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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Science Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. My

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Speaker 1: name is Jorge cham and today on the program, we're

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Speaker 1: going to be asking the question can you survive being

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Speaker 1: cryogenically frozen? Maybe you have a terminal disease and you

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Speaker 1: want to preserve your body until scientists can find a cure.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe you want to travel to the near star,

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Speaker 1: but you don't want to just stare out the window

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Speaker 1: for the whole twenty four trillion mile journey. Or maybe

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Speaker 1: you just want to see what the future is like

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Speaker 1: and we'd rather take a long nap until things got

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Speaker 1: more interesting. Well, you can do all those things if

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Speaker 1: you were able to freeze your body, But is it

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Speaker 1: really possible? What are scientists doing to make this a reality?

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Speaker 1: And most important, would you still be the same person

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Speaker 1: after you get thought out? To answer this question, we're

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Speaker 1: going to be talking to scientists and to someone who

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Speaker 1: actually freezes people for a living. It's a story that

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Speaker 1: involves billionaires, popsicle frogs, and ex Navy seals. So put

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Speaker 1: on your parkass, turn up your thermostat, because we are

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Speaker 1: answering the slippery as ice question, can you survive being

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Speaker 1: cryogenically frozen? I promise you the answer is pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: Enjoy Hey everyone, all right. Today's topic is a little controversial,

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Speaker 1: and the reason for that is that there are people

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Speaker 1: who have frozen their bodies in the hopes that they

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Speaker 1: might get revived later. There are several facilities in the

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Speaker 1: United States and in Europe that will freeze you your

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Speaker 1: whole body or even interest your head for a fee,

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Speaker 1: and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of humans who

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Speaker 1: have chosen to do that. Now we're gonna talk to

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Speaker 1: someone who works in one of these facilities, that is,

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Speaker 1: someone who freezes people for a living later in the program.

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Speaker 1: But first I wanted to make sure I understood the

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Speaker 1: science behind freezing biological matter, what actually happens to yourselves

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Speaker 1: once the temperature draws below freezing, and why is it

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Speaker 1: so dangerous. I was also curious to know if there

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Speaker 1: are any animals in nature that have figured out ways

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Speaker 1: to survive getting frozen. So I thought that the best

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Speaker 1: person to talk to us about this would be a

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Speaker 1: biologist who works in one of the coldest places on Earth.

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Speaker 1: Reached out to doctor Don Larson, who is an assistant

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Speaker 1: professor of biology and zoology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks,

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Speaker 1: now you'll hear when I play the interview that I

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Speaker 1: get really surprised at the beginning of my chat with

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Speaker 1: doctor Larson. That's because I always thought I knew why

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Speaker 1: freezing biological matter destroys the things that get frozen. I

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Speaker 1: always thought that it was because when water freezes, it

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Speaker 1: turns to ice, and ice is less dense than water,

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Speaker 1: so when that ice forms, it expands and basically rips

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Speaker 1: the cell apart. But it turns out I've been totally wrong.

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Speaker 1: The real reason is something completely different. So here's my

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Speaker 1: chat with doctor Don Larson. Hi, doctor Larson, thanks so

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Speaker 1: much for talking with us.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for having me here.

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Speaker 1: Now you're in Fairbanks, Alaska. Are you frozen right now?

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Speaker 2: No, it's warmed up a little bit here. We just

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Speaker 2: got done with our last negative forty cold snap. Why

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Speaker 2: is it hard to survive being frozen? That is a

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Speaker 2: great question. So people tend to think when animals freeze,

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Speaker 2: when cells freeze, that there's this ice crushing event that

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Speaker 2: ice forms either around our cells and crushes it, or

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Speaker 2: ice goes into the cells and burst them. Freezing is

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Speaker 2: actually a desiccation event, though, so the first thing they

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Speaker 2: have to do before they even get all that ice

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Speaker 2: throughout their body is survived drying out.

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Speaker 1: What you just blew my mind. That's totally different from

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Speaker 1: what I had heard.

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Speaker 2: And that's it's very common. I have these conversations with

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Speaker 2: lots of different people, and everybody always thinks that it's

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Speaker 2: this mechanical crushing or bursting event. Well, that's like our

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Speaker 2: natural experience with ice. If we leave something in the freezer,

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Speaker 2: like a soda, we've all done that, right, what happens?

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Speaker 2: Those things explode, So it's very natural for us to

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Speaker 2: take that. Oh, if you put a soda in a freezer,

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Speaker 2: it bursts. Why won't the same thing happened to a cell?

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Speaker 1: Wait, so can you go back a little bit and

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Speaker 1: just explain again how the dessiccation works. What's actually happening there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, water's leaving the cell, so as things freeze, the

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Speaker 2: water outside the cell freezes, and as water turns to ice,

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Speaker 2: they're making these little hexagonal structures ice cubes connecting to

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Speaker 2: each other, and they don't want to interact with anything

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Speaker 2: that isn't water, So everything that isn't water gets pushed

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Speaker 2: out of that ice cube that's forming you mean between

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Speaker 2: the cells? Correct, all the ice is outside the cell,

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Speaker 2: and as that happens, solutes go up, so the sugars

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Speaker 2: and salts increase in concentration around that cell. So all

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Speaker 2: of a sudden, our cells are in salt water. It's

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Speaker 2: like if you throw a grape in a container of

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Speaker 2: salt and water. What does it do? It shrivels. It's

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Speaker 2: a desiccation event.

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Speaker 1: Wait, it sucks the water out of the cells. Yes, oh,

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Speaker 1: and then that kills the cell. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: If there's not enough water in a cell, the cell

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Speaker 2: membranes will touch on the inside and that will cause

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Speaker 2: bursting of the cell.

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Speaker 1: Okay, if you didn't follow that, that's okay. The main

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Speaker 1: point is that the real problem with freezing yourself is

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Speaker 1: that ice forms in the spaces between the cells, and

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Speaker 1: ice only wants to have water molecules in it, so

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Speaker 1: it pushes all the salts that are around and concentrates

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Speaker 1: them very close to the cells, which makes them shrivel

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Speaker 1: up and collapse. In other words, it's about cells suddenly

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Speaker 1: being in a two salty environment. Now, the reason I

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Speaker 1: was excited to talk to doctor Larson is that he

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Speaker 1: happens to be one of the scientists who in twenty

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Speaker 1: fourteen found something incredible about a type of frog called

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Speaker 1: a wood frog.

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Speaker 2: So wood frogs are one of the most widely distributed

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Speaker 2: amphibians in North America. They're all the way down in

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Speaker 2: the Appalachians and Ohio, very far south, and they go

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Speaker 2: all the way up to the Arctic Ocean. They're very

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Speaker 2: far north and fairly far south. Wood frogs have a

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Speaker 2: unique ability that they can survive with seventy percent of

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Speaker 2: their body water frozen. This is really cool. We tried

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Speaker 2: to overwinter some frogs over two different years, so we

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Speaker 2: thought we would see a lot of die off. Our

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Speaker 2: wood frogs survive up to seven months frozen, and they

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Speaker 2: experienced temperatures down to negative sixteen celsius and none of

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Speaker 2: them died.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 2: All the previous literature said, hey, wood frogs can survive

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Speaker 2: maybe down to negative five degrees celsius for a couple

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Speaker 2: weeks at most.

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Speaker 1: So you were expecting them just to perish during the experiment.

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Speaker 1: But they survived.

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Speaker 2: If we're expecting some loss, we didn't see any. That

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Speaker 2: was the impressive thing.

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Speaker 1: What happens when these frogs freeze? Is it rock solid?

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Speaker 1: Is it squishy? What is it like?

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Speaker 2: It's pretty firm, it's like a frozen filet, frozen fish,

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Speaker 2: anything like that. You might be able to bend it

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Speaker 2: a little bit, but if you bend it too much,

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Speaker 2: you're going to snap something off.

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Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, So wood frogs can survive being frozen at

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Speaker 1: temperatures of minus eighteen degrees celsius or zero degrease fahrenheit

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Speaker 1: for up to seven months. And they're not the only

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Speaker 1: animals that can do it. Like your Larsen said that

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Speaker 1: there are a few other species of frogs that can

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Speaker 1: do it, some insects and a species of Siberian salamander

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Speaker 1: which can go down as far as minus forty degrees

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Speaker 1: celsius or minus forty degrees fahrenheit. But that's about it.

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Speaker 1: All other animals, even hibernating bears or squirrels, if you

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Speaker 1: freeze them, they're going to die. Even the fish that

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Speaker 1: swim in the Arctic Ocean or the penguins that live

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Speaker 1: in Antarctica, if we actually freeze them, they are not

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Speaker 1: coming back. So now the question is what's their secret?

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Speaker 1: How are these frogs surviving?

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Speaker 2: They get super sweet.

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Speaker 1: I know you like the frogs, doctor Larson, but what

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Speaker 1: do you mean?

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Speaker 2: So what frogs do is they pack their cells with glucose,

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Speaker 2: sugar and urea, the precursor to urine.

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Speaker 1: So what do you mean glucose like just regular sugar,

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Speaker 1: like table sugar.

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Speaker 2: Yes, when they phrase, they increase their glucose concentrations one

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Speaker 2: hundred times greater, Yes, one hundred There's enough sugar in

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Speaker 2: that little wood frog liver for it to taste sweet

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Speaker 2: to us. So these wood frogs actually have quite big livers,

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Speaker 2: and within that liver we start glycogen glycogens, these long

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Speaker 2: chains of sugar. It's what makes meat taste sweet. It's

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Speaker 2: why people eat liver. But they convert all that glycogen

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Speaker 2: into glucose and then pump it.

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Speaker 1: Throughout their body as fast as they can, and that

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Speaker 1: gets into the cells throughout the body. Right, And then

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Speaker 1: you said something triggers this mechanism. What is it? Just

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Speaker 1: like a survival switch.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is really unique for any animal that hibernates.

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Speaker 2: Bears fatten up before winter, right, birds prepare for migration.

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Speaker 2: Wood frogs wait, they react to winter instead of anticipate it.

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Speaker 2: And by reacting they use specifically I'm about to freeze

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Speaker 2: as their trigger. So they don't really do their winter

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Speaker 2: prep until freezing begins.

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Speaker 1: H they're procrastinators like me very much. So how does

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Speaker 1: increasing the sugar help us?

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Speaker 2: So we put that sugar in the cell to equal

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Speaker 2: out the saltiness and solu concentrations outside the cell. So

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Speaker 2: the inside of the cell no longer loses water. So

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Speaker 2: they have to tolerate high levels of sugar in their cell,

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Speaker 2: but they no longer have that water loss occurring, and

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Speaker 2: it's that water loss that they're trying to prevent.

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Speaker 1: So wood frogs use a kind of anti freeze. They

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Speaker 1: produce a lot of sugar in the liver and then

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Speaker 1: the sugar fills up their cells and that creates a

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Speaker 1: super concentration that prevents the cells from drying up when

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Speaker 1: the ice forms around them. Now, the obvious next question

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Speaker 1: is could this work on other animals maybe humans? Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a fascinating adaptation that the frog has. Do you

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Speaker 1: think something like that could work for other animals? Like

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Speaker 1: if I take a rat and I injected with a

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Speaker 1: bunch of sugar, would it survive being frozen?

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Speaker 2: Well, it won't survive the coma, the diabetic coma that

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Speaker 2: we'd give it first. And again, it's a lot of sugar.

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Speaker 2: If we in this tiny, little few gram frog. If

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Speaker 2: we put that much sugar into an adult human, we

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Speaker 2: would be in a diabetic coma a few times over.

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Speaker 2: Animals can't tolerate high levels of glucose. It interferes with

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Speaker 2: how proteins function and different things work in the cell,

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Speaker 2: and it kills us.

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Speaker 1: What do the frogs do to survive that amount of sugar?

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Speaker 1: How come day don't get diabetic shock?

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Speaker 2: Well, and they're very cold at this time. Their body

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Speaker 2: temperature is right around freezing, so they don't have very

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Speaker 2: high metabolism, and they don't do a lot when they're frozen. Now,

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Speaker 2: part of the way it prevents that diabotic shock is

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Speaker 2: also only making that glucose prior to freezing. And then

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Speaker 2: also they are a little bit more tolerant to those

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Speaker 2: high levels of glucose than say, we would be. If

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Speaker 2: we were to inject the amount of sugar that's just

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Speaker 2: in a frog, not even like the equivalent amount, just

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Speaker 2: the amount that's in that animal, it would kill us.

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Speaker 1: Well, So being procrastinators saves them. Yes, So for the frogs,

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Speaker 1: how long can they survive being frozen? Like if I

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Speaker 1: take a bunch of frogs, freeze them, take them to Antarctica.

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Speaker 1: Leave them there. You know, one hundred years later can

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Speaker 1: someone come and defrost those frogs and they'll start hopping around.

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Speaker 2: So probably not that long because as ice forms, it

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Speaker 2: recrystallizes and reforms. This is like freezer burn in your

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Speaker 2: fridge is the same thing. It's ice crystals moving around.

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Speaker 2: We know that wood frog can survive at least seven

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Speaker 2: months frozen. We don't know how much longer pass that.

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Speaker 1: All right, So to recap, if you were a wood

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Speaker 1: frog or a Siberian salamander, or if you have a

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Speaker 1: high tolerance for extreme amounts of sugar, you could survive

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Speaker 1: being cryogenically frozen. I assume you are none of those things.

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Speaker 1: But fortunately scientists have been exploring a different way to

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Speaker 1: get around the problem. What happens when ice forms inside

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Speaker 1: of your body, and that's the technique being used right

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Speaker 1: now by the organizations that freeze people. So when we

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Speaker 1: come back, we're going to talk to someone who works

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Speaker 1: at one of these facilities. We're going to ask him

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Speaker 1: to explain this technology. So freeze don't go anywhere. We'll

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Speaker 1: be right back. You're listening to science stuff. Welcome back.

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Speaker 1: So if you do any research into the field of

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Speaker 1: cryonics or freezing people. You'll probably run into the name Alcore.

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Speaker 1: It's one of several organizations, some for profit, some nonprofit

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Speaker 1: in the US and around the world that will freeze

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Speaker 1: you for a fee. So for two hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars, Alcore will freeze your whole body, or for

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Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollars they'll freeze just your head. Now I

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Speaker 1: got to talk to someone who actually works at Alcore,

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Speaker 1: and not just someone who works there. I talk to

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Speaker 1: the person in charge. James Arrowood is the CEO and

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Speaker 1: president of Alcore. He's an attorney by training and he

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Speaker 1: started his position in twenty twenty two. I got to

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Speaker 1: talk to him about what Alcore does, what technology they

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Speaker 1: used to freeze people, and about the controversy surrounding the

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Speaker 1: practice and business of giving people the hope of living

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Speaker 1: in the future. So here's my interview with James Arrowood.

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Speaker 3: Hi, my name is James Errowood. I'm the president and

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Speaker 3: CEO of al Core Life Extension Foundation. It's a nonprofit

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Speaker 3: scientific research foundation, laboratory primarily in the space of long

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Speaker 3: term organ preservation. When I say organs, we do preserve

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Speaker 3: the whole human body. We preserve us the brain as well.

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Speaker 3: So people often think it's something real, spooky, but at

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Speaker 3: the end of the day, it's really what happens at

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Speaker 3: every medical school in the country every day.

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Speaker 1: Would you describe as an industry or a field.

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Speaker 3: It's an emerging technology. So if you have a medical

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Speaker 3: problem that can't be treated today, or if you need

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Speaker 3: to travel to distant space and you need to pause

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Speaker 3: metabolic activity in order to essentially live longer or survive

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Speaker 3: longer periods of time, then chrotus uses ultraical temperatures, just

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Speaker 3: like you see in nature to kind of pause the

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Speaker 3: cellular breakdown process that occurs in the body.

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Speaker 1: What would you say is a vision or goal for

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Speaker 1: al core you're aiming for, well.

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Speaker 3: In my lifetime, it's really about organ preservation. Look, we

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Speaker 3: talk about the brain, we talk about the whole body

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Speaker 3: as kind of an aspirational goal down the road. But

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Speaker 3: at the end of the day, you have to do

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Speaker 3: a pinky or you have to do a kidney before

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Speaker 3: you ever get to reviving the brain. You know, before

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Speaker 3: you ever the head transplant thing that people fixate on,

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Speaker 3: which I understand it's morbid and it's sallacious and It

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Speaker 3: gets a lot of attention, but on the day to

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Speaker 3: day that's not really what we're doing. We're doing these

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Speaker 3: regular experiments that involve the molecules of cells and what

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Speaker 3: that means, and really that's chemistry and it's biochemistry.

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Speaker 1: Right, take me a step back. What's the goal here?

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Speaker 1: We're trying to preserve what would say.

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Speaker 3: You'reserve for organ banking in my lifetime, that's what I

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Speaker 3: care about, because okay, look, if you've ever had a

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Speaker 3: friend or lost somebody who needed a kidney and or

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Speaker 3: had to be on an organ transplant waiting list, it's

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Speaker 3: a crapshoot and it's purely logistics that's the problem. Meaning,

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Speaker 3: if you have a match in New York and you're

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Speaker 3: in LA. Okay, so somebody dies in New York, that's

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Speaker 3: a donor match for you. You've got about six hours

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Speaker 3: to get yourself into the transplant hospital to get scrubbed

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Speaker 3: out for surgery. You get the surgeons together, get that

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Speaker 3: organ on a plane from New York to LA and

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Speaker 3: hope that it's viable enough by the time they cut

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Speaker 3: you open. Now, what if your perfect matches in London

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Speaker 3: and you're in LA. You're not getting it you're done.

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Speaker 3: It's not going to happen. You're gonna die too far, right,

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Speaker 3: it's too far. It's a logistics issue that's a little

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Speaker 3: bit different than what we're talking about. What we're talking

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Speaker 3: about is imagine a world where organs could be stored

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Speaker 3: like yoused to wear a steak, meaning it could be

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Speaker 3: in the freezer for four weeks or six weeks. All right. Well,

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Speaker 3: in the meantime, particularly with advances in artificial intelligence and supercomputing,

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Speaker 3: you could probably do neo perfect matches, meaning you can

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Speaker 3: actually match DNA to DNA kind of thing. And I'm

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Speaker 3: not smart enough, I'm not a scientist, and we employ

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Speaker 3: a lot of really good scientists and medical professionals, but

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Speaker 3: there's ways that you can actually kind of perfectly match

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Speaker 3: this stuff. The ultimate goal is that you could pause

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Speaker 3: people metabolically, and that has to do with space travel.

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Speaker 3: You need that to go to distant space. That's why

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Speaker 3: all these space guys are into this. If you read

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Speaker 3: about it, you hear about you know a number of

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Speaker 3: the world's billionaires, some of them may be confidential members

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Speaker 3: of Alcore that they're interested in this because you're gonna

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Speaker 3: have to pause your metabolism meaning aging.

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Speaker 1: So billionaires are signing up for this. Notably Peter Thiel

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Speaker 1: has confirmed that he's an all core member. Now, what

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Speaker 1: does it mean to be a member?

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Speaker 3: Right, crowd preservation member. So you agree that we get

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Speaker 3: to crowd preserve your body. You become part of the

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Speaker 3: experiment as it were. Okay, that's and the PaperWorks very explicit,

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Speaker 3: you know when people are like, oh, you're full of people.

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Speaker 3: You're doing no for not you have to sign sixty

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Speaker 3: plus pages okay, of tons of lawyer language and other

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Speaker 3: language that explicitly says this is experimental. This may never

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Speaker 3: work for you. So if you are convinced you know

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Speaker 3: that this is going to work for you, don't sign up.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's a lottery ticket. And in terms of

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Speaker 3: it ever working, we don't know if it's going to work.

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Speaker 3: We think that the science someday absolutely should work, meaning

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Speaker 3: you're not violating the laws of physics by doing this.

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Speaker 1: Let's say that I want to be a member. What's

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Speaker 1: the process? Because I have to do it while I'm alive.

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Speaker 3: Right, generally speaking, there's some post more on, but really,

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Speaker 3: ideally you want to know ahead of time, and the

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Speaker 3: way we do that is it. For instance, you have

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Speaker 3: a terminal disease or terminal illness and you're a member.

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Speaker 3: We actually have what's called a watch list, and then

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Speaker 3: we have a standby team, and our team goes anywhere

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Speaker 3: in the world and it's medical professionals, it's former Navy seals,

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Speaker 3: military special forces. What. Yeah, they're training you know, the

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Speaker 3: logistics man. They're the best in the world at it.

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Speaker 3: So we're just using the military training to move bodies

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Speaker 3: and move people around quickly.

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Speaker 1: Meaning if I'm in London, I have a terminal disease,

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Speaker 1: I want to be a member because I want to

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Speaker 1: believe in your mission.

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Speaker 3: You're already signed up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm also thinking, well, I'm going to die anyways,

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Speaker 1: maybe if I freeze my body there's some glimmer of

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Speaker 1: hope out there, and there's.

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Speaker 3: Value to science. If it's if you never come back,

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Speaker 3: it's valuable because maybe your grandkids could come back someday

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Speaker 3: because you were one of the people that you know

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Speaker 3: help Oh right, right, it's called legacy. It's called legacy. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: so you want to be legacy part of this. But yeah,

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Speaker 3: we will send a team out to be bedside. Now,

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Speaker 3: a lot of hospitals don't know what we do, so

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Speaker 3: they're they're real hesitant about that. So if we can't

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Speaker 3: be bedside, we'll actually be in the hospital parking lot.

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Speaker 3: And as soon as you're declared den we don't declare death.

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Speaker 3: We don't do medical services. We don't touch somebody until

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Speaker 3: you know they've been declared dead. And then once their

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Speaker 3: body's released to us, which ideally is within minutes, then

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Speaker 3: they start that process. Yeah, there's a whole we have

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Speaker 3: like a cardiothoracic surgeon. We have what are called T

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Speaker 3: triple c R eighteen deltas, which is like a trauma surgeon.

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Speaker 3: But the reason that's relevant is they can access the crowdits.

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Speaker 3: They know how to access and perfuse the chemical very quickly.

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Speaker 1: Right, you're doing that maybe right after the person.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you're starting lines as soon as possible. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 3: why then it's.

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Speaker 1: And then you fly the person to your facility in a.

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Speaker 3: Reg's right, that's right. And we're actually exploring opening a

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Speaker 3: facility and sweed in Europe for European folks. Anytime you

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Speaker 3: can cut the logistics the distance, then that's going to

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Speaker 3: help you know better outcomes. But yeah, so you sign up,

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Speaker 3: you have to sign a whole bunch of papers, you

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Speaker 3: have to get them notarized, and it's a whole process

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Speaker 3: because look, when people sign up, you're actually signing up

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Speaker 3: as an anatomical donation. This is very well, you know,

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Speaker 3: people don't understand how this works, and I'm trying to

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Speaker 3: educate the public because I think it's really for decades

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Speaker 3: the public wasn't understanding and they were really misunderstanding what

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Speaker 3: was going on.

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Speaker 1: So those are the basics of alcore and the way

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Speaker 1: they pause or cryogenically freeze people is using a phenomenon

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Speaker 1: called vitrification. Basically, they replace all the water in your

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Speaker 1: body with a special solution that prevents ice from forming.

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Speaker 1: Here's how James Arrowood explains it. You used a different word,

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Speaker 1: vitor fix. What does that mean?

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Speaker 3: Okay, So vitrification is the difference between cloudy ice and

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Speaker 3: clear ice. In vitrification, you're actually removing a bunch of

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Speaker 3: the water and you're using it almost a jelly. Like

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Speaker 3: you said, it's kind of a gel like consistency. It's

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Speaker 3: a very viscous, almost syrapy chemical something called polyethylene glycol

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Speaker 3: and that's a glycolic sugar that's basically from alcohol. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's not the good kind that you drink or anything

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Speaker 3: like that. It's not good for you.

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Speaker 1: Wait, meaning you take a kidney or body and you

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Speaker 1: replace the water with the special goofy chemical.

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Speaker 3: Right, the chemical pushes out the water. You have to

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Speaker 3: kind of what we call step ramp, so you actually

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Speaker 3: use a chemical at a lower kind of density or

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Speaker 3: a lower concentration of this chemical and you can kind

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Speaker 3: of ramp it up. The actual process that we do

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Speaker 3: is extraordinarily controlled. There's a team of people. There's a

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Speaker 3: scientist and there's medical people. You know, they're all around

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Speaker 3: a body, or they're all around ahead, you know, if

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Speaker 3: it's just the head. And we have computers and graphs

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Speaker 3: that in real time are showing the concentrations. And we

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Speaker 3: have these little tiny laser beam modules. I mean, it

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Speaker 3: is science fiction y in a way, right, And as

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Speaker 3: laser kind of shoots out into the fluid and measures

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Speaker 3: the concentration as it's going, and then it ramps up

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Speaker 3: very slowly to replace the water, so like pushes the

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Speaker 3: water out and replaces it with this jelly like chemical

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Speaker 3: that gets more and more concentrated, and it takes hours,

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Speaker 3: and it's going in through It's almost like when you

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Speaker 3: get an iv so it's getting perfused through the body

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Speaker 3: with a whole team of people around you for hours,

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Speaker 3: and then there's actually ways to tell when the body

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Speaker 3: has kind of reached a saturation point, so then you

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Speaker 3: can go into liquid nitrotal.

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Speaker 1: Well, well, tell me about this liquid. It's special because

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Speaker 1: when you cool it, when you put it in the

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Speaker 1: liquid nitrogen, it doesn't crystallize like water. Right, So this

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Speaker 1: antifreezer cryer protected agent that mister Arrowood is talking about,

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Speaker 1: it is one of several special chemicals, usually sugar alcohols

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Speaker 1: like glycerl or polyethylene glycol that have been used since

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties to freeze things like sperm or even

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Speaker 1: human embryos for in vitro fertilization or IVF. And the

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Speaker 1: idea is that if you cool these chemicals down to

432
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:08,639
Speaker 1: really low temperatures in just the right way, they don't

433
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:12,320
Speaker 1: turn into ice, they don't crystallize, they just turn into

434
00:22:12,359 --> 00:22:16,160
Speaker 1: an amorphous solid like glass. So technically, if you're someone

435
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:19,720
Speaker 1: who was born from a frozen embryo and in vitro fertilization,

436
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:24,120
Speaker 1: then you have survived being cryogenically frozen. But this stuff

437
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:26,160
Speaker 1: is expensive. How expensive?

438
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:31,240
Speaker 3: The chemicals we're talking about are unbelievably expensive. So for

439
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:33,680
Speaker 3: your body, how tall are you about?

440
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:37,040
Speaker 1: I'll succeed. Yeah, yeah, what did.

441
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:39,120
Speaker 3: You look like? You're probably about one seventy.

442
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:42,200
Speaker 1: Five I don't know, yeah, exactly that, I'll davor.

443
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:45,720
Speaker 3: Okay. The point of it is, you're gonna cost me,

444
00:22:45,880 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 3: meaning Alcor, if we cover recover your body and you

445
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:51,679
Speaker 3: sign up and your whole body patient member, you're going

446
00:22:51,760 --> 00:22:56,520
Speaker 3: to cost us probably forty to seventy thousand dollars just

447
00:22:56,640 --> 00:23:00,479
Speaker 3: for the price of the chemical, not including any of

448
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:03,160
Speaker 3: the procedure, any of the machines, any of the.

449
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:06,320
Speaker 1: Staff, or the long term storage or the long.

450
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 3: Term the liquid nitrogen bleed off rate over two hundred

451
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 3: years per cubic square foot has to be calculated for you,

452
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:15,280
Speaker 3: and it is wild, right, So the costs of this

453
00:23:15,320 --> 00:23:19,359
Speaker 3: thing are just unreal. But that's emerging technology, you know

454
00:23:19,400 --> 00:23:21,920
Speaker 3: when you think about it, like the first Tesla roadster

455
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 3: was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and it only

456
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 3: went you know, I don't know, ninety bals or something

457
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:30,120
Speaker 3: per charge. Yeah, that's what science is and that's why

458
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,640
Speaker 3: it costs so much. When people sign up, we crowdfund

459
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:36,400
Speaker 3: it because we're not at university. We're not getting money

460
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:38,560
Speaker 3: from the government every day to keep the lights on,

461
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,400
Speaker 3: and it's expensive. So it's about two hundred and twenty

462
00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:44,160
Speaker 3: thousand dollars for whole body. Most people don't have two

463
00:23:44,200 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 3: hundred and twenty thousand. I don't have a spare of

464
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:49,639
Speaker 3: two hundred plus thousand to do this. Everybody who signs

465
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:52,160
Speaker 3: up we fund it with life insurance, so I actually

466
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 3: just as sign a portion of life insurance that I

467
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 3: already have that goes to outport to cover the costs.

468
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you're thinking. People are paying hundreds

469
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars from their life insurance to get

470
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:09,320
Speaker 1: their bodies frozen. That gets controversial. I'll ask mister Arrowood

471
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 1: about this in a second, But first I was curious

472
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:14,920
Speaker 1: to know why we're able to freeze things like human

473
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 1: embryos or sperm, but we can't freeze something more complex,

474
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 1: like a human body or a brain. Here's what he said.

475
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:26,360
Speaker 3: It's a question of scale. It works at the molecular

476
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:30,320
Speaker 3: cellular level, the embryonic stage level, the egg level, the

477
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 3: sperm level.

478
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: Right, I mean there are people who are alive today

479
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:37,720
Speaker 1: and walking around that were frozen as embryos or eggs.

480
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 3: Considerable number of people now and the next generation will

481
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:42,919
Speaker 3: be even more. But here's the important thing from my

482
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 3: chair is that those people are not zombies. You can't

483
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:49,240
Speaker 3: tell the difference that anybody knows of. You know, you

484
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:51,199
Speaker 3: got people sitting next to you at the restaurant that

485
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 3: have fully functioning brains that go to university, get degrees.

486
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 3: They're really smart people, and they were born via ibs.

487
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 3: They were at one point in their existence, they were

488
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 3: and liquid nitrogen. Right, Oh, it works. And the hard

489
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:08,160
Speaker 3: part is is as you get to multi cellular structures

490
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 3: that are beyond the embryonic stage, so an organ that

491
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 3: has to function and all these cells have to kind

492
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 3: of line up perfectly. And you know, if you have

493
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 3: a damage in one layer of that organ, well that

494
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 3: damage may you know, destroy the whole function of the organ.

495
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:25,040
Speaker 3: You look at the brain. Your brain they think has

496
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 3: billions or trillions of what are called neural synaptic connections,

497
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 3: these protein bridges almost like webbing. Now, imagine a spider web.

498
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 3: How many fracture points could there be in a spider

499
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,639
Speaker 3: web a lot, a lot, any number, and then you

500
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:41,160
Speaker 3: multiply that times a billion, that's your brain. So freezing

501
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:44,959
Speaker 3: the brain or really vitrifying the brain presents any number

502
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,719
Speaker 3: of greater challenges than doing an embryo.

503
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 1: The brain is very fragile, right Like, it's like this

504
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:55,120
Speaker 1: huge webbing of super thin connections that are basically encased

505
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: in jelly, right.

506
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 3: Yes, and you want to keep that jelly in a

507
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 3: motle that's going to cause the least amount of potential

508
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 3: cracking or damage to those structures.

509
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: So things get more complicated as you go from individual

510
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 1: cells to organs, but there has been progress. In twenty

511
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: twenty three, a group of scientists and engineers from the

512
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 1: University of Minnesota publish the paper where they showed that

513
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:21,919
Speaker 1: they could take the kidney from a rat, freeze it

514
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 1: using these anti freeze glucose alcohols, keep the kidney in

515
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 1: the freezer for one hundred days, thaw it out, put

516
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: it in another rat, and then have that rat survive

517
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 1: the kidney still worked.

518
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 2: Now.

519
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 1: Their secret here is pretty cool. The scientists and engineers

520
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 1: mixed in a bunch of iron nanoparticles or iron filings

521
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: with the anti freeze and then when it was time

522
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:49,199
Speaker 1: to defrost the kidney, they use basically a magnet to

523
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:52,400
Speaker 1: vibrate those iron filings so that the kidney heated up

524
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:54,880
Speaker 1: and thaw it out evenly. Now, a brain is much

525
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 1: more complicated than a kidney, as mister Arrowood pointed out.

526
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:00,080
Speaker 1: So a little later in the program, we're going to

527
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,399
Speaker 1: talk to a neuroscientist who's going to give us his

528
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:05,520
Speaker 1: opinion on whether a brain can be frozen. But first

529
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: I wanted to know how mister Aarrowood would respond to

530
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: the claims the scientists out there who say that freezing

531
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: a human body and having it survive is impossible. Here's

532
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: what he said.

533
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 3: Look, any emerging technology, it requires visionaries. It requires people

534
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 3: who fifty years ago thought what if we could do this,

535
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 3: And of course everybody says, no, no, that's crazy, that

536
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 3: science fiction. And then they go out and do it.

537
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden you have something that

538
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 3: everybody thought was impossible. And I'll give you an example.

539
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 3: This device right here, this is a cell phone. I mean,

540
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:39,879
Speaker 3: you could watch Star Trek. So the best Hollywood science

541
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 3: fiction writers in the universe could not envision a future

542
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,119
Speaker 3: where you could actually send a video in real time

543
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:49,440
Speaker 3: in Pakistan or wherever in real time. So it's those

544
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 3: things that people don't envision that takes one or two visionaries,

545
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 3: usually scientists in the back room somewhere that you often

546
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 3: don't even hear about. So the people that are out

547
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,680
Speaker 3: there that say this can never be done, good, don't

548
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,399
Speaker 3: ever try it, don't sign up, don't be involved. But

549
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 3: don't sit there and tell me that something I'm doing

550
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 3: or that we're trying to do that doesn't violate the

551
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 3: laws of science or physics can never be done because

552
00:28:11,640 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 3: that just means you don't have the vision for it.

553
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 3: And that's fine if you've got full disclosure. People sign

554
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 3: up and want to do this, that's a question of

555
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 3: free will. That's a question of signing up for something

556
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 3: knowing what they're doing, knowing why they want to do it.

557
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,000
Speaker 3: They want a legacy. They know that they might be

558
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 3: that first heart transplant patient who's only going to live

559
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 3: two weeks if it never works at all. They know that, Okay,

560
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 3: but they did it. That guy who did that, how

561
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 3: many lives did he save? For people who have now

562
00:28:37,320 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 3: had a heart transplant that are living decades. Somebody had

563
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 3: to take that hit, and that person stood up and said, Okay,

564
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 3: I'm gonna take that hit. This is an adult's ultimate

565
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:48,719
Speaker 3: last wish. It is their free will, last wish to

566
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 3: be preserved in this way and to contribute to the

567
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 3: science in this way.

568
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: All right, when we come back, we're gonna talk to

569
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: my friend and neuroscientist, doctor Dwayne Godwin, and he's gonna

570
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:01,920
Speaker 1: tell us whether he thinks the brain is the ultimate

571
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: limit of what we can freeze, and whether he would

572
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,680
Speaker 1: ever freeze his own brain. So stay with us, you're

573
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: listening to science stuff. Will be right back, Welcome back,

574
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: all right. So, if you are a special kind of

575
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: frog or a Siberian salamander, or have an unnatural tolerance

576
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: for high levels of sugar, you can survive being cryogenically frozen.

577
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: And scientists have apparently been able to freeze and reactivate

578
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: a rad kidney, which is very promising for maybe doing

579
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: this with human organs in the future. But the big

580
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: obstacle to freezing the whole body seems to be freezing

581
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: the brain. So the weigh in on this idea is

582
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:51,360
Speaker 1: my friend, neuroscientist, doctor Dwyane Godwin. Doctor Godwin is a

583
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: professor of translational neuroscience at Wake Forest University and doctor

584
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: Godwin and I recently wrote a book together called Out

585
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: of Your Mind, which is a great introduction to brain signs.

586
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: You should check it out. But I asked Dayne to

587
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,719
Speaker 1: give us some context about the possibility of freezing brain cells.

588
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: This is what he said.

589
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 4: Maybe it's good to start with what happens to brain

590
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 4: cells when the heart stops, so you know, if someone

591
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 4: dies or if their heart is stopped artificially, you know

592
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 4: what is going on. So what we know about that

593
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 4: is that brain cells can start dying within about three

594
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:29,840
Speaker 4: to five minutes, and there are some exceptions that I'll

595
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 4: get to. Damage starts at about six minutes. What happened

596
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 4: to this brain cells a lot of things. So cells

597
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 4: start to self destruct, so there are things called program

598
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 4: cell death molecules that actually start taking the brain apart.

599
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 4: There's also this aspect of where brain cells will start

600
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 4: to take on water and essentially explode. So about ten

601
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 4: minutes in without oxygen must brain cells have suffered a

602
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 4: catastrophic or really severe minute damage. Now the exception of

603
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 4: that is temperature, because temperature can affect that timeline significantly.

604
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 3: Where if you cool the brain down.

605
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 4: You can extend the window of survival by slowing down

606
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 4: all this cellular metabolism.

607
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: But it seems like that's a big problem for this

608
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:22,120
Speaker 1: cryogenics technology. First of all, that once your heart stops,

609
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: you only have a few minutes before your brain cells

610
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:27,000
Speaker 1: starts dying. And so any sort of scheme to replace

611
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: all the liquids in your body, that's going to be

612
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: a challenge, right because your brain is going to start

613
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: to die basically.

614
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:35,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So if you think about it, it's a

615
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 4: massive problem. You know, we have eighty six billion neurons,

616
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 4: and it's not like you can just dip our huge

617
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 4: human brains into a vat of these chemicals and it

618
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 4: will preserve them. What has to happen is that you

619
00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 4: have to do perfusion where you're actually using the arteries

620
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 4: and veins to actually get the cryopreservative into these cells.

621
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 4: And so that's not going to happen immediately. I died

622
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 4: right now, Even if I were ready, it would be

623
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 4: probably many hours before I would even be in a

624
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 4: position to be able to get perfused with these preservatives

625
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 4: that would store my brain. Yeah, that would mean that

626
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 4: I would have some significant brain damage before I was preserved.

627
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, Or like if you were going off into space

628
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 1: on a long journey, you'd have to stop your heart

629
00:32:21,760 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: and you would only have a few minutes before your

630
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 1: brain still start dying.

631
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 4: That's right, And then you would have to get this

632
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 4: stuff in. That would have to happen almost perfectly for

633
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 4: a brain to survive this process intact.

634
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: Well, let's say that somehow we're able to replace the

635
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: water and quickly enough before cells start dying. Do you

636
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: think the brain would survive that?

637
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 4: I think in principle it could. So there are these

638
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 4: things called brain organoids that are essentially a little tiny

639
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 4: brain like things that are made from stem cells. And

640
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 4: there's been some success in freezing those kinds of complex

641
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:58,360
Speaker 4: structures and then bringing them back and demonstrating that they

642
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 4: still have function. So there's some signs that this sort

643
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 4: of thing could be feasible. Whether that means it's practical

644
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 4: is another issue.

645
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 1: Can you talk to us a little bit about the

646
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: fragility of brain connections and brain webs.

647
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 4: So the other thing about the brain is each individual

648
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 4: synapse is really complex and a little world onto itself.

649
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 4: There are literally thousands of proteins in a single synapse,

650
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 4: so we're not only talking about damage to cells, but

651
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 4: you could also be doing damage to these delicate structures

652
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 4: and proteins that help make up individual synapses. So it's

653
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 4: not really clear that all of that would survive, and

654
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 4: there are tens of thousands of these in a standard neuron.

655
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 4: Generally speaking, it is a very delicate system. So yes,

656
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 4: you could definitely see a scenario where cryopreservation can preserve

657
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 4: maybe ninety nine percent of your brain cells, but there

658
00:33:55,640 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 4: could still be massive changes based on per of this

659
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 4: delicate balance of proteins at the synapse. So simply having

660
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 4: something that looks like a brain, it doesn't necessarily mean

661
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 4: that you have a functioning brain.

662
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: I see, what about the thawing process. Let's say I

663
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 1: freeze the brain and I thought it out. Can the

664
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 1: brain just kind of kick start back up like a

665
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 1: computer just turned back on?

666
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 4: Not really. You know, the same concern with suddenly trying

667
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 4: to freeze everything at once and being sure that the

668
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 4: metabolism is adapting appropriately to cryo preservation would be true

669
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:35,080
Speaker 4: in reverse. Sell death and sell stress is very real

670
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 4: and brain cells need time to adapt to this new temperature.

671
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:42,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, last question, Dwayne, Let's say you are at

672
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:44,800
Speaker 1: the end of your life, would you freeze your brain?

673
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 4: I don't think so. There was a time when I thought, yeah,

674
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 4: that would be cool. But you know, part of it

675
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:55,279
Speaker 4: is philosophical. What does it mean that I continue?

676
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 3: Me?

677
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 4: Continuing means a lot to me. But would I want

678
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 4: to cont you if I thought I was going to

679
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 4: be eighty percent of me? You know, I think that's

680
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 4: what it boils down to. So you know, if you

681
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 4: ask me this question in ten years and the process

682
00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 4: is worked out, I might give you a different answer.

683
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 4: But as it is right now, I would say, you know,

684
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 4: we're not quite ready, and you've got to be very

685
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 4: careful because it's possible to get in love with that concept,

686
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:26,240
Speaker 4: the idea of extending our existence, you know, possibly forever.

687
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 4: But one of the things we actually talked about in

688
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 4: the book, what does that do to our society if

689
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 4: all of the old people just hang around forever with

690
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:37,120
Speaker 4: their old ideas about how to do things, is that

691
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 4: actually good for us as a society? You know, I

692
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,720
Speaker 4: don't have the answer to that. I'm just simply asking

693
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:43,320
Speaker 4: the question.

694
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 1: So there you have it. The answer to the question

695
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 1: can you survive being cryogenically frozen is that someone us

696
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: already have. If you were born from IVF, then you

697
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 1: were frozen at some point. And it seems possible that

698
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,319
Speaker 1: we might be able to freeze organs like kidneys or

699
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:03,319
Speaker 1: livers for things like organ banking and organ transplants. But

700
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:05,720
Speaker 1: the question of whether you can freeze a whole grown

701
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 1: up body seems to hinge on the question of whether

702
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: you can ever freeze and successfully thaw out the brain.

703
00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like it's possible right now, but there

704
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 1: are people working on it, so for now, if you

705
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: have dreams of traveling to distant stars or living in

706
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,760
Speaker 1: the future, you might want to put those dreams on ice.

707
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, See you next time You've been

708
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: listening to Science Stuff production of iHeartRadio written and produced

709
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:37,360
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710
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711
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712
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713
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714
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715
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