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A Non-Profit Organization OctoberJanuary 2015 2015 • •Volume Volume 36:10 36:1 The Technology of Repair, Revival, and Rejuvenation Page 10 False Modesty Hurts Cryonics Page 5 The Future of Cryonics Magazine ISSN 1054-4305 Page 6 $9.95 Improve Your Odds of a Good Cryopreservation You have your cryonics funding and contracts in place but have you considered other steps you can take to prevent problems down the road? ü Keep Alcor up-to-date about personal and medical changes. ü Update your Alcor paperwork to reflect your current wishes. ü Execute a cryonics-friendly Living Will and Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care. ü Wear your bracelet and talk to your friends and family about your desire to be cryopreserved. ü Ask your relatives to sign Affidavits stating that they will not interfere with your cryopreservation. ü Attend local cryonics meetings or start a local group yourself. ü Contribute to Alcor’s operations and research. Contact Alcor (1-877-462-5267) and let us know how we can assist you. Visit the ALCOR FORUMS www.alcor.org/forums/ Discuss Alcor and cryonics topics with other members and Alcor officials. • The Alcor Foundation • Financial • Cell Repair Technologies • Rejuvenation • Cryobiology • Stabilization • Events and Meetings Other features include pseudonyms (pending verification of membership status) and a private forum. Visit the ALCOR BLOG www.alcor.org/blog/ Your source for news about: • Cryonics technology • Speaking events and meetings • Cryopreservation cases • Employment opportunities • Television programs about cryonics Alcor is on Facebook Connect with Alcor members and supporters on our official Facebook page: www.facebook.com/alcor.life.extension.foundation Become a fan and encourage interested friends, family members, and colleagues to support us too. rofit Organization A Non-P lume 36:1 ary 2015 • Vo Janu October 2015 • Volume 36:10 COVER STORY: PAGE 10 The Technology of Repair, Revival, Page 10 and Rejuvenation The Technology of Repair, This ambitious paper reviews some of Revival, and Rejuvenation the proposals that have been made to try to solve the problem of revival, Page 5 repair, and rejuvenation, including using nanotechnology as a part of this effort. False Modesty Hurts Cryonics MagazinePage 6 Various cell and tissue repair devices Cryonics The Future of are discussed as well as a cryobiological view of the subject of repair after ISSN 1054-4305 exposure to cryogenic temperatures. Part I of a three-part series. $9.95 5 QUOD INCEPIMUS CONFICIEMUS False Modesty Hurts Cryonics CONTENTS Does false modesty about cryonics command more respect from scientists? Aschwin de Wolf argues that this is not the case and 22 Membership Statistics that pessimistic claims about cryonics need to be corroborated How many members, associate with precise, empirical data, instead of careless statements about members, and patients does Alcor probabilities and “damage.” have and where do they live? 6 The Future of Cryonics Magazine 24 Resuscitation Update This month Alcor will publish its ambitious book collection of Mike Perry surveys the news Cryonics magazine articles named Preserving Minds, Saving Lives, and research to report on new The Best Cryonics Writings from the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. developments that bring us closer You can read the Afterword of the book to see where we are to the resuscitation of cryonics heading in the future. patients. www.alcor.org Cryonics / October 2015 3 The James Bedford Society ifts have played a fundamental role in the cryonics movement since its earliest days. Dr. James Bedford, a Editorial Board man whose extraordinary vision led him to become the Saul Kent G first person to be cryopreserved, and the first to make a bequest to Ralph C. Merkle, Ph.D. a cryonics organization, exemplified the determination of the early R. Michael Perry, Ph.D. pioneers of cryonics. We invite you to follow in his footsteps, and join the James Bedford Society. Editor The James Bedford Society recognizes those who make a Aschwin de Wolf bequest of any size to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. If you have already provided a gift Contributing Writers for Alcor in your estate, please send a copy of your relevant documents Aschwin de Wolf to Alcor’s Finance Director, Bonnie Magee. R. Michael Perry, Ph.D. If you’d like to learn more about setting up a bequest, send an email York W. Porter to [email protected] or call 480-905-1906 x114 to discuss your gift. Copyright 2015 by Alcor Life Extension Foundation All rights reserved. Reproduction, in whole or part, without permission is prohibited. 2015 Annual Giving Program Cryonics magazine is published monthly. lcor provides a wide array of services for you the member, and the general public. We inform and educate, we protect and preserve, and we strive to To subscribe to the printed edition remain at the forefront of cryonics technology. and/or change your address, please call A Since its founding, Alcor has relied on member support to maintain its mission 480.905.1906 x101or visit the magazine and attract new members. Your support, regardless of size, can provide a better website: future for all cryonicists. Please act now. www.alcor.org/magazine SUGGESTED GIVING LEVELS Please note: If you change your address less than a month before the magazine is mailed, it may $20 FRIEND be sent to your old address. $60 JUNIOR SUPPOrter Address correspondence to: $120 SUstaining SUPPOrter Cryonics Magazine 7895 East Acoma Drive, Suite 110 $500 AdvOcate SUPPOrter Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 Phone: 480.905.1906 $1,000 LEADING SUPPOrter Toll free: 877.462.5267 Fax: 480.922.9027 $2,500 VISIOnary SUPPOrter $5,000 Silver SUPPOrter Letters to the Editor welcome: [email protected] $10,000 GOLD SUPPOrter Advertising inquiries: $25,000 TitaniUM SUPPOrter 480.905.1906 x113 [email protected] $50,000 VANGUARD SUPPOrter ISSN: 1054-4305 We encourage every member to donate. Even if you can only afford $5 right now, Visit us on the web at www.alcor.org you will make a significant contribution to Alcor’s future. Donations may be made via the Donations button on the Alcor website or by Alcor News Blog contacting Alcor’s Finance Director, Bonnie Magee, at [email protected]. Your http://www.alcor.org/blog/ donation may be made as a lump sum or divided into easy monthly payments. 4 Cryonics / October 2015 www.alcor.org Quod incepimus conficiemus Photo: Cryo-Care Equipment Corporation at 2340 E. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ. Dr. Bedford’s “home” in 1970 or 1971. FALSE MODESTY HURTS Cryonics By Aschwin de Wolf o credible cryonics organization that will need to be overcome for cryonics get up and do something about them. would ever claim that if you to succeed, a major problem is that a lot Cryonics is a field where individuals Nget cryopreserved you will be of the individual probabilities that go into and small groups of individuals can still resuscitated in the future. We tend to make these calculations are not independent. make a huge impact on the credibility and more qualified claims and even include For example, if we can produce sustainability of the field. language in our cryopreservation contracts stronger scientific evidence for brain Does false modesty about cryonics about the (potential) challenges that are cryopreservation, legal protections will command more respect from scientists? I associated with today’s procedures. One improve, membership and financial stability don’t think so. If you think that cryonics counterproductive attitude that I have will increase, etc. Also, is it reasonable causes irreversible damage, please explain encountered since becoming involved in the to do probability estimates for things this on a specific, molecular level. Claiming field, however, is to think that we look more that are considered mainstream medical that today’s cryonics procedures cause respectable and credible if we put the odds knowledge or common sense sociological “damage” is not an argument against of success really low or claim that patients prerequisites? For example, what kind of cryonics unless you can make a case who were cryopreserved with older, cruder, Alzheimer’s researcher would discuss a for how this kind of damage leads to a technologies probably will not be revived. potential new drug with the caveat that the condition where the original ultrastructure A typical statement goes like, “I think there drug will only be effective if the brain gives of the brain cannot be inferred from the is about a 2% chance that cryonics will work rise to the mind (“who knows, maybe it is damaged state. Information is hard to but I think it is a rational decision to make a disease of the soul?”), or that civilized destroy and in cryonics damage is often considering the potential benefits.” When I society should still exist to introduce such produced concurrent with decreases in hear statements like this I always wonder, drugs to patients? There are all kinds of temperature that lock these changes in “how do you arrive at such a probability conditions that can be considered necessary place. One quick rule about talking about estimate?” and “what kinds of damage do for cryonics to succeed and if we assign damage in cryonics: ask for specifics, do you exactly think irreversibly erase identity- all of these independent probabilities we not accept sweeping statements about “the critical information?” If you make strong will always end up with extraordinarily low brain.” Ask how exactly this damage makes statements about the (technical) feasibility numbers. No mainstream researcher talks information irreversibly disappear. of cryonics you’d better back them up. about his / her aims like this. I think that most of the time these low Another important thing to recognize estimates have little rigorous reasoning about likelihood estimates in cryonics is or data behind them.