    Here is my suggestion for "personhood", legal scientific accurate. Personhood starts the moment the fetus (baby) is able to survive outside the womb. We know when that is, because we have proof via example.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  36. Questionable Science by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

    They are still working on better chemical cocktails for cryopreservation. We know we can do this with single-celled organisms and there is some evidence it works on organs as well. It might be questionable science, in that you might pay in and never wake up again, but it isn't really junk science.

    All science is questionable science. That's what makes science distinct from religion.

    It might be a science experiment, but that doesn't make it *medically* sound.

  37. Nukes by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

    > Does it harm you for them to spend their money this way? Sure there are other things they could do that would likely be more beneficial for mankind as a whole, but there are worse things, too.

    Just like fake fortune tellers then?

    Or building nuclear bombs. There are worse things they could do: they could *use* them. So it's okay, right?

    #reasonfail

  38. I thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought the headline was going to finish "become an MCSE"

  39. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Harlequin80 · · Score: 1

    My 2 year old was frozen and thawed. She has 5 twins still sitting in the freezer.

  40. Death ritual by Dereck1701 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Cryonics is basically like any death ritual (cremation, burring, funerals, etc), Its about the (unlikely) hope of some life after death and giving some measure of closure to the living. Sure its extremely unlikely to go anywhere, chances are some bankruptcy, economic collapse or natural disaster is going to destroy the brains/bodies long before technology advances to a point where they can be revived but who cares? If push comes to shove at a minimum we'll have some fairly well preserved bodies/brains in a few decades/centuries for future scientists to study assuming the company goes bankrupt. If we have a major economic collapse these bodies/brains can join a significant portion of humanities other "accomplishments" (fashion, popular culture, modern movies, etc) in decay. And on the long shot maybe these people will give direct witness to the time period in which they lived if it happens to succeed.

    1. Re:Death ritual by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't really bring closure if the body is considered "perfectly preserved, with a chance of reanimation"... It's precisely putting everything on hold, in a much more "physical" way than most other beliefs related to death.

      And for babies/kids who couldn't really give their approval (or unconscious people who didn't give prior approval), it can be seen as quite intrusive (of course many people would say it's just dead meat now, but that's very reducing, and they're saying it as an attempt of protection, rather than as a well-reflected consideration).

    2. Re:Death ritual by Dereck1701 · · Score: 1

      You seem to be assuming that standard burial practices are less intrusive, generally they're not. In the US embalming is pretty standard and for that first they slap the deceased onto a metal table and strip off their cloths. Then they wash the body, sew/glue the eyes and mouth shut and hook the body up to a machine that pumps the blood out and formaldehyde in. Then they take rather large needles and inject large amounts of formaldehyde into each organ. And thats if the body came in good shape, if the body was damaged (car wreck, industrial accident, murder, etc) they have to do a lot less pleasant things to prepare the body for viewing.

  41. *cough* by koan · · Score: 1

    To see a frozen head in a box might have raised a number of red flags.

    You're doing it wrong then.

    A 2 year old... might be the only frozen human that would stand a chance of adapting to whatever future has the tech to bring her back.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  42. Re:Youngest ever? False. by blang · · Score: 1

    You are wrong, and I am not denying anything from my "victims" because I have in fact, never performed an abortion on myself, not on anyone else.
    You are an abomination and will probably end up in "the other place" if it exists.

    --
    -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
  43. Re:Youngest ever? False. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    But has he been unfrozen? I assume so, but only because I know what you're talking about.** A customs official in Thailand might have no clue.

    ** And because I presume you're not an Evangelical wacko who would refer to a frozen embryo as your son. Not that Evangelicals would actually do that, come to think of it. Which is telling, I think.

    You've never known a religious nut who believed that even embryos spontaneously aborted at 4 - 6 weeks are babies. Kind of gross (and disturbing) when I opened the fridge and asked "What is that?"

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  44. Re:Youngest ever? False. by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 1

    It is a set number. It's not an integer, but real numbers are certainly numbers, and pi is a constant in Euclidean geometry.

    --
    Not a sentence!
  45. Re:Youngest ever? False. by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    Only in Euclidean geometry. In other geometries (e.g. in lp =/=2 space or in a gravity well if you want something physical) it doesn't hold.

    That's what I love about maths: mathmeticians are an imaginitive bunch and capable of dreaming up truly crazy things.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  46. duct tape? really?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    thanks but no thanks
    http://motherboard-images.vice...

  47. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

    It has no scientific answer, but in red states a definition of when cells become a person is going to be shoved down our throats.

    A government-based decision either way is shoving some answer down someone's throat. The best course of action is to get government out of the answer altogether and let people decide. That means, however, getting government all the way out of the answer, including not forcing people who make one decision pay for the actions of people who decide the other way.

  48. Re:Youngest ever? False. by bondsbw · · Score: 1

    Calling a 4-week old fetus a "baby" is kind of like calling a 4-month old boy a "man". Not really right, not really wrong... but that doesn't really matter anyway, it's not what the debate is about.

    What matters is legal personhood. At what point in life does a person begin to have specific rights, and at what point does a person gain legal recognition as a party of civil and criminal actions? That's what it's about... not whether people call the human a "baby".

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  49. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    never performed an abortion on myself, not on anyone else.

    ...and we all know that you are completely innocent and get let go scot-free when you pay someone else to murder someone.

  50. You are wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Hope is not "a belief that the world has potential energy that can be converted into kinetic energy." That is ridiculous. The belief you stated is just a principle of physics. There is nothing about enlightenment that would contradict knowledge of and application of physics.

    You have "refuted" the argument by changing its premises. That isn't a refutation.

    Enlightenment is a state of inner peace that takes place in a context of a correct understanding of reality. The "correct understanding of reality" part is fully dependent on a correct understanding of physics. You would like that bit.

    The "inner peace" bit involves a distinct absence of emotional perturbation. The idea is to calm the emotions by attaining an objective perspective on reality. Filling your perspective up with imagined ideas about potential futures tends to increase emotional turbulence, rather than decrease it. The joy that can come from positive hope is, on the one hand, fleeting and can lead to greater depression, and on the other hand, entirely based on indulgence in desire.

    This does not mean that you never experience joy, nor that you never try to make the world better, or anything absurd like that. It means that you don't make this emotional-and-fantasy-based thought pattern a primary source of joy, nor even your primary cognitive mode.

  51. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  52. Visa? by AndyCanfield · · Score: 1

    Question: What kind of visa does the U.S. government require for a decapitated head? Maybe an "H1-B" for laboratory staff?

  53. shipping? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought medical flights (forgot the name of the agency) can ship organs and body parts around the world without going through DHL or federal express.

    Let it go.

  54. Swanson's Frozen Brains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A frozen dinner for the future zombie apocalypse. I hope they included defrosting directions.

  55. Cure for which aliment. by TJEx · · Score: 1

    Cancer or being just a frozen brain. In a dozen years they could have cured her cancer but putting her brain from a box back into a body is not going to happen any time soon.

  56. Not the youngest by iamacat · · Score: 0

    Embryos are frozen all the time

    1. Re:Not the youngest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At the risk of starting a huge flame war: embryos aren't people.

  57. Base PI... by Grog6 · · Score: 1

    A lot of repetitive calculations are much easier on a computer if you use base PI for the math. Convert in, calculate a shitload of data that gets converted back on its way out. :)

    --
    Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
  58. I don't know... by Grog6 · · Score: 1

    I hear Corpsicles taste Great!!

    --
    Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
  59. Re:Youngest ever? False. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    Personhood begins when we decide when it does. Is it arbitrary? Sure, but so is the concept of personhood.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  60. Cell wall archaeology. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    May well destroy every cell, that doesn't necessarily mean you can't work out what sort of cell it was. Is enough information left to reprogram a stem cell to do the same job? Or assemble one from atoms (the way god intended) if you can wait long enough.

    If the brain tissues still have the same interconnections and evidence of connection strengths, what's to stop a suitably mature biotech from reassembling you one cell at a time? There don't have to be any revivable cells left to have a revivable organism. All they have to do is embody the same pattern.

    Aren't our cells constantly replaced anyway? Doing them all at once can't be some much more difficult (than the job nature already does).

  61. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

    The problem is, that the Blue State abortion fanatics refuse to establish even a baseline, because they know that once that line is drawn in the sand, it can be argued for movement.

    Every single state in the country has established a baseline. None of them allow aborting while in labor when the mother's life isn't in danger. Almost none allow it when close to labor. So-called abortion "fanatics" show themselves to be the exact opposite of fanatics, in that they're happy to draw and re-draw and debate the line and acknowledge that it's a matter of degree rather than a black and white date.

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    This space intentionally left blank
  62. Re:Youngest ever? False. by bondsbw · · Score: 1

    Considering personhood is a legal concept, it's no more arbitrary than deciding when speech is free or not, when taxes are just or not, when marriage is allowed or not... it depends on whether the law in general has your respect.

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  63. Re:Youngest ever? False. by bondsbw · · Score: 1

    False dichotomy. Uncontrollable situations such as miscarriages are not the same as willful neglect.

    --
    All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
  64. Pointless! There is no person to recover. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A 2 year old is not a sufficiently permanent collection of memories to consider even trying to preserve them. How much do you remember from before the age of 3 or 4? If you could recover what is left of this damaged brains's memories they would be mostly gone by the time the new entity reach adulthood anyway.

    It would have made more sense to clone the child right now, if it was legally permitted, because after two year you would have pretty much the same child back as they would have the same genes and you would be bringing them up in the same environment.

    It bothers me that some people seem to be starting to worship the potential of science without having the thinking skills to actually understand the subject.

    1. Re:Pointless! There is no person to recover. by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

      How much do you remember from before the age of 3 or 4?

      Not very much NOW ~26 years later, but ask a 3 or 4 year old how much they remember about their life and they can tell you quite a bit.
      I'm guessing the parents' hope is that advancements would happen within their lifetime so that they get to continue raising their daughter from where they left off; not so much that their 2 year old has some kind of knowledge or memories that will make her important to the future.

  65. 4 types of immortality by abies · · Score: 0

    One of the TED talks was covering this subject - it was really a kind of eye opener for me
    https://www.ted.com/talks/step...
    Presenter argues that there are 4 basic stories about immortality, which get repeated across the ages, with slightly different color, but same underlying idea - and realizing that helps to put some distance into believing latest 'science magic'
    1) Elixir - immortality of the body (Philospher Stone, Fountain of Youth, hormone teraphy, gene telomere therapy etc)
    2) Ressurection - getting raised from dead (bible Apocalypse raise-from-dead at end of times if you are buried properly, being ressurected from cryogenic sleep by future scientists if frozen properly)
    3) Soul - preserving mind/person even if body is gone (most religions afterlife/reincarnation, mind upload)
    4) Legacy - preserving your ideas and/or genetics (having children, rising/teaching children, creating works of art, science discoveries, blowing yourself up to good of your village/country/religion etc)

    In this case, parents just wanted to believe their 'scientific' version of ressurection fairy story. It is just more expensive and slightly more gruesome than lot more common rite of putting body into ground with priest chanting over it, so it can get ressurected by allmighty God at end of time. As long as child was properly circumcised in time. Or baptized. Or hasn't killed any puppy. Or was frozen to exactly proper temperature with right mix of chemicals.

  66. IVF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The IVF industry routinely cryogenically freezes embryos and then re-animates them.

    So depending on your definition of "person", this two-year-old could be considered to be a long way from being the youngest person ever to be frozen.

    The existence and success of IVF from frozen actually goes a long way toward refuting some of the anti-cryogenics rhetoric posted here -- it does work, and it does have real-world application, and there is real and valid research being done around it.

    I do agree with other posts that the odds of bringing back this particular individual are virtually zero, so it can't be considered a worthwhile exercise in that respect, but please don't dismiss the entire industry just because there are some folk using it to sell snake oil.

  67. Re:Youngest ever? False. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    And? The universe has no "concept" of morals or ethics. These are biological constructs that modify the behavior of animals (including humans) depending on circumstances. If the environment changes drastically, so do the morals and ethics - the "norms".

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  68. Major scam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, with the world already facing problems with overpopulation, a problem which is only going to grow, why on earth would anyone at a future date decide to go to the trouble and expense to bring back someone from a long time before, who aready lived their lives and died, who will not fit in, who will have nothing to offer to future society? Unless the corpse belongs to some genius, one fine day they will be declared dead and all those brains and bodies just incinerated.

    1. Re:Major scam by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

      Maybe someday we'll have an UNDERpopulation problem, and all the (then) modern-day people have issues with reproducing; so they bring back people from the past, to mix genes or study why they could reproduce while modern people can't...

  69. Maybe if more people by EdwardFurlong · · Score: 1

    put their faith in cryogenics instead of religion, it would make some real progress. You are dead either way, why care if people freeze themselves?

  70. If she is ever revived by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In Arizona, they'll consider her an illegal immigrant.

  71. Re:Youngest ever? False. by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 0

    Um, you failed to actually answer the question I actually asked.

    While you are 100% accurate about when "personhood" begins (being Philosophical), we do know that premature babies as young as 24 weeks of gestation have been born, and survived. Would you at least say that was at least one likely boundry of "personhood"?

    This is not arbitrary boundary, it is one established by survivability outside the womb.

    None of them allow aborting while in labor when the mother's life isn't in danger. Almost none allow it when close to labor.

    "Almost" doesn't mean what you think it means. "Almost None" means some. Some isn't none. Lets rephrase your statement in the positive shall we?

    None of them allow aborting while in labor when the mother's life isn't in danger. Some even allow it when close to labor.

    How you phrase things to minimize the effect doesn't actually negate it at all, which is kind of what you were aiming for. I happen to be able to phrase the exact same meaning in a sentence (Almost None=Some) that conveys a completely different connotation. Since both terms are equally nebulous they are equal in meaning.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  72. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  73. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  74. I will piss on all your graves once I am revived by mix_left_and_right · · Score: 1

    you are all such idiots...well, most of you anyway. When I am revived from the dewar hundreds of years from now, I will use the AI computers of that day to find each of your identities and grave, and I will piss on your grave. --a cryonicist

  75. Re:Youngest ever? False. by s0nicfreak · · Score: 1

    Miscarriages CAN be caused by controllable circumstances. Are we going to investigate every single one to figure out if it was neglect or uncontrollable?

  76. Comment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With 307 posts, I don't think anyone bothered mentioning...

    Instead, they kept the body intact, and frozen. “The entire patient was placed in a specially prepared dry ice shipping container and the cool down to dry ice temperature (-79 degrees C/-109 degrees F) began on-site,” More and Drake wrote. It proved to be an astute calculation; the container passed inspection.

  77. Re:Positive article by Keith+Henson · · Score: 1

    http://motherboard.vice.com/re...

    I know the people involved. Been signed up myself since 1985.

    --
    End MGM. Get prospective parents of boys to Google: Men do complain