WEBVTT - Can You Survive Being Cryogenically Frozen? 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.400 Hey, welcome to Science Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. My 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:06.440 name is Jorge cham and today on the program, we're 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.320 going to be asking the question can you survive being 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:13.560 cryogenically frozen? Maybe you have a terminal disease and you 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.400 want to preserve your body until scientists can find a cure. 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:18.760 Or maybe you want to travel to the near star, 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:20.759 but you don't want to just stare out the window 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.000 for the whole twenty four trillion mile journey. Or maybe 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:26.000 you just want to see what the future is like 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:28.480 and we'd rather take a long nap until things got 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:31.360 more interesting. Well, you can do all those things if 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.400 you were able to freeze your body, But is it 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.880 really possible? What are scientists doing to make this a reality? 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.839 And most important, would you still be the same person 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:43.960 after you get thought out? To answer this question, we're 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:46.520 going to be talking to scientists and to someone who 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.720 actually freezes people for a living. It's a story that 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:54.840 involves billionaires, popsicle frogs, and ex Navy seals. So put 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.840 on your parkass, turn up your thermostat, because we are 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.760 answering the slippery as ice question, can you survive being 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:06.360 cryogenically frozen? I promise you the answer is pretty cool. 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:13.440 Enjoy Hey everyone, all right. Today's topic is a little controversial, 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:15.440 and the reason for that is that there are people 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:17.800 who have frozen their bodies in the hopes that they 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.000 might get revived later. There are several facilities in the 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.600 United States and in Europe that will freeze you your 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.240 whole body or even interest your head for a fee, 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.000 and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of humans who 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.600 have chosen to do that. Now we're gonna talk to 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.280 someone who works in one of these facilities, that is, 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.280 someone who freezes people for a living later in the program. 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:40.600 But first I wanted to make sure I understood the 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:45.560 science behind freezing biological matter, what actually happens to yourselves 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:48.600 once the temperature draws below freezing, and why is it 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.640 so dangerous. I was also curious to know if there 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.560 are any animals in nature that have figured out ways 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.280 to survive getting frozen. So I thought that the best 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:59.120 person to talk to us about this would be a 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.840 biologist who works in one of the coldest places on Earth. 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.800 Reached out to doctor Don Larson, who is an assistant 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:10.559 professor of biology and zoology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:12.840 now you'll hear when I play the interview that I 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:15.360 get really surprised at the beginning of my chat with 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.520 doctor Larson. That's because I always thought I knew why 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.600 freezing biological matter destroys the things that get frozen. I 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.240 always thought that it was because when water freezes, it 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.840 turns to ice, and ice is less dense than water, 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.160 so when that ice forms, it expands and basically rips 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.720 the cell apart. But it turns out I've been totally wrong. 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:39.640 The real reason is something completely different. So here's my 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:44.239 chat with doctor Don Larson. Hi, doctor Larson, thanks so 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:45.400 much for talking with us. 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:46.760 Thank you for having me here. 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.400 Now you're in Fairbanks, Alaska. Are you frozen right now? 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.520 No, it's warmed up a little bit here. We just 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.239 got done with our last negative forty cold snap. Why 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.720 is it hard to survive being frozen? That is a 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.560 great question. So people tend to think when animals freeze, 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:07.080 when cells freeze, that there's this ice crushing event that 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.400 ice forms either around our cells and crushes it, or 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.280 ice goes into the cells and burst them. Freezing is 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.440 actually a desiccation event, though, so the first thing they 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.760 have to do before they even get all that ice 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:21.639 throughout their body is survived drying out. 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.600 What you just blew my mind. That's totally different from 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:26.520 what I had heard. 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.360 And that's it's very common. I have these conversations with 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:32.760 lots of different people, and everybody always thinks that it's 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.400 this mechanical crushing or bursting event. Well, that's like our 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:40.120 natural experience with ice. If we leave something in the freezer, 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:42.760 like a soda, we've all done that, right, what happens? 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.880 Those things explode, So it's very natural for us to 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.040 take that. Oh, if you put a soda in a freezer, 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.800 it bursts. Why won't the same thing happened to a cell? 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.040 Wait, so can you go back a little bit and 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:58.080 just explain again how the dessiccation works. What's actually happening there. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.640 Yeah, water's leaving the cell, so as things freeze, the 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:06.360 water outside the cell freezes, and as water turns to ice, 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:10.760 they're making these little hexagonal structures ice cubes connecting to 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.720 each other, and they don't want to interact with anything 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.159 that isn't water, So everything that isn't water gets pushed 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.719 out of that ice cube that's forming you mean between 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.159 the cells? Correct, all the ice is outside the cell, 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.560 and as that happens, solutes go up, so the sugars 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:30.680 and salts increase in concentration around that cell. So all 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:33.520 of a sudden, our cells are in salt water. It's 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.839 like if you throw a grape in a container of 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.200 salt and water. What does it do? It shrivels. It's 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:41.440 a desiccation event. 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.440 Wait, it sucks the water out of the cells. Yes, oh, 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:47.800 and then that kills the cell. Yeah. 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:49.840 If there's not enough water in a cell, the cell 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.839 membranes will touch on the inside and that will cause 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:54.000 bursting of the cell. 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.279 Okay, if you didn't follow that, that's okay. The main 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.600 point is that the real problem with freezing yourself is 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.719 that ice forms in the spaces between the cells, and 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.159 ice only wants to have water molecules in it, so 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.880 it pushes all the salts that are around and concentrates 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.359 them very close to the cells, which makes them shrivel 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:18.040 up and collapse. In other words, it's about cells suddenly 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:22.000 being in a two salty environment. Now, the reason I 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.320 was excited to talk to doctor Larson is that he 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.240 happens to be one of the scientists who in twenty 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:31.360 fourteen found something incredible about a type of frog called 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:32.200 a wood frog. 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.600 So wood frogs are one of the most widely distributed 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.719 amphibians in North America. They're all the way down in 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.800 the Appalachians and Ohio, very far south, and they go 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.159 all the way up to the Arctic Ocean. They're very 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.520 far north and fairly far south. Wood frogs have a 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.560 unique ability that they can survive with seventy percent of 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.280 their body water frozen. This is really cool. We tried 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.880 to overwinter some frogs over two different years, so we 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.320 thought we would see a lot of die off. Our 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.160 wood frogs survive up to seven months frozen, and they 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:07.320 experienced temperatures down to negative sixteen celsius and none of 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:07.800 them died. 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:09.040 Wow. 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.240 All the previous literature said, hey, wood frogs can survive 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.040 maybe down to negative five degrees celsius for a couple 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:16.200 weeks at most. 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.200 So you were expecting them just to perish during the experiment. 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:20.000 But they survived. 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:24.120 If we're expecting some loss, we didn't see any. That 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:25.159 was the impressive thing. 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.279 What happens when these frogs freeze? Is it rock solid? 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:30.960 Is it squishy? What is it like? 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.400 It's pretty firm, it's like a frozen filet, frozen fish, 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:36.039 anything like that. You might be able to bend it 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.120 a little bit, but if you bend it too much, 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:39.360 you're going to snap something off. 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:44.320 Wow. Okay, So wood frogs can survive being frozen at 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:48.800 temperatures of minus eighteen degrees celsius or zero degrease fahrenheit 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.559 for up to seven months. And they're not the only 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:54.960 animals that can do it. Like your Larsen said that 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.480 there are a few other species of frogs that can 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.840 do it, some insects and a species of Siberian salamander 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.200 which can go down as far as minus forty degrees 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.680 celsius or minus forty degrees fahrenheit. But that's about it. 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.240 All other animals, even hibernating bears or squirrels, if you 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:17.280 freeze them, they're going to die. Even the fish that 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.000 swim in the Arctic Ocean or the penguins that live 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.880 in Antarctica, if we actually freeze them, they are not 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:27.080 coming back. So now the question is what's their secret? 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:28.520 How are these frogs surviving? 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:30.640 They get super sweet. 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:34.840 I know you like the frogs, doctor Larson, but what 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:35.280 do you mean? 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.280 So what frogs do is they pack their cells with glucose, 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.320 sugar and urea, the precursor to urine. 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.160 So what do you mean glucose like just regular sugar, 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:47.080 like table sugar. 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:50.800 Yes, when they phrase, they increase their glucose concentrations one 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:54.360 hundred times greater, Yes, one hundred There's enough sugar in 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.640 that little wood frog liver for it to taste sweet 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.720 to us. So these wood frogs actually have quite big livers, 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.200 and within that liver we start glycogen glycogens, these long 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.480 chains of sugar. It's what makes meat taste sweet. It's 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.480 why people eat liver. But they convert all that glycogen 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:12.400 into glucose and then pump it. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.920 Throughout their body as fast as they can, and that 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.040 gets into the cells throughout the body. Right, And then 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.120 you said something triggers this mechanism. What is it? Just 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:23.520 like a survival switch. 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.600 Yeah, and this is really unique for any animal that hibernates. 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.440 Bears fatten up before winter, right, birds prepare for migration. 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:36.760 Wood frogs wait, they react to winter instead of anticipate it. 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:41.599 And by reacting they use specifically I'm about to freeze 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:45.240 as their trigger. So they don't really do their winter 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:47.360 prep until freezing begins. 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:54.160 H they're procrastinators like me very much. So how does 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:55.440 increasing the sugar help us? 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.040 So we put that sugar in the cell to equal 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:02.199 out the saltiness and solu concentrations outside the cell. So 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.480 the inside of the cell no longer loses water. So 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.240 they have to tolerate high levels of sugar in their cell, 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.600 but they no longer have that water loss occurring, and 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:13.840 it's that water loss that they're trying to prevent. 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:19.280 So wood frogs use a kind of anti freeze. They 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:21.320 produce a lot of sugar in the liver and then 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.360 the sugar fills up their cells and that creates a 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.280 super concentration that prevents the cells from drying up when 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.520 the ice forms around them. Now, the obvious next question 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:37.240 is could this work on other animals maybe humans? Well, 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.320 that's a fascinating adaptation that the frog has. Do you 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.320 think something like that could work for other animals? Like 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:45.600 if I take a rat and I injected with a 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.000 bunch of sugar, would it survive being frozen? 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.120 Well, it won't survive the coma, the diabetic coma that 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:54.120 we'd give it first. And again, it's a lot of sugar. 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:56.560 If we in this tiny, little few gram frog. If 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.000 we put that much sugar into an adult human, we 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.240 would be in a diabetic coma a few times over. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.840 Animals can't tolerate high levels of glucose. It interferes with 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.400 how proteins function and different things work in the cell, 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:09.439 and it kills us. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.160 What do the frogs do to survive that amount of sugar? 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.199 How come day don't get diabetic shock? 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.839 Well, and they're very cold at this time. Their body 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.679 temperature is right around freezing, so they don't have very 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:24.400 high metabolism, and they don't do a lot when they're frozen. Now, 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.160 part of the way it prevents that diabotic shock is 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.320 also only making that glucose prior to freezing. And then 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:33.600 also they are a little bit more tolerant to those 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.400 high levels of glucose than say, we would be. If 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:38.600 we were to inject the amount of sugar that's just 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.320 in a frog, not even like the equivalent amount, just 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.120 the amount that's in that animal, it would kill us. 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.360 Well, So being procrastinators saves them. Yes, So for the frogs, 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:50.800 how long can they survive being frozen? Like if I 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.840 take a bunch of frogs, freeze them, take them to Antarctica. 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.400 Leave them there. You know, one hundred years later can 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.720 someone come and defrost those frogs and they'll start hopping around. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.920 So probably not that long because as ice forms, it 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:08.400 recrystallizes and reforms. This is like freezer burn in your 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.800 fridge is the same thing. It's ice crystals moving around. 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.280 We know that wood frog can survive at least seven 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.760 months frozen. We don't know how much longer pass that. 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.720 All right, So to recap, if you were a wood 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.640 frog or a Siberian salamander, or if you have a 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:29.720 high tolerance for extreme amounts of sugar, you could survive 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.320 being cryogenically frozen. I assume you are none of those things. 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.280 But fortunately scientists have been exploring a different way to 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.400 get around the problem. What happens when ice forms inside 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:42.840 of your body, and that's the technique being used right 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.080 now by the organizations that freeze people. So when we 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:48.199 come back, we're going to talk to someone who works 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.319 at one of these facilities. We're going to ask him 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.760 to explain this technology. So freeze don't go anywhere. We'll 0:11:54.800 --> 0:12:04.640 be right back. You're listening to science stuff. Welcome back. 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.080 So if you do any research into the field of 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:11.280 cryonics or freezing people. You'll probably run into the name Alcore. 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:15.439 It's one of several organizations, some for profit, some nonprofit 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:17.960 in the US and around the world that will freeze 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:21.040 you for a fee. So for two hundred and twenty 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.680 thousand dollars, Alcore will freeze your whole body, or for 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.680 eighty thousand dollars they'll freeze just your head. Now I 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.559 got to talk to someone who actually works at Alcore, 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:33.760 and not just someone who works there. I talk to 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.520 the person in charge. James Arrowood is the CEO and 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.640 president of Alcore. He's an attorney by training and he 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.400 started his position in twenty twenty two. I got to 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.560 talk to him about what Alcore does, what technology they 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.120 used to freeze people, and about the controversy surrounding the 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.560 practice and business of giving people the hope of living 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.160 in the future. So here's my interview with James Arrowood. 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.000 Hi, my name is James Errowood. I'm the president and 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.800 CEO of al Core Life Extension Foundation. It's a nonprofit 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:09.920 scientific research foundation, laboratory primarily in the space of long 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.800 term organ preservation. When I say organs, we do preserve 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.160 the whole human body. We preserve us the brain as well. 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.520 So people often think it's something real, spooky, but at 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:21.120 the end of the day, it's really what happens at 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:23.040 every medical school in the country every day. 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.319 Would you describe as an industry or a field. 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.360 It's an emerging technology. So if you have a medical 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.360 problem that can't be treated today, or if you need 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:33.640 to travel to distant space and you need to pause 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.880 metabolic activity in order to essentially live longer or survive 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:42.400 longer periods of time, then chrotus uses ultraical temperatures, just 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.360 like you see in nature to kind of pause the 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.959 cellular breakdown process that occurs in the body. 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:49.800 What would you say is a vision or goal for 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.079 al core you're aiming for, well. 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.640 In my lifetime, it's really about organ preservation. Look, we 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:57.480 talk about the brain, we talk about the whole body 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.120 as kind of an aspirational goal down the road. But 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.120 at the end of the day, you have to do 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.320 a pinky or you have to do a kidney before 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.800 you ever get to reviving the brain. You know, before 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.320 you ever the head transplant thing that people fixate on, 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.920 which I understand it's morbid and it's sallacious and It 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:14.839 gets a lot of attention, but on the day to 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.640 day that's not really what we're doing. We're doing these 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:23.040 regular experiments that involve the molecules of cells and what 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.440 that means, and really that's chemistry and it's biochemistry. 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:29.400 Right, take me a step back. What's the goal here? 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:31.760 We're trying to preserve what would say. 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.480 You'reserve for organ banking in my lifetime, that's what I 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.440 care about, because okay, look, if you've ever had a 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.320 friend or lost somebody who needed a kidney and or 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.240 had to be on an organ transplant waiting list, it's 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:47.360 a crapshoot and it's purely logistics that's the problem. Meaning, 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:49.640 if you have a match in New York and you're 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.360 in LA. Okay, so somebody dies in New York, that's 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.160 a donor match for you. You've got about six hours 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:59.440 to get yourself into the transplant hospital to get scrubbed 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.840 out for surgery. You get the surgeons together, get that 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.760 organ on a plane from New York to LA and 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.040 hope that it's viable enough by the time they cut 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.520 you open. Now, what if your perfect matches in London 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.320 and you're in LA. You're not getting it you're done. 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.960 It's not going to happen. You're gonna die too far, right, 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.480 it's too far. It's a logistics issue that's a little 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.840 bit different than what we're talking about. What we're talking 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:26.040 about is imagine a world where organs could be stored 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.280 like yoused to wear a steak, meaning it could be 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.240 in the freezer for four weeks or six weeks. All right. Well, 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:36.560 in the meantime, particularly with advances in artificial intelligence and supercomputing, 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:39.400 you could probably do neo perfect matches, meaning you can 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:42.000 actually match DNA to DNA kind of thing. And I'm 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.800 not smart enough, I'm not a scientist, and we employ 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:47.280 a lot of really good scientists and medical professionals, but 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.160 there's ways that you can actually kind of perfectly match 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:52.600 this stuff. The ultimate goal is that you could pause 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.320 people metabolically, and that has to do with space travel. 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.280 You need that to go to distant space. That's why 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:59.120 all these space guys are into this. If you read 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:00.920 about it, you hear about you know a number of 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.880 the world's billionaires, some of them may be confidential members 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:07.160 of Alcore that they're interested in this because you're gonna 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.640 have to pause your metabolism meaning aging. 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.600 So billionaires are signing up for this. Notably Peter Thiel 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.800 has confirmed that he's an all core member. Now, what 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:19.400 does it mean to be a member? 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.720 Right, crowd preservation member. So you agree that we get 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.320 to crowd preserve your body. You become part of the 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:30.280 experiment as it were. Okay, that's and the PaperWorks very explicit, 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.040 you know when people are like, oh, you're full of people. 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:35.000 You're doing no for not you have to sign sixty 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.880 plus pages okay, of tons of lawyer language and other 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:44.560 language that explicitly says this is experimental. This may never 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.840 work for you. So if you are convinced you know 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.520 that this is going to work for you, don't sign up. 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:53.280 I mean, it's a lottery ticket. And in terms of 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.440 it ever working, we don't know if it's going to work. 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:59.640 We think that the science someday absolutely should work, meaning 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.160 you're not violating the laws of physics by doing this. 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:04.480 Let's say that I want to be a member. What's 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.479 the process? Because I have to do it while I'm alive. 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.359 Right, generally speaking, there's some post more on, but really, 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.480 ideally you want to know ahead of time, and the 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:15.439 way we do that is it. For instance, you have 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.480 a terminal disease or terminal illness and you're a member. 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:20.960 We actually have what's called a watch list, and then 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.680 we have a standby team, and our team goes anywhere 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:26.960 in the world and it's medical professionals, it's former Navy seals, 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.760 military special forces. What. Yeah, they're training you know, the 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:31.480 logistics man. They're the best in the world at it. 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.679 So we're just using the military training to move bodies 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:35.879 and move people around quickly. 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.560 Meaning if I'm in London, I have a terminal disease, 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:40.199 I want to be a member because I want to 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:41.119 believe in your mission. 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:42.199 You're already signed up. 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.320 Yeah, I'm also thinking, well, I'm going to die anyways, 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.080 maybe if I freeze my body there's some glimmer of 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:49.600 hope out there, and there's. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.720 Value to science. If it's if you never come back, 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.439 it's valuable because maybe your grandkids could come back someday 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:56.520 because you were one of the people that you know 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.240 help Oh right, right, it's called legacy. It's called legacy. Yeah, 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.080 so you want to be legacy part of this. But yeah, 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:04.959 we will send a team out to be bedside. Now, 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:06.800 a lot of hospitals don't know what we do, so 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.600 they're they're real hesitant about that. So if we can't 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.240 be bedside, we'll actually be in the hospital parking lot. 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.720 And as soon as you're declared den we don't declare death. 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:21.400 We don't do medical services. We don't touch somebody until 0:18:21.600 --> 0:18:23.879 you know they've been declared dead. And then once their 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.560 body's released to us, which ideally is within minutes, then 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:31.159 they start that process. Yeah, there's a whole we have 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.720 like a cardiothoracic surgeon. We have what are called T 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.840 triple c R eighteen deltas, which is like a trauma surgeon. 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:39.840 But the reason that's relevant is they can access the crowdits. 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.560 They know how to access and perfuse the chemical very quickly. 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:47.280 Right, you're doing that maybe right after the person. 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.760 Yeah, you're starting lines as soon as possible. Yeah, it's 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:52.760 why then it's. 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.280 And then you fly the person to your facility in a. 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.159 Reg's right, that's right. And we're actually exploring opening a 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.000 facility and sweed in Europe for European folks. Anytime you 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:05.639 can cut the logistics the distance, then that's going to 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.600 help you know better outcomes. But yeah, so you sign up, 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:10.760 you have to sign a whole bunch of papers, you 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.119 have to get them notarized, and it's a whole process 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.960 because look, when people sign up, you're actually signing up 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.040 as an anatomical donation. This is very well, you know, 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.760 people don't understand how this works, and I'm trying to 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.240 educate the public because I think it's really for decades 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.000 the public wasn't understanding and they were really misunderstanding what 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:29.479 was going on. 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.800 So those are the basics of alcore and the way 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:37.320 they pause or cryogenically freeze people is using a phenomenon 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.680 called vitrification. Basically, they replace all the water in your 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:45.360 body with a special solution that prevents ice from forming. 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:49.720 Here's how James Arrowood explains it. You used a different word, 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:51.360 vitor fix. What does that mean? 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:55.280 Okay, So vitrification is the difference between cloudy ice and 0:19:55.359 --> 0:20:00.080 clear ice. In vitrification, you're actually removing a bunch of 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.159 the water and you're using it almost a jelly. Like 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.040 you said, it's kind of a gel like consistency. It's 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.880 a very viscous, almost syrapy chemical something called polyethylene glycol 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.639 and that's a glycolic sugar that's basically from alcohol. You know, 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:15.480 it's not the good kind that you drink or anything 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:17.240 like that. It's not good for you. 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:19.639 Wait, meaning you take a kidney or body and you 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:23.080 replace the water with the special goofy chemical. 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:25.680 Right, the chemical pushes out the water. You have to 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:27.840