Last night’s episode of The Middleman did not disappoint, easily being one of the best episodes of the season. In a clever riff on the Austin Powers concept, Kevin Sorbo guest starred as a Middleman placed in suspended animation in 1969, brought back to life once it is surmised his arch-nemesis has returned. Amidst an ever-escalating spoof of 60s spy movies, the current Middleman and his sardonic sidekick Wendy Watson must work with the 1969 Middleman to save the world.
Freezing someone in order to revive them later is a common idea in science fiction. And it’s probably one of the areas where people are trying their hardest to turn science fiction into science fact.
Usually referred to as cryogenics, but more accurately described as cryonics, the appeal of this technology is obvious: a recently-dead or dying person could be frozen until such time as medical science discovers the fountain of youth and works out how to revive decades- or centuries-old carefully preserved corpses. And indeed, the first part of the equation may already have become reality. Companies such as Alcor will chill recently deceased (ideally within 15 minutes of death) individuals to temperatures below 180 degrees Fahrenheit. However, it is not known what affect this process would have on a subject’s mind, and there is no currently known way to revive a patient—and there may never be. Still that hasn’t stopped a lot of people from taking the chance—nearly 1,000 80 people are already stored in Alcor’s vaults (and for the record, it’s a gamble I’d be willing to take too, but unless the cost of living gets a lot cheaper, the starting price of $80,000 to preserve just my head is a truly fictional sum of money for me to stump up, even with clever financing options.)
On a less ambitious scale, people have been revived after lethal exposure to cold (the timescale here is tens of minutes, not years). And as DISCOVER reported last year, suspended-animation researchers have revived dogs that were clinically dead for as long as three hours. The immediate practical application here that the scientists are looking at is for trauma victims. Sometimes people receive injuries which could be surgically repaired in theory, but in practice it just takes too long to transport the patient to a hospital and then conduct a complex operation. The hope is that these people could be placed in suspended animation at the scene of the injury, and then operated upon in a relatively leisurely fashion. Clinical trials are currently being designed, but it will probably be many years before this becomes anything like a commonplace therapy. Until then, you can spend some of your time rooting for The Powers That Be to order a second season of The Middleman.
August 12th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Current cryonics technologies do not involve freezing of the patient, but a procedure called vitrification in which a water/cryoprotectant solution solidifies without ice formation. Although it is true that we do not know if people in cryopreservation today will ever be resuscitated, researchers at the cryobiology company 21st Century Medicine have demonstrated that electrical activity can be maintained in brain slices that were vitrified with similar solutions as Alcor uses.
The most important obstacle to cryonics today is that it is not practiced as an elective medical procedure:
http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/07/24/cryonics-as-an-elective-medical-procedure/
August 12th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Less than 200 people in the world are currently in
cryostasis, about 90 of them at the Cryonics Institute
and about 85 of them at Alcor. The number 1,000 more
accurately represents the number of people in the
world who have made contracts to be cryopreserved
(most at Alcor and the Cryonics Institute). See:
http://www.cryonics.org/comparisons.html#Size
Alcor charges $150,000 to cryopreserve a whole body
and $80,000 for just the head (on the assumption
that future science can regenerate bodies with
stem cells, etc.) — but the Cryonics Institute
charges as little as $28,000 for a whole body
(and does not accepts heads):
http://www.cryonics.org/comparisons.html#Prices
The majority of these people with contracts
for cryopreservation have arranged their funding
by buying life insurance policies that name the
cryonics organization as beneficiary. For a person
who is in good health and not very old, an
insurance policy for $50,000 or $100,000 is not
very expensive.
To learn more about the science behind
cryonics see:
http://www.cryonics.org/reports/Scientific_Justification.pdf
And for general information about all aspects
of cryonics see:
http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/CryoFAQ.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics
— Ben Best
August 12th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Is the cost of your morning cup of coffee a fictional sum of money for you to stump up? That’s all it costs many folks, who fund their cryonics services via life insurance, making the cryonics company the owner/beneficiary of the policy. Also there is another company, Cryonics Institute, where the prices start at $28K. Stephen Cass, sign in and sign up!
August 12th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Ben — oops — you’re right, I read the wrong graph, less than a 100 hundred in preservation at Alcor it is. I’ve edited to correct. Also, I’m curious: wouldn’t preserving just the head be a better option, as all else being equal, wouldn’t a head, being smaller than an entire body, reach the target temperature faster?
August 12th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Yes, Stephen, you are right that the head cools more quickly, although the
significance of that fact for cryopreservation is minor. More relevant is the
fact that ice can be eliminated by vitrification from the brain far more
efficiently than other organs or the rest of the body. The head is far more
economical to preserve. The main objection to heads is the “yuck factor”:
cryopreservation of heads without bodies strikes too many people as being
grotesque and macabre. Public relations is the main reason that the Cryonics
Institute does not offer a “neuro” option.
August 17th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I look at cryonics like a lifeboat on a sinking ship in the middle of the ocean in the 19th century. The odds of surviving aren’t great, but they’re a whole lot better than the alternative. I see it as a last-ditch experimental medical procedure to save my life when all else has failed.
For me, it’s a simple choice: have a chance at life in the future in a rejuvinated body, or be totally anihiliated, rot in the ground and become worm food.