WEBVTT - Death on Ice 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.760 Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:16.280 works dot com. Wow, hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:17.720 This is us and I don't know, like the science 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.360 editor how stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.160 science writer at how stuff works dot com. And uh, 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.520 in the podcast room here, the temporary room is pretty, 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:28.640 uh it's kind of toasty, but the rest of the 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:32.240 office it's uh, pretty freezing, pretty frigid. Yeah, it's the 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:34.680 time of the year where like it's getting warmer outside, 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:36.839 but the air conditioning is already on and it's a 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.479 little too ambitious, right, And there's somebody in the office 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:42.480 who's always hot, you know, so you've got to turn 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:44.720 it down for them. And then there's somebody who's always 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.400 all tiny and keeps space heaters on underneath your desk 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.199 and piles on the shawls. And then there's that one 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.880 guy that's bringing in frozen corpses of like dead rich 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.200 people so that they can be thought out like centuries 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:56.240 from now in the future when they created cures for 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:01.279 their various ailments, right right, the cryonics guy. Yeah, so 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.240 that's the topic of today's podcast, is in fact cryonics 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.480 death on ice. Yeah, and this is I mean, this 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.960 is a pretty snazzy topic. It's been in the news 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.880 pretty much a lot over the past decade especially, and uh, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.160 and it's all over sci fi just you know, just 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:19.960 the idea of people people freezing themselves when they die 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.560 so they can live forever. It's kind of morbid neural answer. 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.040 The test or Ashpools, the clan, the main clan in there. Yeah, 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.319 they're all like frozen up in the orbit, right and 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:35.280 all as crazy as a rat and a coffee can indeed. Yeah, 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.160 so just to refresh your memory. Cryogenics is just the 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:40.200 area of science that deals with what happens at really 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.479 low tempts. It doesn't just deal with us humans. Cryonics 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:45.800 is the technique used to store human bodies are really 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.960 low temperatures with the hope of one day reviving them. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.360 And it is being performed today that the freezing part 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.120 that is not necessarily the reviving part. But the technology 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:56.880 is really still in its infancy. And here's the really 0:01:56.960 --> 0:01:59.480 interesting thing that's stuck with me when we were researching 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:01.880 this is that you don't have to freeze your whole body. 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.400 You can, in fact, just freeze your your head. Yeah, 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:07.560 or if you want to get more reductionists. You can 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.040 just freeze your brain. Yeah, I mean, and you know 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:13.959 this is uh if anybody's watched Futurama, you know there's 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.600 a whole deal with like celebrities and they're they're they're 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:18.840 just these all these heads and jars. So in the 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.200 future you can go to a museum and meet like 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.840 past presidents in there. You know, did they talk? They talk? 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:30.359 You know, even people who are clearly not uh preserved 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:32.680 and frozen. You know, it'll be like like people like 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.280 George Washington will be ahead and at jar and then 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.160 it'll be the Beastie Boys. So why are we so 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:43.120 interested in this? Well, because it's it's that one. It's 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.680 one of those topics that that it once it's one 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.200 of those topics that is yes, it's kind of gasly 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.639 engross and and uh and bizarre, but it's also chance 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.919 of immortality. It's it's a it's a shot at preserving 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:02.160 life or um postponing down. Yeah, yeah, preserving the human mind. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.280 And yeah, I mean ultimately it's all about like cheating death. 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.040 It's it's kind of like the modern equivalent of the 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.160 of like the Pharaoh going into the pyramid, you know, 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.000 like based on the best information at the time that 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.600 he was getting from the priest that you know, if 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.200 you go into this pyramid with all your stuff, then 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.600 you're going to be set for the afterlife. And this 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.080 is kind of like a scientific take on it, you know, 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.600 where it's like, hey, some people would argue it's not 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.000 very scientific, but we'll get into that. But it's using 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.240 the it's employing the science. Is you know, whether whether 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.240 the science actually backs it up completely and you know, 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.240 we can get into that, but but they're they're making 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:47.920 a scientific argument for delivery into what is essentially the afterlife. 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:51.680 Some scientists are interested in it, like astronauts, for example, 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:54.000 this would be pretty handy if you could freeze a 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.840 couple of astronauts for a long distance journey to another world. Um, 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.320 if you were if you happen to be suffering from 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.480 some incurable disease, you could go into the freeze until 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.000 the cure arrives. Yeah. Like Mr Burns and the Simpsons, 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.800 do you remember that one where it was the one 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.160 where Lisa is like in it's like if Lisa gets 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:14.360 to see what her future is going to be like 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.000 and and this your Burns, the evil boss you know, 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.560 has been has been frozen until medical science can create 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.720 a cure for seventeen stab wounds to the back. Yeah. 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:25.360 One thing I was thinking about was I wonder if 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.640 this could be a facet of a witness protection program 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.679 in the future. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean that's because 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:32.800 in a way, you're in trouble, it'll just freeze you 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.960 until yeah, put the eyes on him, um, and then 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.120 he can wake up sometime in the future when it 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.520 doesn't matter anymore. Yeah. I read the American Cranics Society 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.680 offers the quote unquote ultimate privacy option, in which your 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.080 attorney handles all the details and the society doesn't even 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.240 know your name, so you can be frozen anonymously. Just 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:54.920 corpsicle three, or it wouldn't be three, would be more 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:58.000 like a hundred and something now because according to those guys, 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.200 they're really stacking them up. So the chiggy thing about chronics, 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.040 of course, is that you have to your heart has 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.120 to stop beating in order for this procedure to be 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:08.040 performed on you. It can't be performed on someone who's 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:13.920 still alive legally speaking, yeah, because that would technically be murder. Yeah, obviously, thanks, 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.760 that's a good point. So you have to be legally dead. 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:20.520 And what is legally dead mean. It means your heart 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.719 stopped beating, not totally dead as in brain death. We 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:25.479 have an article on brain death which I read and 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.960 got side checked in when I was researching this. So 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:31.279 brains can survive, according to our article on brain death, 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.560 for up to six minutes after your heart stops speeding. 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:36.839 So it's really interesting between the time your heart stops 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.160 speeding and your brain cells start dying, there's this sort 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.799 of purgatory Yeah, well window of opportunity anyway, Yeah, right, exactly, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.320 And this is where the Chronics people jump in, and 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.240 after the heart stops speeding, there's some cellular brain function 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:53.360 that they think may remain for those precious few minutes. 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.640 So Chronics preserves that sell functions so that theoretically the 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:59.520 person can be resuscitated in the future. Yeah. It's kind 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.360 of like, um, if you say, a struggling actor at 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:04.480 a pizzeria and you see like a family with a 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:06.880 bunch of breadsticks on the table and they like totally 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.680 get up and leave the breadsticks when they go. It's 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:11.599 like if you can swoop in and get those breadsticks 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.960 before they come and bust the table window of opportunity. 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.520 So let's get into the process of freezing a body. 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.839 So you're interested in joining a chronics facility, Well, you'd 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.440 have to pay an annual membership fee and this can 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:26.080 be in the area of four hundred dollars a year, 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:27.960 or you can just get it all over at once, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.039 because what if your estate isn't taken care of. What 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.040 if your person who is the executor of your state, 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.200 you know, loaves off and decides to spend it on 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:39.640 something else, will you just pay up front? Essentially? Yeah, 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.800 we're talking long term planning here, Like you guess you 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:45.520 could have like if you're just rolling the dough, you 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:47.479 could have some sort of account set up where the 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.479 interest off of your massive amount of money, um, you know, 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.360 goes to pay for your yearly fee. It's kind of like, uh, 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:55.320 what we need have those condos and you have to 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:57.640 pay for like the lawn time share. Yeah no, no, 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:01.760 but with the like the association fee. Oh yeah right, 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:04.040 And some of the organizations has cut me up offered 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:08.360 discounts on fees for students. So if you're struggling students 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:10.400 but are still interested in chronics, you can start now 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:12.640 and just pay a discounted fee weight, but you have 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.000 when you have to be dead, like that's you're not 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.000 really struggling anymore at that point. Well, I think they 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.240 offer payment programs. I think that's the idea behind it, 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.160 unless in that you're you're you're not brain dead, so 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.520 like for six years. So however long you're frozen, you're 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.800 still having that dream about about how you didn't drop 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.440 that class in time right right right, you're showing up 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.400 naked for a test. That's the worst. Um. So the 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.760 first step is joining this facility and paying out some cash. 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.280 But then things start to get interesting. When your heart 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.080 stops speeding and you're pronounced legally dead. Then there's an 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:46.840 emergency response team from the facility and they spring into action. 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.000 So the problem here that I was thinking about is 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:50.880 what do you do if you die in accidental death 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.720 and you're kind of stuck, and what happens is the 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.440 chronics company refund your money. I would hope you would 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.680 have like a voucher, you know that It's like if 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:00.520 I'm not able to use it, then I've got like 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.040 a you know, a freezing voucher that I can pass 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.360 on to somebody else that I care about that's a 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:07.960 good idea. I mean, that's just my idea. I have 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.600 no idea what they do, right, So the team springs 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:12.120 into action, and the first thing they do is they 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.000 stabilize your body. They're supplying your brain with enough oxygen 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.440 and blood to preserve minimal function until you can be 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.480 transported to the suspension facility. So at this point they 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.920 put you on ice ice. Yeah, and we're just talking 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.400 normal ice here, just to cool you down. Um. And 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.800 then they also inject you with an antecout coagulant to 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.679 keep your blood from clotting during the trip. And then 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.199 a medical team just awaits the arrival of your body 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.400 at the cryonic facility. And that is when the actual 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.040 of freezing begins. When you get there, you can't really 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.559 just put people into a vat of liquid nitrogen because 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:47.080 the water inside their cells would freeze, and when water freezes, 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.079 it expands, and then your cells would be in bad shape. 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:54.480 They would shatter. Yeah. Anybody who's ever, you know, put 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.120 a glass of anything in the freezer has observed this. 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:00.960 Now imagine that with the whole body. That's not good, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.320 not good at all. So the cronics you must first 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:06.640 remove the water from your cells and replace it with 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.480 this funky mixture called a cryo protective. It's a sort 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:13.319 of human anti freeze. Yeah, and the goal here is 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:15.600 to protect the organs of the tissue from forming those 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:18.679 ice crystals at those really low temperatures. Yeah. You don't 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.160 want your organs to get freezer burned. Yeah. So this 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.360 is called vitrification, deep cooling without the freezing and puts 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:29.160 the cells into a s state of suspended animation. Next, 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.280 your body is laid on a bed of dry ice 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.800 until it reaches the temperature necessary, which is roughly around 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.800 negative degrees celsius. And you you can only imagine it 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:40.760 looks really gnarly at this point because it's like a 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:42.760 like a haunted house. It's like all that dry ice 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.400 is smoking and your corpse is setting on top and there. 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.200 I'm just saying, it probably looks pretty cool. Yeah, So 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.440 that completes the vitrification process. Also, what he's with the 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:54.520 name that is not a very attractive name. I don't know, 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:56.839 you feel okay with it? Well, it's kind of it 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.079 sounds like it's got to be that strongly like vigorous. No, 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.720 it's like a file. Anyway. The next step is inserting 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.200 the body into an individual container that's placed into this 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.439 huge tank filled with liquid nitrogen at a temperature around 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.520 negative one celsius. And check this out. They store you 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.400 head down, so if there's ever a leak in the tank, 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.880 your brain stays immersed in the freezing liquid. And if 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:22.400 there is a leak, they do check to see if 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.920 there are leaks periodically. Yeah, because you don't want to like, 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.920 you know, they crack the v open you know, um, 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.199 a couple of millennium in the future and they're like, oh, well, 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:35.280 only as feet survive. The other thing is you're going 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:37.400 to have some company in your container, as a lot 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.360 of people, well not a lot, but a few people 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.360 are typically stored in a container. I bet, I bet 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.959 if you paid down, you know, some more money, you 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.440 could probably get a solo tank totally if you're just 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.080 like super you know, weird about that kind of thing. So, 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:52.000 now that you're all handy and frozen and upside down 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.640 in the tank, how do you revive someone? Well, you don't. 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.120 And this is where the chronics problem starts to get 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.400 a little messy. Yeah, it's kind of a it's like 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:03.440 a gamble, really, it's it's saying, Hey, we're gonna go 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.360 ahead and chill this out, and eventually science is gonna 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:08.840 catch up with us and they're gonna be able to 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.240 do something with it. Yeah, in a weird way, it's 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.560 sort of a faith in science, which is nice. Yeah. Again, 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.160 it's like applying the it's applying science in the same 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.040 way that one might have applied a religion in in 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.800 ancient times. So a couple of points in chronics favor 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.640 if you're considering this. Living organisms can be and have 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:31.840 been brought back from a dead or near dead state. 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.079 You things like defibrillators and CPR are bringing back accident 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:38.600 and heart attack victims all the time. Yeah. And then 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.240 you have other organisms that can quote freeze themselves, like 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:45.960 the wood frog. The wood frog is awesome. So it 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.720 can deal with freezing of up to six seventy of 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.920 their body water. It can maintain a minimum body temperature 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:56.160 of negative six degrees celsius, and for four weeks it 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:00.640 can stay frozen. It's pretty good. I'm impressed. So what 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.959 helps the wood frog to survive the freeze? Well, one 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.480 of the responses promoting the tolerance and these frogs is, uh, 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.160 they're able to redistribute the water within their body. So 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.440 all that water that's normally found all over the tissues 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.000 is concentrated within the limp system and the column. Oh cool, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.720 so they just, yeah, they repurpose it to areas that 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.319 aren't going to be damaged by that crystallization process, exactly, exactly. 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:25.520 And the other cool thing about the wood frog is 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.280 it has this inherent cryoprotectant in the form of glucose 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.240 from liver glacitchen and then it can quickly make and 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:32.640 send it to the rest of the body. So this 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:37.240 happens really fast. O. Cool. So is it so basically 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.439 that this is a creature that is evolved to deal 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.440 with with cold spells? And uh, and so it can 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:45.920 survive cold spells. Yeah, and it has a good company. 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.240 They are about a dozen different reptiles and amphibians that 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:51.880 can freeze themselves, according to Miami University Department of Zoology. 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.880 So maybe we should like just throw this out there. 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.200 Maybe we should be looking to the continuing evolution of 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:03.880 say Canadians or you know, Siberians. Yeah, anybody living in 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.360 extreme temperatures. You know, nature is eventually going to catch up. 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:08.199 Just quit turning on the heat. And ruin and things. 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.280 You know. So one thing reassuring about about all this 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:16.800 is that we can freeze certain human materials, say embryos 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:21.320 and semen most definitely, that was an interesting thing to 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.120 look into while we're researching this podcast. Yeah, human embryos 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.040 that are frozen in fertility clinics or defrost and implanted 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:30.760 and mother's theaters and they grow into you know, totally 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.360 normal human beings. It's a great example we can put 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.400 of us putting life on ice and then in a 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:41.000 way reviving it. Right, So if I were considering chronics, 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.360 I would think that would be something that would point 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.000 me in its favor. Well, we can do it with 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:48.719 seuman and embryos. Granted it's not a human body. And 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.719 the argument there is that the human body is enormously complicated. 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:57.400 So it's one thing to d ice semen or embryos, 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.960 but it's another thing entirely to d ice human being. Yeah, 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.079 but I guess it seems like a natural progression, um 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:08.040 a complicated, natural, complicated one. But like I take for instance, 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:12.040 UM being able to freeze organs for transplant, Like you 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.280 might think, all right, that's a very practical means. You know, 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.520 if we could, you know, somebody loses you know, dies, 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:20.760 we harvest their organs and then we can put them 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:23.400 on ice to make sure that they are ready when 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:25.600 somebody needs them, or that they can be transported to 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.280 the person who needs them. Uh, and that would be 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.880 you know, an actual need that would lead to better 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.840 freezing techniques. Right. Well, they are put on ice now, 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.680 but yeah, the shelf life of them is so fast. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:40.560 I mean you have to move it instantly, get that 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.640 kim me on ice and bomb send it to the recipient. 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:46.760 It sounds like the U S courts haven't quite figured 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:48.360 out what to make of chronics just yet. Did you 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.520 see that new stories at you? Oh? Yeah, yeah, the 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.760 one from Iowa, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Iowa 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.640 Court of Appeals has ordered the family of a deceased 0:14:56.840 --> 0:15:00.320 man to exhume his body so that his previous wishes 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.680 to have his head frozen by an arizona Um cryonics 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:07.000 company can be met. Yeah. That was strange. Independent This 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:08.720 seems kind of like, because how long has he been 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:10.880 in the ground, you know, it's just it's kind of 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.880 over at this point. What's the point of freezing it? Yeah. 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:15.600 This story goes on to say that He died in 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.720 February two thousand nine at age eight one, and prior 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.200 to his demise, he'd entered into this contract with the 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:26.280 Crownics company called alk Core Life Extension Foundation. But his 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.240 his his brother, and his sister didn't want to do it, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.800 and so they had him buried and the appeals Kurt said, no, no, 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:34.560 you gotta dig that guy up and you gotta stick 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:36.920 him in the Chronics facility. Yeah, that's I mean, it 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.600 sounds like those breadsticks have been bust you know. I 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.120 mean there's I don't unless I'm missing something. Um in 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:47.040 the grounds really cold there. Um, that one's kind of 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:51.000 done for. Yeah, kind of odd. So this is pretty cool. Um. 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.400 I was pulling up some some different statistics and I 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:56.000 think you were looking at this these two. Um. The 0:15:56.080 --> 0:16:00.960 Cryonics Institute has a bunch of comparative proceidures and policies 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.040 on their website, so you can look at like some 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.920 of the different different places you could have your body frozen. 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.840 You can stop around steal. So there's like there's Altcore 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:15.040 Life Extension Foundation in Arizona, American Chronic Society in California, 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:22.680 Chronic Institute in Michigan, Creo Roussan and um. And then 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.720 there's Suspended Animation Inc. In Florida that has a nice 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:27.960 ring to it. Yeah. I wonder if they do anime 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:35.000 there too. It's it does it sounds kind of um, 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.920 I don't know's it sounds like something out of a novel. Um. Oh. 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.400 And then there's trans Time Inc. Also in California. So 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:47.760 California is a hotbed of getting your body frozen pretty much. Um. 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:49.280 But they have all this other stuff on there too, 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.400 about like all right, which ones offer you know, just 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:56.720 the head um or you know, full body freezing? Um? 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:58.640 You know what what kind of prices are involved in? 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:00.640 There was one that was pretty that I was kind 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:05.280 of i because it had had some like it wasn't 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:07.199 that much per year like I think they had like 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:12.720 the yearly cost down to yeah, like trans Time and 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.320 uh Chronics Institute they headed down to like like one 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:18.240 is like ninety six dollars for yearly fee and the 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.040 other ones are and twenty And of course it still 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:23.639 takes an enormous amount of money to to get frozen 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.320 to begin with, but it's like hundred twenty a year. 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:30.080 I probably you know, spend that much on I don't 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.280 know beer or something you know, indeed not beer, but 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.680 I don't know. Fine coffee, yeah, something caffeine to keep 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.160 you awake during your podcasts. Yeah, definitely on caffeine. Yeah. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.160 So for the price of like one year's worth of coffee, 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.040 I could to have my body frozen until they figured 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.760 out how to restore me and like put me in 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.480 like a new android body in the future. Or you 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:53.600 could have the exact opposite done and you could be 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:58.440 burned up proverb that's right, for a lot cheaper, yeah, 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.359 or composted. This gonna be the next big craze, they say, 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.280 human composting. Yeah. Yeah, there's actually a whole deal about it. Um. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.520 And actually Mary roaches a stiff book kind of like 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.880 body farm, um kind of. I mean, it's basically operates 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.040 along the principle that you know, it's kind of like, 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.040 you know, to I feel like today's generation, a lot 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.879 of us are like like I feel it's like I'm 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.320 I would be like telling my parents and I'd be like, like, 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:25.160 I think, you know, being buried in the ground would 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.879 be a waste because I'm taking up like valuable you know, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.439 real estate. It's costing money, and then what am I 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:32.639 doing down there. I'm just you know, being kept in 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:36.320 like this artificial state, you know, and still decaying when 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:37.960 you could just burn me, right and that will be 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.800 a lot clear and simpler. Um. But then there's this 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.080 new movement saying, well, no, actually you're you know, you're 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.440 creating emissions when you burn a body and you all 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.879 this fire, et cetera. And also it keeps it. It 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.359 requires a lot of energy to keep the incinerator at 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:53.040 that temperature. And then if you have you know, you 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.080 have any feelings, etcetera, you know, you might have some 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:57.480 you know, something in there that it burns up and 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.800 adds the pollution. Um. So they're people to say, hey, 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:03.960 what would be more natural than just simply becoming a 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.520 part of the earth again. You know, you're burying and 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.240 they have these these green burials you know where yeah, yeah, 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:12.040 they they talked about it in there where not much 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.199 as done to the corpse and you just you know, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:18.160 you're retaken by the ecosystem. And it's actually a lot 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:20.399 like I believe they do that into bet you've probably 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:21.960 seen the pictures where they take the body and they 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.480 leave it up on the rocks for the for the scavengers. 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:29.080 So Yeah, it's you know, that's all about like continuing 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.719 the natural cycle, the complete opposite of freezing yourself so 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.399 that robots can rebuild your body in the future. But 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:38.240 go forward. If that's your thing, don't let me talk 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.119 you out of it. Yeah. So I think that wraps 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.040 it up for death and death on it in particular. 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:46.720 If you're curious about jeff or chronics, we have many 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.600 articles on both, so head on over to the homepage 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.280 and type in cryonics or brain death or how dying works. 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:56.240 Molly Edmunds were a really good article on how dying 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.400 works that I liked. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very interesting. All 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:01.679 the processes are going on in it. Hey, and we 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:04.879 also have Facebook and Twitter accounts, now be sure to 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.000 do There's stuff from the Science Lab on Facebook and 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:10.399 Lab stuff over on Twitter. Yeah, and you should be 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.520 able to put put Lab stuff into either, and that'll 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.240 bring you right to us. We'll keep you updated on 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:18.520