A Non-Profit Organization

December 2013 • Volume 34:12

Interview with Joshua Mitteldorf About Programmed Aging Page 8

Social Benefits of Page 5

ISSN 1054-4305 Though She Isn’t Really Ill, There’s a Little Yellow Pill… Page 11

$9.95 Improve Your Oddsof a Good You have your 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. A Non-Profit Organization

rofit Organization A Non-P

lume 34:12 er 2013 • Vo Decemb CONTENTS

6 CEO Update

rview with Inte 14 FOR THE RECORD rf Joshualdo Carrying On: The Aftermath Mitte d About mme COVER STORY: PAGE 8 and Legacy of Early New York Prograg Cryonics Agin Interview with Joshua Mitteldorf The mid-1970s were a difficult time Page 8 About Programmed Aging for cryonics, particularly in New York To most people and researchers, which had figured so prominently in agingon is a process of “wear and the early days. Here we take a look at nati ISSN 1054-4305 Rejuve efits of tear.” According to Joshua Mitteldorf events starting in this time of trial. ogies Social Benol techn ll, $9.95 Most of the important players in New Bio y I this perspective on aging should be Page 5 n’t Reall he Is llow Pillreplaced… by the view that aging is York cryonics went elsewhere. In the Though S re’s a Little Ye end Cryonics emerged stronger than The programmed. In this interview he age 11 P answers questions about what such ever from the lessons learned. a perspective implies about human 21 Lessons learned from Cryonics: evolution, how such an aging program Cover Photo: A Sociology of Death and Joshua Mitteldorf speaking at is executed, and what kinds of anti- Bereavement the 2012 Alcor conference. aging strategies are available to upset Cryonics editor Aschwin de Wolf also © Alcor the aging program. revisits Arlene Sheskin’s Cryonics: A Sociology of Death and Bereavement to see 5 QUOD INCEPIMUS CONFICIEMUS what has been learned, and what still can be learned, from the early days of Social Benefits of Rejuvenation Biotechnologies cryonics. Attempts to defend the beneficial consequences of conquering aging are often dismissed as opportunistic arguments to defend 23 That ’70s Transhumanism selfish desires for “immortality.” What if we approach the issue Book Review of Cosmic Trigger, the other way round and demonstrate that both morality and Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati prosperity require the elimination of aging? 29 Membership Statistics 11 COOLER MINDS PREVAIL How many members, associate Though She Isn’t Really Ill, There’s a Little Yellow Pill… members, and patients does Alcor have and where do they live? Can human enhancement be as simple as taking a pill? This month’s installment of Cooler Minds Prevail explores the ethics 30 Tech News of cosmetic pyschopharmacology and the drugs available today We read the news to uncover the most that may hold potential for enhancement of cognition, mood, promising and exciting developments and pro-social behaviors. in science and technology.

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 3 A Non-Profit Organization 2013 Annual Giving Program lcor provides a wide array of services for you the member, and the general Editorial Board public. We inform and educate, we protect and preserve, and we strive to Aremain at the forefront of cryonics technology. Ralph C. Merkle, Ph.D. Since its founding, Alcor has relied on member support to maintain its mission R. Michael Perry, Ph.D. and attract new members. Your support, regardless of size, can provide a better future for all cryonicists. Please act now. Editor Aschwin de Wolf Suggested Giving Levels

$20 Friend Contributing Writers Aschwin de Wolf $60 Junior Supporter Chana de Wolf , Ph.D. $120 Sustaining Supporter Mike Perry, Ph.D. Mark Plus $500 Advocate Supporter

Copyright 2013 $1,000 Leading Supporter by Alcor Foundation $2,500 Visionary Supporter All rights reserved. Reproduction, in whole or part, without $5,000 Silver Supporter permission is prohibited. $10,000 Gold Supporter Cryonics magazine is published monthly. $25,000 Titanium Supporter To subscribe to the printed edition and/or change your address, please call $50,000 Vanguard Supporter 480.905.1906 x101or visit the magazine website: We encourage every member to donate. Even if you can only afford $5 right now, www.alcor.org/magazine you will make a significant contribution to Alcor’s future. Donations may be made via the Donations button on the Alcor website or by Please note: If you change your address less than contacting Alcor’s Finance Director, Bonnie Magee, at [email protected]. Your a month before the magazine is mailed, it may donation may be made as a lump sum or divided into easy monthly payments.  be sent to your old address.

Address correspondence to: Cryonics Magazine 7895 East Acoma Drive, Suite 110 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 Phone: 480.905.1906 The Society Toll free: 877.462.5267 ifts have played a fundamental role in the cryonics Fax: 480.922.9027 movement since its earliest days. Dr. James Bedford, a man whose extraordinary vision led him to become the Letters to the Editor welcome: G first person to be cryopreserved, and the first to make a bequest to [email protected] a cryonics organization, exemplified the determination of the early pioneers of cryonics. We invite you to follow in his footsteps, and Advertising inquiries: join the James Bedford Society. 480.905.1906 x113 The James Bedford Society recognizes those who make a [email protected] bequest of any size to the Alcor Life Extension ISSN: 1054-4305 Foundation. If you have already provided a gift Visit us on the web at www.alcor.org for Alcor in your estate, please send a copy of your relevant documents to Alcor’s Finance Director, Bonnie Magee. Alcor News Blog If you’d like to learn more about setting up a bequest, send an email  http://www.alcor.org/blog/ to [email protected] or call 480-905-1906 x114 to discuss your gift.

4 Cryonics / December 2013 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.

Social Benefits of Rejuvenation Biotechnologies By Aschwin de Wolf

hen advocates of radical life disabilities. A society in which humans have are not treated differently because of their extension discuss the social control over the aging process would be date of birth we should want to live in a Wbenefits of humans having desirable because it would eliminate one of society where rejuvenation biotechnologies much longer lifespans it is often a footnote the main causes of death and the suffering sever the link between chronological age to a personal desire to prolong life. As a it brings for survivors. and biological age. consequence, cynicism from critics is It is not uncommon to hear people being What about economic welfare? Ageless often encountered. It hard to counter accused of not caring about the effects of people would be able to remain productive such skepticism effectively because people their actions on future generations. This and generous, medical costs associated with may believe you are just trying to make complaint is particularly prominent in the debilitating health and mental effects an essentially selfish desire look socially discussions about the environment and the of biological aging would be substantially desirable. use of natural resources. If humans were reduced, and highly talented people would There is an alternative. We can approach not born to die on a predictable schedule not cease to exist. the topic from the other direction when this whole dynamic would change because Reasoning backwards from what we ask what kind of lifespans would be the distinction between current and future morality and welfare would “dictate” about desirable if we wanted to increase social generations would cease to exist. If we human lifespans is not just a talking point welfare and reduce human suffering. Let’s shifted focus from shorter to longer-term in discussions about the bio-ethics of life look at a number of issues. satisfactions involving our place and role extension. one can imagine the rise of a There is a large literature about coping in an enduring “family” of associates, we social movement that seeks to educate the with the death of loved ones, relatives, and should not want humans to replace each general public about the social benefits of friends. While many people find support other but to coexist in time and space. biological control over the aging process. from such self-help books, most people Age discrimination involves discrimination Such a social movement would not be in the would agree that no amount of anticipation of individuals on the basis of their business of making excuses for eccentric or coping can eliminate the suffering and age. In most instances, however, this individual desires but would recommend devastation that follows the death of a loved discrimination concerns biological age and that the reduction of suffering, sustainable one. Is there an upside? I am not aware of its effects on appearance, physical health, growth, and more virtuous conduct would any serious writer pontificating about the and mental skills. Biological age is not hard require that humans do not have a fixed positive aspects about a person dear to to observe and can usually be inferred from expiration date.  you dying or suffering from aging-related chronological age. If we prefer that people

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 5 CEO Update By Max More

n November 1, Alcor took New “Alcor Cryonics” YouTube when members are cryopreserved and costs into our care A-2694, our channel incurred. We urge those of you who are O(confidential) 118th patient. As a core part of a vigorous drive to vastly working to set up wealth preservation trusts A-2694 was signed up just in time and improve Alcor’s social media presence, I to first ensure that you are fully funded. later than optimal, with sign-up paperwork have create a YouTube channel. Here you being completed just four days before will find videos of Alcor-40 talks, links to Priorities being pronounced, financing being other Alcor- and cryonics-relevant videos, These have not changed a great deal since confirmed on the day of legal death. This and a growing series of short FAQ videos last year. Of course I will continue to work case was also complicated by the patient dealing with common misconceptions, closely to coordinate with SA. I will make a being located in the Czech Republic where, questions, and objections. I will be adding much greater effort at fundraising, both for we were initially and inaccurately told, more new FAQ videos over the coming the Membership Dues Reduction Fund and, we would not be able to carry out our months. Let me know if you have seen other when it is in final form, the Endowment procedures. A further complication—the YouTube videos supportive of Alcor or Fund. other fundraising areas include massive St. Jude storm—prevented us cryonics, and we will add them to the roster research and the PCT. Another focus is from deploying equipment and supplies of related videos: http://www.youtube. to find ways to reduce costs for members, from England to the Czech Republic for com/channel/UCUh9FLcWu8k5k5W_ including helping the Hardship Committee, field cryoprotection. See the Alcor news ofWQMZA/videos and examining CMS waiver possibilities, blog for more information. alternative funding options, and lower-cost Our 119th patient, A-2030, arrived Underfunding billing options, and perhaps carefully designed shortly after noon on Friday, November All members whose funding is below current lifetime memberships. 22. Remarkably, later on the very same minimums should by now have received a I will be pushing to reignite growth, afternoon, we received emergency messages bill for underfunding (UF) dues. The initial partly through a social media project to about two possible additional cases. one billing is for the last four months of 2013 boost interest and inquiries leading to new message concerned an individual who had (since the plan was formally adopted) and members. I will encourage more research been interested in cryonics but who had not the rate is only one third of the eventual (and better communication of the research made arrangements. The other concerned a amount (which will be equal to 1% of your we do), and work on getting more feedback very recently signed-up member. As I am underfunding per year). It’s remarkable how on the quality of cases, especially by doing writing this the day after first contact, it is many members seem to be unaware of their CTs on neuros, conducting biopsies, and too early to report further. inadequate level of funding despite our making use of end tidal C02 monitoring. We also had a possible postmortem many letters and articles on the subject. We It will be a major concern to help educate case from Asia, but that didn’t work out. hope that the implementation of this plan members and encourage them to better plan In addition, we discussed a possible charity will finally raise awareness of this problem for inflation. This will include revising the case for an ex-member, but he decided not on an individual level. Even members who cost information on the website. to pursue it. are wealthy have not, in many cases, raised their funding to current minimums. Media New advisor I thank the considerable number of you We have to turn down quite a few requests We are delighted to announce the latest who have raised your funding levels since we for interviews of filming because the level addition to Alcor’s advisors, Keegan started focusing on a solution to the problem of media interest is often too high for our Macintosh. You may know him from his in 2011. The total level of underfunding available time (or because the opportunity monthly column in Cryonics and/or his has declined considerably, reducing the seems not worth the investment of effort). Alcor-40 talk. threat to Alcor’s future financial security We’ve enjoyed some recent and very

6 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org positive pieces of video coverage. one of We have had good gains in Associate Transfer on Death (TOD) enables funds to these was a NOVA web special on Alcor Membership, with quite a few additions bypass the probate process and be drawn on and cryonics. The NOVA team had filmed from a special offer made to viewers of immediately by Alcor, on presenting a death at Alcor originally for a broadcast show a YouTube video of me giving a tour of certificate. No executor is involved and the titled “Making Things Colder” (which also Alcor, posted on Singularity Weblog. This transfer can be made irrevocable. I have featured research at ) received over 36,000 views. After asking the made inquiries to our bank about POD/ but we didn’t make the cut due to excessive video’s editor, Nikola Danylov, to add a note TOD mechanisms and for which kinds of material. However, the footage was used that viewers could receive a free Associate accounts we can use them. These would for a web special which you can view here: Membership, we have received something not be sufficient on their own, since we also http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/ like a dozen requests. (These were from need to know if there are any funds in the cryonics.html probably the last 5,000 views.) accounts. This will require something like a The other highly positive video was a Converting interest into membership: I have collateral assignment. follow-up by germany’s galileo TV on a given many talks and media interviews. It 1999 visit to Alcor. Their 2013 update had has been difficult to convert the resulting Contributions wanted! an impressive quality of filming and gave a attention and interest into new members. The end of the year is a traditional time good impression of Alcor. The producer One obstacle is that so many potential for individuals with resources to contribute said that the German version was seen by 1.8 members find the cost too high. There is funding to worthy causes, but any time is a million. We’re hoping to make this (stripped some observable effect in that we do get good time for Alcor-related contributions. of the German voiceover) available online. inquiries resulting from the talks. And the If you would like to support Alcor (and give Other media includes a story, “Who effect is not usually going to be immediate— less to the tax man), we could benefit from wants to live forever? Maybe you can” on the person may have to think about it for contributions to these: MSN Innovation, October 15; an interview quite a while, and perhaps receive further Membership Dues Reduction Fund: As for The Longevity Show, and one for a communications about cryonics before explained in the October issue of Cryonics, Dutch publication. I also gave a talk at the taking action. this fund is designed to allow us to reduce Venturist conference in Laughlin, NV on But I want to do more to get people membership dues over a 10-year period in improvements at Alcor. started on the path to membership, using order to improve members retention and TV and film interest in cryonics: I read an the relatively easy step of Associate to accelerate membership growth, creating early outline for a television series which Membership, offered for free for a year. a virtuous cycle of economies of scale in apparently is being greenlit for a pilot. The Rather than simply mentioning the free which we continuously reduce the cost premise is interesting and promising from memberships, I could take distinguished- of dues, grow faster, and improve Alcor’s our perspective. Rather than simply using looking cards to talks and hand them out. finances. cryonics as a tool for getting someone Those cards would have not only a uRL Endowment Fund: Alcor operations into the future, it is a central focus. Each but a barcode that takes you directly to the can draw on the Endowment Fund at a episode will follow someone who has been AM signup page, or perhaps to a microsite maximum rate of 2% per year. Contributions successfully revived from cryopreservation. with core information along with the signup to this fund therefore provide long-term, If the show continues to be developed, I form. sustainable support to the organization. The may be able to continue to have some input. larger the income from this fund grows, the I also have a script for a proposed movie, Alternative funding methods less we need to rely on membership dues. written by an Alcor member and established An interesting and intriguing conversation Research Fund: Not only is research director. with a member has motivated me to important for improving the quality of push harder for us to investigate and find our procedures and hastening the day Social media relatively low-risk ways to allow members when patients can be repaired and revived, I am also working on a comprehensive, to use alternative funding methods for spending on research helps protect our tax- integrated social media plan (“Operation their cryopreservation. This conversation exempt status. Educate and Motivate.”) We know that highlighted ways to reduce the risk and Hardship Fund: It is crucial that Alcor general advertising is both expensive and difficulty of accepting assets such as real take action to address the multi-million inefficient. An integrated social media effort estate—for instance, turning transferred dollar problem of members with below- can cost very little yet have substantial property over to a property management minimum funding. At the same time, we effects in attracting and holding interest. company; and using a real estate recordation recognize that some members truly struggle The goal is to greatly enhance Alcor’s online system and title check so that no one can put to meet the costs of membership, life presence, generating more awareness—and in a claim ahead of Alcor. A simple escrow insurance payments, and additional dues more favorable awareness—and convert account would be similar to prepaying but for underfunding. Although we have seeded that into new members (at least initially the member maintains ownership. the Hardship Fund with $20,000 from at the Associate level) through changes Another mechanism for greatly reducing Alcor’s reserve fund (and the Life Extension to the website and better use of the blog, the risks to Alcor of accepting assets Foundation has contributed additional YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, newly-created may be for the member to give Alcor a funds), we welcome contributions that allow infographics, and perhaps Pinterest and one promissory note backed by a deed of trust. us to help distressed members who lack or two others such as Instagram. Pay on Death (POD) account—also called other options. 

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 7 Interview with Joshua Mitteldorf

The following interview with Joshua Mitteldorf is the third in a series of interviews with prominent scientists in the field of aging.

1. Can you briefly describe your lab. They knocked out both copies epidemic. The population would be much view that aging is programmed? of a gene that is essential for energy more volatile, and prone to extinction. generation in the worms, and they From the perspective of theory, lived ten times as long. http://www. 3. Does a belief in programmed programmed aging is completely ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17996009 aging necessarily imply group unexpected. Even what I call the “left wing” selection in evolution? of evolutionary theory would not predict • There are two ancient mechanisms that the individual would evolve to sacrifice of programmed death in protozoans, Yes. There can be no individual benefit himself for the group so reliably. But the called apoptosis and cellular . from aging. Aging is by definition an empirical evidence is overwhelming. Yeast cells will initiate apoptosis individual’s loss of fitness over time. The genetic basis for aging is very old, when they detect that the cell colony and has been conserved for a billion years, is starving. They literally dismember their own cell, break it down and turn from the simplest one-celled eukaryotes up “Life span is extended not by through mammals and humans. Of course, it into food for neighboring cells. there are lots of genes that have this kind Cellular senescence is a mechanism making it easier for the body where some protozoans (e.g. paramecia) of long legacy, but they are all part of the but by putting challenges in the core processes essential to life. Evidently, count how many times they have evolution has treated aging as a core reproduced themselves and, if body’s way: Starvation, physical process, essential to life. they have not shared genes with neighboring paramecia, they languish exertion (generating • Life span is extended not by and die. Both cellular senescence and free radicals!), extremes of making it easier for the body but apoptosis are part of the cell cycle in by putting challenges in the body’s our own bodies, and both mechanisms heat and cold, even some way: Starvation, physical exertion contribute to human aging. toxins extend life span.” (generating free radicals!), extremes of heat and cold, even some toxins extend 2. What are the major differences life span. You have to think that the of opinion between advocates of 4. Empirical examples of body is not doing its best to live a long programmed aging? programmed aging can often time when it has plenty of food, and is be restated as examples of comfortable and unstressed. We have different ideas of the wear and tear and vice versa. evolutionary significance of aging. For What kind of evidence in • It’s surprisingly easy to create example, most advocates of programmed humans would you say would genetically modified organisms aging think that aging evolved for the provide unambiguous support (worms, flies, mice…) that live longer purpose of promoting population for the hypothesis that aging is than the same animals found in the turnover, so that the community can evolve programmed? wild. This is almost always done not more rapidly. I have promoted the theory by giving them some new gene they that the community benefits from aging As we get older, the body’s repair didn’t have, but by knocking out a because death is spread out and predictable, and maintenance machinery slows down. gene that nature put there. The record avoiding extinctions. If it weren’t for aging, Damage accumulates. This looks just like for life extension in C. Elegans worms everyone would be dying at the same “wear and tear” but it is programmed in the comes from Robert Shmookler-Reis’s time, during a famine, for example, or an

8 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org sense that the body could repair the damage We who believe in programmed aging program in order to live longer. We can’t but doesn’t. For example, the antioxidants tend to be optimistic about rejuvenation do it by pampering or protecting ourselves. CoQ10 and glutathione decline with age. therapies. We think that the body is Our bodies just make less of them. perfectly capable of restoring a youthful But there are other ways in which state, and needs only the proper signaling “We who believe in programmed human aging is an active process that to restore itself to a youthful state. Two of doesn’t look at all like “wear and tear.” the most promising examples of that are aging tend to be optimistic about For example, inflammation is turned rejuvenation therapies. We think against the body’s own cells. Inflammation • activators are is an essential defense mechanism, used medicines or supplements we that the body is perfectly capable to destroy damaged cells and invading can take that stimulate our cells of restoring a youthful state, and microbes. As we get older, the inflammation to re-grow their . There mechanism is co-opted in a process of self- is early, preliminary evidence of needs only the proper signaling to destruction. Inflammation contributes to dramatic rejuvenation in mice restore itself to a youthful state.” all the major diseases of old age. given telomerase therapy. (The The two mechanisms of programmed catch is that these mice were cell death that I mentioned above also are genetically engineered to suffer active mechanisms of self-destruction. from short telomeres in the first 8. Is it possible that aging is a Apoptosis is programmed cell death, and place.) http://www.nature.com/ combination of an evolved it destroys our muscle cells, creating the nature/journal/v469/n7328/ program and wear and tear? In weakness and muscle atrophy that we full/nature09603.html other words, would you expect associate with old age. Apoptosis destroys any progressive physiological • There may be hormones and healthy nerve cells in our brains, and this deterioration if the aging other chemicals that circulate in leads to dementia. Cellular senescence is program is halted? our blood that tell the body how another name for shortening. old it is. old people’s blood has Stem cells are constantly creating new Take a look at the answer to #4. Some too much of some things and blood cells and skin cells for us, because of the ways in which aging is programmed too little of others. If we restore these are short-lived and turn over every involve slowing down the repair a youthful profile to chemical few days. But with age, the telomeres in the mechanisms, so that damage is allowed to signals in the blood, it may be that stem cells get short, and the stem cells can accumulate. the body responds by restoring a no longer do their job. Telomere attrition is youthful state. Harold Katcher completely avoidable, if the body wanted to 9. Not many people are interested has been a prominent advocate of avoid it—all it takes it the enzyme telomerase in radical life extension or trying this procedure. http://www. which is available in the DNA of every cell, cryonics. Is it possible that our programmed-aging.org/theory-3/ but it is held back, causing the stem cells to psychology has co-evolved to Katcher_heterochronic_plasma_ become senescent. Senescent cells are not embrace aging, too? exchange.pdf only failing to pull their weight—they are also toxic to surrounding tissue. Freud certainly thought so. Toward 7. If we are supposed to age, does the end of his life, he started writing about it not follow that a lot of things 5. Is it possible that aging is a “death drive” in addition to the better- that are known to be “healthy” programmed but that the body known drives for sex, for power, etc. will not do much to slow aging? does not consult an “aging which he proposed. Many older people clock” to make us age? suffer from chronic pain, and they can no That’s exactly right. We’ve been longer do the things that gave them joy and focused for 50 years on the evils of modern That’s a deep question, and I think the exhilaration when they were young. Death life—the toxins and the radiation and the jury is still out. Is there a central clock— starts to look not so bad. stress. We’re obsessed with the insults that maybe the hypothalamus deep in the brain— It’s also true that we live our lives Western technology has imposed on our or is the aging process widely distributed knowing that death is inevitable. Social bodies. So we want to eat organic foods, through cells, as for example all the stem psychologists speak of the phenomenon lower our anxiety levels, avoid fish that has cells that are individually counting their of cognitive dissonance which tends to make mercury and water with fluorine. These are replications with their telomeres? a virtue of necessity. If I’m going to die all good things to do, and may improve our and there’s nothing much I can do about health. But they have nothing to do with 6. Can we make the human body it, then maybe death isn’t such a bad thing. life extension. believe that it is still young? This kind of thinking is wired into our If our life spans are programmed brains. into our genes, we’ll have to disrupt that

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 9 In the face of this, the broad Life Extension Movement offers a radical new possibility. Suppose we don’t have to lose our physical faculties. Suppose we retain our capacity for joy and passion and exhilaration, and we’re free from

“If our life spans are programmed into our genes, we’ll have to disrupt that program in order to live longer. We can’t do it by pampering or protecting ourselves.”

off, and both these contribute evolutionary theorists in the field who say physical pain. Suppose that our minds to aging. gene expression is that programmed aging is wrong, wrong, remain flexible and open to new modes controlled, in part, by the process wrong, and that the press will embarrass of thinking. The world is rapidly changing, of methylation. Little bumps are itself by publishing my book. in some ways that are pregnant with added to the chromosome that act I am now exploring publication outside excitement and promise, and in other ways as “Do Not Disturb” signs and of university presses, and have promised that threaten freedom and democracy and determine which genes are turned my readers that the book will come out in natural biodiversity and all that we hold off. Just last week, Steve Horvath 2014, self-published if need be.  dear. What an adventure is in store for of UCLA published a spectacular those of us that live to participate in this paper claiming to have decoded Josh Mitteldorf studies evolutionary epic global struggle! This is some of the this pattern of methylation so theory of aging using computer promise that life extension holds out for that he can determine the age of simulations. Mitteldorf has taught a those of us who see and embrace it. a cell sample with 97% accuracy. weekly yoga class for thirty years. He It may be that a few years down is an advocate for vigorous self care, 10. Which life extension strategies the road, we can re-program our including exercise, meditation and that exist today hold the most methylation and patterns to a caloric restriction. After earning a PhD promise? more youthful state. in astrophysicists, Mitteldorf moved to evolutionary biology as a primary field I’m putting my bets on two fields. My belief is that telomere length and in 1996. He has taught at Harvard, methylation are two of the body’s primary Berkeley, Bryn Mawr, LaSalle and • Telomerase therapies are very aging clocks, and that as we learn how to Temple University. He is presently close to offering a therapy that I reset these clocks, we will be able to restore affiliated with MIT as a visiting scholar. think will be rejuvenating. There our youth. are herbal products already on the market that modestly extend 11. Can you tell us about the book telomere length. that you are working on? is a Reno, NV company with the know-how to create dramatically I’ve written and rewritten a book more effective telomerase http://SuicideGenes.org about all the activators in just a few years’ time, themes you ask about in this interview. and they are tragically stalled for I’ve been frustrated by several academic lack of venture capital. publishers that have been enthusiastic • Epigenetics is the science of which about publishing my book, and some of genes get expressed where and the reviews have been glowing. But three when. As we age, some genes publishers have gotten cold feet when they are turned on and others turned encountered the vehement objections of

10 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org COOLER MINDS PREVAIL

Though She Isn’t Really Ill, There’s a Little Yellow Pill… By Chana de Wolf

umans have been ingesting mind- bullets” appear to exist. That is, there are simulator, half of the 18 subjects took 5 and mood-altering substances no drugs exhibiting such specificity as mg of donepezil for 30 days and the other Hfor millennia, but it has only to have only the primary, desired effect. half were given a placebo. The subjects rather recently become possible to begin Indeed, a general principle of trade-offs returned to the lab to perform two test to elucidate drug mechanisms of action (particularly in the form of side effects) flights on day 30. The donepezil group was and to use this information, along with our appears to exist when it comes to drug found to perform similarly to the initial test burgeoning knowledge of neuroscience, administration for any purpose, whether flight, while placebo group performance to design drugs intended to have a specific treatment or enhancement. Such facts may declined. These results were interpreted effect. And though most people think constitute barriers to the practical use of as an improvement in the ability to retain of pharmaceuticals as “medicine,” it has pharmacological enhancers and should be a practiced skill. Instead it seems possible become increasingly popular to discuss taken into consideration when discussing that the better performance of the the possibilities for the use of drugs in the ethics of enhancement. donepezil group could have been due to enhancement, or improvement of “human Some currently available cognitive improved attention or working memory form or functioning beyond what is enhancers include donepezil, modafinil, during the test flights on day 30. necessary to sustain or restore good health” dopamine agonists, guanfacine, and Another experiment by gron et al. (E.T. Juengst; in Parens, 1998, p 29). methylphenidate. There are also efforts (2005) looked at the effects of donepezil Some (transhumansits) believe that underway to develop memory-enhancing (5 mg/day for 30 days) on performance enhancement may not only be possible, but drugs, and we will discuss a few of the of healthy male subjects on a variety that it may even be a moral duty. others mechanisms by which they are proposed of neuropsychological tests probing (bioconservatives) fear that enhancement to act. Besides cognitive enhancement, attention, executive function, visual and may cause us to lose sight of what it the enhancement of mood and pro- verbal short-term and working memory, means to be human altogether. It is not social behavior in normal individuals are semantic memory, and verbal and the intention of this article to advocate other types of enhancement that may be visual episodic memory. They reported enhancement or to denounce it. Instead, affected pharmacologically, most usually a selective enhancement of episodic let’s review some of the drugs (and/or by antidepressants or oxytocin. Let’s briefly memory performance, and suggested that classes of drugs) that have been identified cover the evidence for the efficacy of each the improved performance in Yesavage as the most promisingly cognitive- or of these in enhancing cognition and/or et al.’s study is not due to enhanced mood-enhancing. Many of the drugs we mood before embarking on a more general visual attention, but to increased episodic will cover can be read about in further discussion of the general principles of memory performance. depth in Botox for the brain: enhancement enhancement and ethical concerns. Ultimately, there is scarce evidence that of cognition, mood and pro-social behavior and One of the most widely cited cognitive donepezil improves retention of training. blunting of unwanted memories (Jongh, R., et enhancement drugs is donepezil Better designed experiments need to be al., Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 32 (Aricept®), an acetylcholinesterase conducted before we can come to any (2008): 760-776). inhibitor. In 2002, Yesavage et al. reported firm conclusions regarding its efficacy as a Of most importance in considering the improved retention of training in cognitive-enhancing. potentially cognitive enhancer drugs is healthy pilots tested in a flight simulator. The wake-promoting agent modafinil to keep in mind that, to date, no “magic In this study, after training in a flight (Provigil®) is another currently available

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 11 drug that is purported to have cognitive levels in the brain. In healthy subjects, post-training disruption of noradrenergic enhancing effects. Provigil® is indicated guanfacine has been shown to improve transmission (as with β-adrenergic receptor for the treatment of excessive daytime visuospatial memory (Jakala et al., 1999a, antagonist propranolol). Propranolol sleepiness and is often prescribed to Jakala et al., 1999b), but the beneficial has been shown to impair the long-term those with narcolepsy, obstructive sleep effects were accompanied by sedative memory of emotionally arousing stories apnea, and shift work sleep disorder. Its and hypotensive effects (i.e., side effects). (but not emotionally neutral stories) by mechanisms of action are unclear, but Other studies have failed to replicate these blocking the enhancing effect of arousal it is supposed that modafinil increases cognitive enhancing effects, perhaps due on memory (Cahill et al., 1994). In a hypothalamic histamine release, thereby to differences in dosages and/or subject particularly interesting study making use promoting wakefulness by indirect selection. of patients admitted to the emergency activation of the histaminergic system. Methylphenidate (Ritalin®) is a department, post-trauma administration of However, some suggest that modafinil well-known stimulant that works by propranolol reduced physiologic responses works by inhibiting gABA release in the blocking the reuptake of dopamine and during mental imagery of the event 3 cerebral cortex. norepinephrine. In healthy subjects, it has months later (Pitman et al., 2002). Further In normal, healthy subjects, modafinil been found to enhance spatial working- investigations have supported the memory- (100-200 mg) appears to be an effective memory performance. Interestingly, as blunting effects of propranolol, possibly by countermeasure for sleep loss. In with dopamine agonists, an inverted blocking the reconsolidation of traumatic several studies, it sustained alertness and U-relationship was seen, with subjects with memories. performance of sleep-deprived subjects (up lower baseline working memory capacity to 54.5 hours) and has also been found to showing the greatest improvement after General principles improve subjective attention and alertness, methylphenidate administration. Reviewing these drugs and their effects spatial planning, stop signal reaction time, Future targets for enhancing cognition leads us to some general principles of digit-span and visual pattern recognition are generally focused on enhancing cognitive and mood enhancement. The memory. However, at least one study plasticity by targeting glutamate receptors first is that many drugs have an inverted (Randall et al., 2003) reported “increased (responsible for the induction of long-term U-shaped dose-response curve, where psychological anxiety and aggressive potentiation) or by increasing CREB (known low doses improve and high doses impair mood” and failed to find an effect on more to strengthen synapses). Drugs targeting performance. This is potentially problematic complex forms of memory, suggesting that AMPA receptors, NMDA receptors, or the for the practical use of cognition enhancers modafinil enhances performance only in expression of CREB have all shown some in healthy individuals, especially when very specific, simple tasks. promise in cognitive enhancement in animal doses that are most effective in facilitating The dopamine agonists studies, but little to no experiments have one behavior simultaneously exert null or d-amphetamine, bromocriptine, and been carried out to determine effectiveness detrimental effects on other behaviors. pergolide have all been shown to improve in normal, healthy humans. Second, a drug’s effect can be “baseline- cognition in healthy volunteers, specifically Beyond cognitive enhancement, there is dependent,” where low-performing working memory and executive function. also the potential for enhancement of mood individuals experience greater benefit Historically, amphetamines have been and pro-social behavior. Antidepressants from the drug while higher-performing used by the military during World War II are the first drugs that come to mind individuals do not see such benefits (which and the Korean War, and more recently as when discussing the pharmacological might simply reflect a ceiling effect), or may, a treatment for ADHD (Adderall®). But manipulation of mood, including in fact, see a deterioration in performance usage statistics suggest that it is commonly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (which points to an inverted u-model). used for enhancement by normal, healthy (SSRIs). Used for the treatment of mood In the case of an inverted U-model, low- people—particularly college students. disorders such as depression, SSRIs are performing individuals are found on the up Interestingly, the effect of dopaminergic not indicated for normal people of stable slope of the inverted u and thus benefit augmentation appears to have an inverted mood. However, some studies have shown from the drug, while high-performing U-relationship between endogenous that administration of SSRIs to healthy individuals are located near the peak of the dopamine levels and working memory volunteers resulted in a general decrease inverted U already and, in effect, experience performance. Several studies have provided of negative affect (such as sadness and an “overdose” of neurotransmitter that evidence for this by demonstrating anxiety) and an increase in social affiliation leads to a decline in performance. that individuals with a low working- in a cooperative task. Such decreases in Trade-offs exist in the realm of cognitive memory capacity benefit from greater negative affect also appeared to induce a enhancing drugs as well. As mentioned, improvements after taking a dopamine positive bias in information processing, unwanted “side effects” are often receptor agonist, while high-span subjects resulting in decreased perception of fear experienced with drug administration, either do not benefit at all or show a decline and anger from facial expression cues. ranging from mild physiological symptoms in performance. Another potential use for such as sweating to more concerning issues Guanfacine (Intuniv®) is an α2 pharmacological agents in otherwise like increased agitation, anxiety, and/or adrenoceptor agonist, also indicated healthy humans would be to blunt depression. for treatment of ADHD symptoms in unwanted memories by preventing their More specific trade-offs may come in the children, but by increasing norepinephrine consolidation. This may be accomplished by form of impairment of one cognitive ability

12 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org at the expense of improving another. Some performance-enhancing drugs such as examples of this include the enhancement steroids). Additionally, it may be necessary, ReferenceS of long-term memory but deterioration but very difficult, to make a distinction Cahill, L., Prins, B., Weber, M., of working memory with the use of drugs between enhancement and therapy in order McGaugh, J.L., 1994. Beta-adrenergic that activate the cAMP/protein kinase A to define the proper goals of medicine, to activation and memory for emotional (PKA) signaling pathway. Another trade- determine health-care cost reimbursement, events. Nature 371, 702-704. off could occur between the stability versus and to “discriminate between morally right the flexibility of long-term memory, as in and morally problematic or suspicious Gron, G., Kirstein, M., Thielscher, the case of certain cannabinoid receptor interventions” (Parens, 1998). Of particular A., Riepe, M.W., Spitzer, M., 2005. antagonists which appear to lead to more importance will be determining how to deal Cholinergic enhancement of episodic robust long-term memories, but which with drugs that are already used off-label memory in healthy young adults. also disrupt the ability of new information for enhancement. Should they be provided Psycholpharmacology 182, 170-179. to modify those memories. Similarly, a by physicians under certain conditions? Jakala, P., Sirvio, J., Riekkinen, M., trade-off may exist between stability and Or should they be regulated in the private Koivisto, E., Kejonen, K., Vanhanen, flexibility of working memory. Obviously, commercial domain? M., Riekkinen Jr., P., 1999a. Guanfacine pharmacological manipulations that There is an interesting argument that and clonidine, alpha 2-agonists, improve increase cognitive stability at the cost of a using enhancers might change one’s paired associates learning, but not decreased capacity to flexibly alter behavior authentic identity—that enhancing mood delayed matching to sample, in humans. are potentially problematic in that one or behavior will lead to a personality that is Neuropsychopharmacology, 20, 119-130. generally does not wish to have difficulty in not really one’s own (i.e., inauthenticity), or responding appropriately to change. even dehumanization—while others argue Jakala, P., Riekkinen, M., Sirvio, J., Lastly, there is a trade-off involving the that such drugs can help users to “become Koivisto, E., Kejonen, K., Vanhanen, relationship between cognition and mood. who the really are,” thereby strengthening M., Riekkinen Jr., P., 1999b. Guanfacine, Many mood-enhancing drugs, such as their identity and authenticity. Lastly, but not clonidine, improves planning alcohol and even antidepressants, impair according to the President’s Council on and working memory performance in cognitive functioning to varying degrees. Bioethics, enhancement may “threaten humans. Neuropsychopharmacology 20, Cognition-enhancing drugs may also impair our sense of human dignity and what is 460-470. emotional functions. Because cognition naturally human” (The President’s Council, Parens, E., 1998. Is Better Always Good? and emotion are intricately regulated 2003). According to the Council, “the use The Enhancement Project. In: Parens, E. through interconnected brain pathways, of memory blunters is morally problematic (Ed.), Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical inducing change in one area may have because it might cause a loss of empathy and Social Implications. Georgetown effects in the other. Much more research if we would habitually ‘erase’ our negative University Press, Washington, D.C. pp. remains to be performed to elucidate these experiences, and because it would violate 1-28. interactions before we can come to any a duty to remember and to bear witness firm conclusions. of crimes and atrocities.” on the other Pitman, R.K., Sanders, K.M., Zusman, hand, many people believe that we are R.M., Healy, A.R., Cheema, F., Lasko, Ethical concerns morally bound to transcend humans’ basic N.B., Cahill, L., Orr, S.P., 2002. Pilot Again, though it is not the place of this biological limits and to control the human study of secondary prevention of article to advocate or denounce the use of condition. But even they must ask: what is posttraumatic stress disorder with drugs for human enhancement, obviously the meaning of trust and relationships if propranolol. Biological Psychiatry 51, there are considerable ethical concerns we are able to manipulate them? 189-192. when discussing the administration of These are all questions without easy Randall, D.C. Shneerson, J.M., Plaha, drugs to otherwise healthy human beings. answers. It may be some time yet before the K.K., File, S.E., 2003. Modafinil affects First and foremost, safety is of paramount ethical considerations of human cognitive mood, but not cognitive function, importance. The risks and side-effects, and mood enhancement really come to a in healthy young volunteers. Human including physical and psychological head, given the apparently limited benefits Psychopharmacology 18, 163-173. dependence, as well as long-term effects of of currently available drugs. But we should drug use should be considered and weighed not avoid dealing with these issues in The President’s Council on Bioethics. heavily against any potential benefits. the meantime; for there will come a day Beyond Therapy. and Societal pressure to take cognitive when significant enhancement, whether the Pursuit of Happiness (2003). www. enhancing drugs is another ethical concern, via drugs or technological means, will be bioethics.gov/reports/beyondtherapy/ especially in light of the fact that many possible and available. And though various Yesaveage, J.A., Mumenthaler, M.S., may not actually produce benefits to the factions may disagree about the morality Taylor, J.L, Frieman, L., O’Hara, R., degree desired or expected. In the same of enhancement, one thing is for sure: we Sheikh, J., Tinklenberg, J., Whitehouse, vein, the use of enhancers may give some have a moral obligation to be prepared to P.J., 2002. Donepezil and flight simulator a competitive advantage, thus leading to handle the consequences of enhancement, performance: effects on retention of  concerns regarding fairness and equality both positive and negative. complex skills. Neurology 59, 123-125. (as we already see in the case of physical

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 13 FOR THE RECORD

Carrying on: The Aftermath and Legacy of Early New York Cryonics By R. Michael Perry

y the mid-1970s, cryonics in remedied over time with further research. the old wooden boat in the fireplace important ways had become a As usual, material in square brackets [ ] has to keep the house warm. So, I go to the Bwasteland. Early hopes had not been added editorially by me. phone and I call Art Quaife, who says he been realized. Cryonics had not become has a freezing facility in the Bay Area, Trans a widespread practice, but only the Trans Time Comes of Age Time. In the meantime, this Dostal woman preoccupation of a few hardy individuals By early 1974, all but one or two of the [daughter of Clara who was frozen and who doggedly, sometimes grimly Cryonics Sociey of New York’s patients still being maintained by Curtis] still owes persisted. of the roughly two dozen had been returned to relatives and taken me $1,500 for dry ice, and her [mother’s cryopreservations that had occurred, most away. (Clara Dostal would not be buried unused cryogenic] tank is lying in a field in had been terminated or soon would be. In until late in the year.) the cemetery. She wanted to be an actress. New York especially the once promising who still headed CSNY was relieved, but That’s why she went along with the freezing activity had all but ground to a halt. then was confronted with another case. of her mother, because she thought she Funding had run short and patients had “Frank Riley” was frozen by his son with was going to get on television. So, I called been handed back to relatives who were the assistance of and an Art Quaife, I said I got a man here who unable or unwilling to maintain them. Here associate, and Riley Jr. now needed a place needs a place to store his father, who he’s we take a look at events in this time of trial. to store his father. CSNY was relatively just frozen in Maryland, and he doesn’t care Most of the important players in New York close, but now moribund. Also close by was what it costs. So there was a long silence, cryonics went elsewhere, and New York Nick DeBlasio’s facility at the Mt. Holiness and then Art says, he don’t have nothing. would not recover its former preeminence, Cemetery in Butler, New Jersey, which had All he has is a house that hangs off the cliff though its activity never entirely ceased been set up with the help of Robert Nelson and tilts, and you walk in the door and you and there still are cryonicists in New York. of the Cryonics Society of California feel like you’re falling straight to Alcatraz.” Meanwhile cryonics as a whole was able along the lines of CSC’s main facility in In earlier years CSNY had enjoyed the to weather the hardships and emerge with Chatsworth. Mike, with serious misgivings patronage of two volunteer assistants and new vigor by the 1980s. about the DeBlasio facility (well-founded budding young researchers, Paul Segall As a disclaimer: much of this often as we shall see), strongly recommended and Harold Waitz, respectively Director disenchanting history was not well- against that choice too, and instead favored of Biological Research and Director of reported in contemporary sources such a recent cryonics startup, Trans Time, Inc. Engineering Research at Life Extension as newsletters but has been reconstructed near Berkeley, California. Trans Time was Research Laboratory in Lindenhurst, Long from later recollections, notably by Curtis founded in 1972 and headed by Art Quaife, Island.2 This was a small, garage laboratory Henderson and Mike Darwin (for both of whom a reluctant Curtis Henderson now set up with the help of a friend and also whom there are extensive sources online). contacted when pressed by Riley Jr.1 life-extension enthusiast, Bruce Cohen.3 Curtis especially has an entertaining style “…I was totally out, finally clear of those Previously, while at New York University as and I’ve generously borrowed from him bodies. I had a real good deal working for a student, Paul had attempted to complete here as elsewhere in this series on cryonics in Bell and Howell. I said I’m never going to his doctoral work with experiments aimed New York. Nobody is perfect, as the saying store bodies again, but this guy [Riley Jr.] at increasing the life-span of laboratory goes; inaccuracies and incompleteness in kept insisting, and he has a roll of $100 animals through dietary restriction. what follows, from whatever source, may be bills. Meanwhile I’m so broke, I’m burning Frustrated by the lack of interest and

14 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org support for his project, he relocated to and went out west and the University of Pittsburgh, only to find set up something they similar obstacles which prompted him to called Fort Addison, return to NYU. But he could not do his in Berkeley, which[, experiments on campus but only in his just as before in New garage lab. There he found he could greatly York], was a house slow the growth of rodents by deprivation full of girls. They all of the essential amino enzyme tryptophan managed to get on but even so “the mice were eating better welfare. Paul kept than I was.” In 1971 Paul relocated to inviting me out there, the university of California, Berkeley to he said he could complete his doctoral dissertation, lured by arrange for Diane and the promise of “a real laboratory to work me to get on welfare in instead of a garage,” and other support, and live there. But The building that housed the first Trans Time, Inc. facility in under the noted aging researcher Paola Diane took one look Emeryville, CA. Photo by Mike Darwin. Photo Credit: CH6. Timiras. Paul was excited about the move. at Fort Addison and “Berkeley turned out to be the answer to all the girls, and decided that that was not thing, he’d pay for everything. He got the my dreams. Dr. Timiras had a keen interest going to be. That was a little later, when we body, he got the tank, bribed somebody at in aging research. Like [her doctoral advisor finally got out there.” Kennedy to get it on a plane or something, Hans] Selye[, the founder of stress theory Back to the Rileys: the son continued I don’t know. who had also made several contributions to press Curtis for a “residence” for his “We got to Berkeley, to Paul Segall and to aging theory,] she [was] a bold, well- frozen father, which would require a his commune, and this guy gave him the informed, insightful investigator with a storage capsule as well. credit cards to go out and buy food and so strong background in both theoretical and “So I said to Art, ‘this guy’s got plenty on. You have no idea how unreal all this medical physiology. While most scientists of money, why don’t you rent a facility, you was. We got all the stuff together, made a would run for cover when I told them what need a truck with a hydraulic lift’—I gave cart with wheels to move the tank—and I was interested in, she just smiled. over him a whole list of things to get. And I that’s how Trans Time got created. And the years she [would be] of invaluable help said, now I’m going after that tank. I got sometimes, when I see Art Quaife writing to me, defending me from the attacks of a friend of mine [John Bull] and we rented about how single-handedly, from one room, colleagues less enamored of my goals while a truck with a hydraulic lift. And the guy is he started Trans Time, I feel—well…Paul gently directing my efforts toward the going along with this. There’s a feeling of and Harry provided all the labor, and this achievable. She [had] an uncanny sense of unreality because every place he went [was] guy was feeding them from McDonald’s. what can or cannot be done. And she [was] with these credit cards and $100 bills, and They rented a place; they took the tank in almost always right.”4 we’d been starving, and now we’re renting there.” Paul was joined in Berkeley by Harry trucks, and a private plane—he was like For a little subsequent history: Paul Segall Waitz and eventually Bruce Cohen, all Howard Hughes. So we went to [New] and Harold Waitz were long active in Trans becoming active in Trans Time. Paul Jersey [to obtain the unused capsule from Time. Segall directed a well-publicized meanwhile conducted experiments under the Dostal relatives], and he was going to series of experiments with hamsters to Dr. Timiris’s careful guidance, completing give [Mrs.] Dostal[’s daughter] $5,000 in demonstrate recovery of function in his Ph.D. in physiology in 1977. (Waitz cash for that tank. He’s counting out the mammals after cardiac arrest and partial would finish his doctorate in biophysics money, and of course, I was and medical physics, also at UC Berkeley, there for the $1,500 she still in 1983.) In Segall’s experiments mice were owed me for the dry ice. indeed made to live (and also reproduce) “Then he said he wanted longer through tryptophan deprivation, me to come with him to though the longest-lived were from California. I was working in groups with a high mortality rate due to a record factory and Diane’s the extreme deprivation, and tryptophan saying to me, ‘You lose this deprivation does not look promising for job over cryonics and I’m application to humans.5 Curtis Henderson leaving you.’ Women were had a somewhat different, more earthy constantly telling me things impression of the move to Berkeley. like this—like, ‘if we get out “… Paul [Segall] and Harry [Waitz] had of this alive you’re never been asked to leave [their residence at] going to see me again.’ So I Interior of the Trans Time, Inc. facility in Berkeley Stony Brook [New York] because all kinds told the guy, my wife and my California in 1981. The dewar wrapped in black plastic of exotic chemicals, namely drugs, had been youngest kid have to come at the right of the photo above contained the patient found in the trunk of Harry’s car. So him to California with us. And Mr. Riley. Photo by Mike Darwin. Photo Credit: CH6. and Paul got into their Volkswagen minivan he says, don’t worry about a

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 15 freezing. In 1986 Time, California) when another (CSNY, the company New York) was moribund and unsuitable. gained further His mother was also frozen by Trans publicity with Time a few years later, then an accident Segall’s dog, Miles, claimed him and, not having provided who was cooled arrangements or funding for himself, he to near the ice was not cryopreserved. Funding eventually point and then ran low for his parents and they were revived. Miles and converted to neuropreservation. Presently his owner were their cryopreservations continue at Alcor. shown on the Phil Less fortunate were two other cases, Donahue Show, who, like the patients at Robert Nelson’s and cryonics was facility in Chatsworth, were thawed and widely advertised lost. Nicholas DeBlasio had his wife and debated. In Ann frozen at CSNY when she died of 1990 Segall and cancer in January 1969; later he became The first two Trans Time patients (1974, including Mr. Riley) immediately associates formed dissatisfied with the storage arrangements. prior to the dewar being hoisted into an upright position for cooldown the biotech In September 1971, using funds from a to liquid nitrogen temperature. Photo by Jim Yount. Photo Credit: CH6. company BioTime malpractice suit involving the death of which produced his wife and with the help of Nelson he the widely-used blood-replacement constructed a small, underground facility product Hextend. In 2000 Segall with Dr. at the Mt. Holiness Cemetery in Butler, Timiras formed the Center for Research New Jersey. In it he placed the upright and Education on Aging (CREA) at uC “Forever Flask” holding Ann. Late in 1972 Berkeley. Paul Segall deanimated in 2003 and a second patient was added, this one frozen was cryopreserved at Trans Time. Harold by Nelson in California. For several years Waitz continues to work for BioTime. things went well but finally the capsule Bruce Cohen after working with BioTime failed and the now-decomposing patients gravitated toward Alcor and for many were removed and buried. Actually it is years now has lived near that organization’s clear that at least one and likely two failures headquarters in Scottsdale, where he occurred before the final abandonment. frequently attends meetings and has given The March 1979 Immortalist, newsletter of Paola Timiras; photo credit: http://crea. much volunteer assistance on cases and, as a the Michigan-based Cryonics Association 6 berkeley.edu/paola_s_ locksmith, with the security system. (CA, affiliated with the ) timiras_profile.shtml, reports: accessed 15 Nov. 2013. The Meltdown in New Jersey “Mrs. DeBlasio was frozen [actually, Mr. Riley’s son, with his ready cash, helped encapsulated at liquid nitrogen temperature to activate one cryonics organization (Trans after being previously frozen to dry ice temperature] in August of 1969 by Cryo- Span Corporation and kept for a time on the premises of a Long Island cemetery; later she was moved to the New Jersey facility of Cryonic Interment Inc., an underground room in a cemetery similar to the Cryonic Interment facility [in Chatsworth,] near Los Angeles. [Cryonic Interment was a sister organization to the Cryonics Society of California as was Cryo- Span to CSNY. These for-profit, sister organizations handled the actual details of patient cooldowns and storage for the membership, nonprofit organizations they serviced.] Since then, Mr. DeBlasio has taken over the facility on a private basis. “An accident caused a vacuum leak in From left: Paul Segal, Harold Waitz, both about 1979; Photo August of 1978, resulting in considerable credit: Mike Darwin, private communication, 23 Mar. 2011. difficulty and expense to ship the unit to repair facilities; this was done with the help

16 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org dry room, water vapor forms like a rind of ice around the top of the tank. But these people knew nothing about liquid nitrogen, nothing about cryogenics. They didn’t know that you had to gently work the lid off, for fear of putting a hole in the vacuum jacket. I’m sure the delivery man got there, and the tank was covered with ice, and he gave it a good swift kick to knock the lid off, and he put a hole in the vacuum jacket. So the thing goes like Mount Vesuvius. … “Anyhow, they hauled it up, and Bull has this big truck. He was in the vending machine business. So we got it in the back of his truck, and the thing is roaring; the vapor is boiling off. We pull out onto the highway, and he says, suppose the cops stop us. And I’ve got a grin on me, and I say, ‘It’s all yours, John.’ “So we got this mess to John’s house Miles and Segall at the Trans Time laboratory, Oakland, CA, up here in Medford in this truck and I about 1987.7 Photo credit: Peter Menzel. still didn’t realize it wasn’t [Clara] Dostal in the tank with DeBlasio’s wife. [Mrs. of John Bull, a long-time cryonicist and incident reported by Curtis Henderson Dostal, who had been frozen by CSNY in present CA member. below, since he is not mentioned. That December 1972, had by then been returned “The storage room measures 8 x 16 failure must have happened soon after, to her relatives who, unknown to Curtis, feet and has one MVE [Minnesota Valley about May the following year, if what had her buried rather than transferred to Engineering] unit; Mr. DeBlasio says it seems to be one confirming source is another facility.] It was some woman from could hold five, and he would share it with understood correctly.9 In any case the California who Nelson froze. Later on, her others who would share the expense. capsule was failing and attempted repairs son was the one who paid Mike Darwin to “The expenses are not yet entirely clear, were inadequate. Curtis remembered it as come here and give her a decent funeral. At but we have asked Mr. DeBlasio, and follows. that time, Mike was desperate for a tank, will put him in touch with anyone who “I hadn’t heard from John Bull or but that was later on [in July 1980]. expresses interest.”8 DeBlasio for a couple of years. One day I “First of all, Bull wants to pull into my It appears no one had such an interest, or get a phone call, and they tell me they need house, but my wife [Diane] came running in any case nothing came of it. It appears me. Well, relations hadn’t been good. I was out and she’s going to call the police that the “accident” preceded the gruesome always out there taking the risks. This time, immediately if we attempt to get those I thought, it’s going to be different. bodies out of the tank there. So, we went “They told me the tank holding to Bull’s house. Meantime, they’d built a DeBlasio and [the other patient] is leaking, giant dry-ice box and they were going to and can I get out there and help them? So put both bodies in it. Now there’s the job I went out to Mount Holiness cemetery, of getting the bodies out of the tank. This and there it was. Nelson’s idea had been to was impossible. They had thawed out, been buy a number of cemetery plots and build refrozen and were frozen in place. So then a concrete vault underground. So now they got the bright idea they were going to the bodies are buried in a cemetery and melt them by putting a garden hose in there. it’s supposedly all legal. This one in Jersey That turned the whole inside into solid ice. was really nothing but a concrete well with I mean, it was like The Three Stooges. Anyway, a wooden hatch over it. And it was half- I told them, there’s nothing to do but let it full of ground water, rain water, whatever. melt. And we had to wait about two days They had a big back-hoe pulling the tank for it to do that in the truck outside John out of the ground, with vapor hissing out Bull’s house, not far from here. [Curtis’s all over the place. It looked like they were residence at 9 Holmes Court, Sayville, L.I.] launching a missile. What had gone wrong “The stretcher wouldn’t come out, was, instead of topping up the tank with nothing would come out. So I got the Bruce Cohen at Alcor, 2012 nitrogen themselves, they contracted with wrenches and crawled into this tank. (photo by Mike Perry) a delivery service from General Dynamics. DeBlasio’s wife was in pretty good shape, “Now, even if you keep a tank in a very but the other woman, whoever she was,

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 17 was nothing but a puddle at the bottom way I was going back in one of them tanks of the tank. So, we finally got `em out and with them bodies in there in that condition. put `em in the dry-ice box. Afterwards, I No way! So this time Mike went in and got went upstairs to the bathtub and I had a the bodies out. And he got his tank. [Mike pint of vodka. I drank the pint of vodka would sell the tank, which his Indianapolis- and I soaked for a day up there, and I could based organization Soma, Inc. received in still smell it. And Diane burned my clothes. return for services rendered, to Trans Time. Anyway, Bull sent the tank to be repaired He would use the proceeds for moving his by some place in Jersey. DeBlasio was organization and its sister organization, the cheap; he wouldn’t send the tank to MVE Institute for Advanced Biological Studies to get it properly fixed.” or IABS, to California, where he soon This evident carelessness led to further would become Alcor’s president.10] He was horrific consequences. staying over at my house [with another “I didn’t hear from them for a while. Soma official, Joe Allen, who assisted with Another year went by. I get a call from the operation] while he was doing all this.” Mike Darwin, and he tells me the thing has Further details of the 1980 cleanup Mike Darwin preparing to remove the melted down again. They had fixed it and are given in a report in the March 1981 bodies from the MVE dewar in July 1980. put it all back in there. Mike says it’s melted Cryonics by Mike Darwin, where he notes Photo by Joe Allen. Photo credit: CH6 down and he’s made this deal to come and that a breathing apparatus with an outside get the tank, and DeBlasio’s agreed to have oxygen supply was necessary to enter the From 1975 to 1980 he lived in Woodstock, his wife buried. … [The other patient too tank.11 The heroic efforts of Mike and about 100 miles north of New York City. would be buried.] Mike came and I met others at least averted a public scandal During this time and on either side of it he him in a motel, we went out to Mount such as accompanied a similar meltdown wrote three books: Future Sex (1974), The Holiness, and he had contacted a funeral at Nelson’s facility in Chatsworth. I quote Life Extension Revolution (1983), and Your parlor in Brentwood. It looked just like the last, painful, eloquent paragraph from Personal Life Extension Program (1985).12 In the Addams Family mansion. And here’s Mike’s article: 1980 he relocated to Hollywood, Florida, Gomez, and the woman with the long “I cannot know what motivated the where he teamed up with Steven Ruddel to black dress. And I mean his name really was freezing of these two people in the first publish Antiaging News.13 Gomez! [Victor gomez, who would later place. I presume they were loved and At this point Kent wanted to do more assist with other cases in the area under needed. I find it difficult to understand how than just publish but Ruddel was reluctant happier circumstances.] Anyway, Mike they could have been, with time, handled so and Kent lacked funding to proceed on his put the tank behind the funeral parlor in carelessly. Perhaps there is a lesson for us own. In the area, however, was another a Ryder rental truck, and we said there’s there about human nature, love, need and life-extension enthusiast, Bill Faloon, a nothing you can do, you got to wait till it the passage of time. For the hundredth licensed mortician who then worked with melts, no matter how bad it stinks. And it time it must be said and said yet again that the Neptune Society to arrange cremations stank, believe me. I told them there was no we cannot rely on friends or relatives, not and scattering of one’s ashes at sea. even on loving, caring relatives, to maintain Inspired by hopes to actually try to do us in suspension. The passage of time, one something about aging, Faloon, against the way or another, may rob us even of those. advice of others, quit his job and joined The agonizing thing for me about this with Kent to found the Life Extension most recent loss is that it represents the Foundation, which would specialize in first time to my knowledge that two people dietary supplements to promote health and have thawed out and lost their chances not longevity. Contrary to some expectations because of lack of money, but because of the enterprise flourished and profits have lack of sense.” (As terrible and tragic as been used over the years to both fund this failure was, it is important to note that research and assist operations related to it was caused basically by poor judgment cryonics, as well as more conventional life or “lack of sense” rather than any willful extension. (One reason for the success Ann DeBlasio’s dewar being hoisted out malfeasance or criminal intent.) was acquisition of a mailing list from Dirk of the vault in Mt. Holiness Cemetery in Pearson and , who authored a 14 Butler, New Jersey, in July 1980. The two Saul Kent, Cryonics Success 1982 bestselling book, Life Extension. ) In decomposed and refrozen bodies inside Story particular Alcor has benefited greatly from were thawed one last time then removed Along with Curtis Henderson, no one LEF’s financial contributions, along with and buried and the capsule was cleaned was so important to New York cryonics research enterprises such as 21st Century out and sent to Trans Time. From left: John as Saul Kent. As CSNY wound down its Medicine and the cryonics-assistance Bull, Nick DeBlasio and the two cemetery operations, Saul shifted his focus and organization, , Inc. workers who operated the backhoe. eventually, location, becoming arguably Here it is not possible to adequately cover Photo by Mike Darwin.Photo Credit: CH6. the most influential cryonicist of all time. even a small part of Saul Kent’s efforts,

18 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org facility makes use of sacred geometry to include symbolic themes of birth and re- birth as demonstrated throughout history. I believe that anyone encountering this building should experience these concepts viscerally. The building will enclose 700,000 square feet, some of it underground, and will cost an estimated $375 million. Much thought and planning has gone into its security both from natural and man-made threats. The property will also include a place for guests to stay when they visit, as Curtis Henderson in 1992 with the CC- well as conference facilities. There will also 101, the first capsule made for human be land within the research park for other cryogenic storage though never used The young Saul Kent with mother biotech companies.”16 as such, manufactured by Cryo-Care Dora. (Photo credit: Saul Kent) Equipment Corp. in Phoenix, Arizona in Further Highlights and 1965. (This organization was different from including controversies, but I mention Closing17 the California-based CryoCare that existed one initiative, the Timeship Project, which Curtis Henderson for decades lived at his in the 1990s.) In the back yard of Curtis’s home at 9 Holmes Court in Sayville, LI, NY. appropriately enough involves someone in modest residence in Sayville, Long Island. Photo by Charles Platt. Photo Credit: CH6. New York.15 His commitment to cryonics never wavered, The brainchild of Saul Kent and Bill though he no longer did freezings or spent Faloon, the yet-to-be finished Timeship a lot of time over organizational matters. Immortalist, newsletter of the Michigan group Project is to be “the world’s first Though his finances were meager, for (still in publication and now titled Long Life) comprehensive facility devoted to life a time at Alcor in the 1980s he enjoyed a notes “a high proportion of New York area extension research and cryopreservation.” special, free arrangement due to his past cryonicists [were] in attendance, including Selected for the work was Stephen contributions, courtesy of then-president such honored veterans as Curtis Henderson, Valentine, a renowned New York City Mike Darwin. In the 1990s there was a split Nicholas DeBlasio, Saul Kent and John architect. Valentine first met Kent at a in Alcor and another organization, CryoCare Bull.”19 (Arthur would later join Alcor and 1990 cryonics gathering in New York. was formed. Some of the people who had was prominent in the organization around The first concept for a Timeship facility been important in early New York cryonics, the time of the crisis that developed when was completed in 1997, then the work among them Saul Kent, Mike Darwin, and Dora, the mother of Saul Kent, was frozen was placed on hold until 2000, when Curtis Henderson, now affiliated with this in 1987. A coroner’s attempt to autopsy a cryopreservation protocol using organization. A few years later the split this patient was thwarted by court action, vitrification was developed and, with this healed and most of the “secessionists” and she remains cryopreserved.) Meetings optimistic prospect, the time seemed right rejoined Alcor. Curtis Henderson instead in the New York area continued; at one of to press ahead. Since then a site for the joined the Cryonics Institute (mainly for them Stephen Valentine was introduced to main structure has been selected (near financial reasons) though maintaining the Timeship concept as noted. I remember Comfort, Texas), land has been acquired friendly relations with Alcor personnel and (in 2007), and now extensive renovations, visiting us from time to time. On June 25, upgrades are being done at the property 2009, at age 82, he became CI’s 95th patient.18 as the master plan is being prepared. I remember Curtis had an ambition to write Valentine offers some thoughts: a book on his early cryonics experiences and “My goal was to integrate a bold wanted me to help, which I was happy to do. symbolic vision with optimal functionality. Events outpaced us, but I’ve often thought I wanted to make this facility and its that the book can still be written, when property the epitome of beauty and reanimation technology permits…. careful design. Timeship will be a scientific As for the New York area, a close mecca for life extension research. our study of newsletters and other sources will plans include the cryopreservation of the show modest but definite cryonics activity DNA of both humans and endangered covering the time gap from the 1970s up to animal species. We will serve as a major now. There is not time or space to report in research center for the cryopreservation detail here, but I note a very few highlights. of organs for transplantation, including A New York City chapter of the Michigan- bioengineered organs for which there is based Cryonics Association, CANYC, was currently no real method of storage, and formed and the first meeting held on July of course, thousands of human patients 22, 1979, chaired by and held at the home Ed Kuhrt with wife Anne who wish to travel to the future. The of Arthur McCombs, on Madison Ave. The

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 19 Curtis trying to reactivate CSNY in the delay.20 (Popper eventually became an Alcor experiences, along with similar occurrences 1990s and something of the sort occurred, patient.) In 1997 Ed Kuhrt, a former CSNY elsewhere, led to a stronger, more robust though only as a discussion group, which member who joined Alcor in the 1980s, cryonics effort that has a greater chance appears to have been short lived. was cryopreserved.21 Then there was Curtis of completing its mission. Some of the As for cryonics cases in the New York Henderson who now rests at CI as noted. early players are still active. others were area, a few notable ones can be mentioned. In In summary, the history of cryonics in unfortunately lost, or dropped out. But 1996 Henrietta Popper was cryopreserved by New York, particularly in its early phases, others are now cryopreserved, and we care CryoCare. For this case the mortician Victor forms an essential component of the larger for them with an eye toward future medicine Gomez performed heroically, working after history of the movement. often the early and an attitude of wait-and-see.  midnight to expedite shipping the patient attempts to cryopreserve people ended to California for storage with minimum badly but the lessons taught by these bitter

Sources: CC. CryoCare Report. MD. Michael Darwin, “Don’t Talk, Do Tell,” http://chronopause.com/chronopause.com/ Abbreviations as indicated are used in note CH6. “Thus Spake Curtis Henderson, Part index.php/2011/02/24/dont-ask-but-do-tell/ references. 6,” interview of Curtis Henderson by Charles index.html, accessed 22 Nov. 2013. Platt, annotated by Mike Darwin, http:// BB1. Ben Best, “A History of Cryonics,” chronopause.com/chronopause.com/index. PS. Paul Segall, Ph. D., with Carol Kahn, http://www.benbest.com/cryonics/history. php/2011/02/12/thus-spake-curtis-henderson- Living Longer, Growing Younger: Remarkable html, accessed 21 Nov. 2013. part-6-2/index.html, accessed 21 Nov. 2013. Breakthroughs in Life Extension, New York: Times Books, 1989. BB2. Ben Best, “Paul Segall Deanimated,” CM. Cryonics, 1980 issue editor unattributed, http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp. 1997 issue edited by Brian Shock. PT (Paola Timiris). http://crea.berkeley.edu/ cgi?msg=22073, accessed 21 Nov. 2013. paola_s_timiras_profile.shtml, accessed 21 CP. Charles Platt, “The Unexpected Death Nov. 2013. BC. Bruce Cohen, private communication, 24 of Paul Segall,” Alcor News #13, July 1, Oct. 2013. 2003, http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/ TP1 (Timeship Project). http://www. alcornews013.html, accessed 21 Nov. 2013. theguardian.com/education/2004/jan/23/ BT1 (BioTime staff). : http://yahoo.brand. research.highereducation, accessed 12 Dec. edgar-online.com/EFX_dll/EDGARpro.dll?F CR. Cryonics Reports, Saul Kent, ed. 2013. etchFilingHtmlSection1?SectionID=371562- 201499-203843&SessionID=677k6vigikEA IM. The Immortalist, Mae Junod, ed. TP2 (Timeship Project). : http:// Kw7 accessed 15 Nov. 2013. hplusmagazine.com/2013/10/09/cryonics- LL. Long Life (formerly The Immortalist), John and-immortality-visionary-an-interview- BT2. (BioTime date of incorporation, Bull, ed. withstephenvalentine-of-timeship/, accessed etc.). .: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix. 12 Dec. 2013. zhtml?c=83805&p=irol-faq_pf accessed 16 MB (Miles the beagle; Segall and Waitz). Nov. 2013. http://www.people.com/people/article/0, ,20096106,00.html, accessed 21 Nov. 2013.

ReferenceS AND NOTES 1. Background on cryonics patients http://www.sciencephoto.com/ 13. Much of the information in this and the either of CSNY or dealt with by Curtis search?subtype=keywords&media_type=i following paragraph comes from Saul Kent, Henderson will be found in previous mages&matchtype=exact&searchstring=s private communication, Oct. 26, 2013. columns on New York egall , accessed 18 Nov. 2013. For The Record 14. BB1 cryonics, particularly Aug. Cryonics 8. “From Nicholas DeBlasio…,” IM Mar. 2013, 18-22. See MD for Mike Darwin’s 15. TP1, TP2 (two paragraphs that follow). 1979, 2. recounting of his efforts to persuade 16. TP2; Stephen Valentine, private 9. “MVE Capsule Failures,” IM May 1979, Mr. Riley, Jr., to have his father stored communication, 5 Dec. 2013. by Trans Time. Quotations of Curtis 5. The “second MVE failure” appears to Henderson in the present article are from be the same capsule as the first (note 8) 17. Much of what follows is based on CH6. though the article does not say so. But I personal knowledge with additions am not aware of any other failure of an covered in numbered references—RMP. 2. CR Sep. 1968, 171; Oct. 1968, 186. upright cryonics capsule at this time— 18. Ben Best, “The Cryonics Institute’s 95th 3. BC. RMP. Patient,” LL Sep.-Oct. 2009, 17-21. 4. PS, 22-23. 10. In addition to CH6 see “IABS and Soma 19. “New York: The Phoenix Flies Again,” 5. BC; BT; PS 24-28. Moving to Los Angeles,” CM Mar. 1981, IM Aug. 1979, 1. 1. 6. BB2, BC, BT1, BT2, CP, MB, PT, 20. Charles Platt, “CryoCare’s Second personal recollections. 11. Michael Darwin, “A Question of Time,” Patient,” CC Apr. 1996, 8-10. CM Mar. 1981, 4-6. 7. Peter Menzel, private communication 21. Linda Chamberlain, “CryoTransport 26 Nov. 2013; see also images 12. These titles, with more information, may Case Report: Edward W. Kuhrt, Patient M885/0007 and M885/0018, be found at amazon.com. A-1110,” CM 2Q 1997, 27-36.

20 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org Lessons learned from CRYONICS: A Sociology of Death and Bereavement

By Aschwin de Wolf

rlene Sheskin’s Cryonics: A the impression that cryonicists were Sociology of Death and Bereavement only in it for the money. This perception Awas published in 1979, 15 years of profiteering was a major source of after the publication of ’s frustration for the people involved who had The Prospect of Immortality but before the often sacrificed a lot of their own time and consolidation and growth of the major money without noticeable progress. one cryonics organizations. As a consequence, could argue that the “Chatsworth scandal” this study focusses on a relatively small in 1979, when 9 cryonics patients were sample of people in a field that was still discovered to be thawed in Chatsworth, struggling to create a sound infrastructure California, prompted cryonicists to insist to do cryopreservations. While the focus on much sounder financial controls and of the book is to examine the world of requirements and this started a much more cryonics, and how it affects the people robust era for cryonics. involved in it (or relatives of cryopreserved The movement away from the pay-as- people), what I am most interested in is you-go system cannot be overestimated what we can learn about the sustainability in the history of cryonics. One interesting of cryonics organizations. A more detailed question is whether the practice of review of the book with an emphasis “grandfathering” that was honored Requiring sound financial funding from on the history of cryonics in New York by Alcor until quite recently was still members is necessary for a sustainable was published by Mike Perry in Cryonics a remnant of the old area. After all, if cryonics organization but is not sufficient. magazine, November 2013. many patients do not upgrade their life Also important is ownership of the building A central theme that comes up insurance policies to reflect existing (or where the patients are being cared for. frequently in A Sociology is that it is difficult future) costs, an organization can still There are multiple accounts in Sheskin’s to keep a cryonics organization running find itself in a situation where expenses book where cryonics organization officials without having patients to care for. At the will exceed income and the maintenance found themselves forced out of buildings same time, the organizations featured in of patients will become problematic. and in conflict with landlords over having the book are not yet equipped to conduct As I write this, there is still no broad patients on their premises. Even if professional cryopreservations or have the consensus on how to adequately deal with money was available to keep patients in financial resources to provide secure and cryopreservation costs and inflation and cryopreservation, keeping them in rented long-term maintenance. As a consequence, what to communicate to members. If facilities (ranging from warehouses to maintenance of cryopreserved patients anything is clear from Sheskin’s book (and mortuaries) presented formidable logistical often involves periodic requests for recent Alcor member feedback), it is that and financial challenges, sometimes ending money from relatives to keep the patient members do not like unexpected changes in burial of the patient or transfer to another in cryopreservation. Because cryonics and increases in dues and cryopreservation (poorly run) organization. No doubt most organizations did not have a good minimums. one solution to this is to let of the people involved in the early days understanding of what it would cost to cryopreservation minimums rise on an recognized the importance of facility keep patients cryopreserved for long- annual (or biannual) basis. This allows the ownership but raising the money to acquire term care it was not possible for these cryonics organization to respond to cost a building was not a trivial thing. In fact, organizations to provide reliable estimates, increases in a transparent and predictable one could argue that the lack of funding to necessitating going back to the relatives for manner while also allowing the member to purchase a building for dewar maintenance additional funding. This often produced anticipate and plan for the future costs of is one of the major reasons why there are resentment among relatives and reinforced cryonics. not more cryonics organizations right now.

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 21 It also draws attention to the importance been sufficient to restore many of these their lives. If Alcor became known as an of not giving up on a cryonics facility patients to good health. In addition, there organization that makes strong efforts to once acquired, even if the organization is a non-trivial number of people who help their members to prevent their having itself is dysfunctional. Today there are still think that cryonics will work but are not to be cryopreserved, (hostile) outsiders will locations in the uS where patients can motivated to make cryonics arrangements no longer claim that Alcor aims to benefit be legally stored but the organizations or for themselves. By introducing Associate from the “death” of their members. companies occupying these premises have Membership Alcor is making an effort In closing, Sheskin’s book still contains stopped accepting new members or have to tap into the support for cryonics important lessons and clues about growth moved to other kinds of business, so this without requiring people to make cryonics for today’s cryonics organizations: topic is still quite relevant. arrangements (right away) as a condition One pseudonymous individual in for joining the organization. This option 1. Cryonics is not sustainable on a Sheskin’s book, identifiable as Curtis makes it clear that Alcor is serious about pay-as-you-go third-party basis, Henderson, puts it this way: its tax-exempt status to educate the and proper paperwork and sound general public and seek support for human funding (life insurance, living wills “Cryonics is not something a whole bunch cryopreservation in general. It also helps to etc.) should be a requirement for of people can do. We put out the newsletter—a convey the important point that cryonics is making cryonics arrangements. propaganda sheet—and got involved in the actual not just an option for individuals to serve 2. Cryonics organizations should freezing of bodies. There’s only a limited number their own interests but that we want to require inflation-proof, but of people who can participate, there just wasn’t that develop and make this option available for predictable, funding (even the much going on.” (p. 57) all people who need and want it. practice of “grandfathering” can A more difficult problem is how to destabilize an organization and This situation changed somewhat in the permanently engage members. As Sheskin confuse members). 1980s and 1990s when Alcor had enough recognizes, successful social and religious members to organize local meetings and movements often offer a whole range of 3. Secure ownership of a cryonics organize training sessions, but the fact that activities and benefits for their members. facility is of crucial importance for cryonics organizations are held together In many cases, people are drawn to these a sustainable cryonics organization. by only a small group of committed movements because of these benefits. individuals remains a cause for concern. It would be artificial for a cryonics 4. A cryonics organization should Strangely enough, the tendency of cryonics organization to bundle cryonics services offer members (and relatives of organizations such as Alcor to rely more on with “something else” solely for the sake patients) means to remain involved staff members and medical professionals of increased membership involvement or with the organization. has again left most members with little membership recruitment. In fact, there is to do besides paying dues and reading an increasing recognition that if we want 5. The only logical service that a the organization’s magazine. I think this to appeal to as many people as possible cryonics organization can offer is a potential problem for sustaining a we should present cryonics as form of to (potential) members without viable organization and the transfer of forward-looking critical care medicine, compromising its broad appeal knowledge that is necessary to maintain a open to people of all persuasions. is state-of-the-art knowledge and high level of care. If the current trend to There is one interest that all cryonics tools to extend life. This should not reduce member involvement in cryonics members have in common, however, that only be offered as a benefit, but can procedures persists, cryonics organizations can inspire more member involvement be a major draw for people to want will need to think hard about how to keep and recruitment and that is life extension. to join the organization.  their members involved through other If Alcor were known as an organization means. that not only offers cryonics arrangements, One of the most perceptive observations but also provides up-to-date, valuable of Sheskin is that it is possible to separate information and tools to extend people’s the concept of cryonics from the success lives, applicants would feel much more of the organizations that offer it: that they have something to gain by “[T]he problems of cryonics could joining right now. An ambitious effort to be be attributed to individuals or particular perceived as the organization to go to for cryonics organizations, thus allowing evidence-based life extension technologies belief in the practice to remain separate could draw a lot more people to Alcor. A from, and unchallenged by, the practices (potential) member will not feel that his or vicissitudes of particular cryonics (financial) contributions are solely aimed at organizations.” (p. 40) an event in the distant future but will start In the extreme, all cryonics organizations reaping benefits on an ongoing basis by could fail and their patients thaw out, joining the organization. but future generations will develop the There is another advantage of Alcor molecular technologies that would have providing members tools to extend

22 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org That `70s Transhumanism By Mark Plus

Cosmic Trigger, Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati, by Robert Anton Wilson. Las Vegas: New Falcon Publishers. First Edition published in 1977. ISBN 1-56181-003-3.

A BOOK Review of Cosmic Trigger, Volume I: Final Secret of the Illuminati

“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” 1 Corinthians 13:11

have to admit to feeling nostalgia in Wilson’s personal philosophy in Trigger. about “childish things” from rereading The glowing portrayal of Leary makes Ithis nonfiction book of “What ifs” by me wonder if Wilson wrote the book in Robert Anton Wilson, who died in 2007. I part to defend Leary’s reputation in the read it the first time in my freshman year drug culture in response to rumors in the of college in 1978, when I had joined the 1970s that Leary had agreed to a morally L-5 Society and shared in the enthusiasm compromising deal with the Feds in for Gerard K. O’Neill’s space colonization exchange for reduced prison sentences. I proposals which peaked in popularity late got to meet Leary a couple times in the early in that decade. The quest for radical life 1990s because he had cryopreservation extension seems to complement the quest arrangements with Alcor (he canceled all for colonizing space, considering that both such arrangements right before he died), ventures seek to overcome natural limits, and he would host Alcor’s Turkey Roasts and eventually several prominent L-5ers, in his home in Beverly Hills. I just did notably Keith Henson, showed up in the not experience Leary as the vivacious and The most important events of the next three cryonics movement in the 1980s and 1990s fascinating personality propagandized by decades, Leary predicted, will be the invention of as well. Wilson, though by the time I saw him, an immortality pill . . . . Wilson in Cosmic Trigger writes about senescence, an irregular lifestyle and illness Tim forecasted the longevity pill in Terra some of the things which interested me at had taken their toll. The episode with Leary II, published in January 1973, saying it would the time, and which still do, mainly space gave me my first inkling that bohemians appear around 1980. One month later, in colonization, radical life extension and probably do not age well. February, Michigan State University released the cryonics, given their respective states in Wilson covers material which would information that they were researching a pill that the 1970s. He also apparently knew some normally go by names of “fringe weirdness” might extend life to 200 years. In April, Dutton of that decade’s cryonics activists, notably and the like, and I have to withhold published The Immortality Factor by Osborn Paul Segall, and the surviving cryonicist judgment on much of that because I have Segerberg, Jr., which reviews current research on old-timers who read those passages of not experienced anything like it myself. aging and predicts a life-extension pill by 2000 his book may recognize a few names. I But he also makes claims about the part or so. did not understand the appeal of Wilson’s of reality which the rest of us can observe Dr. Leary doesn’t insist that a literal adventures in drug experimentation and and evaluate, namely, predictions published immortality formula will be found that quickly, occult play-acting, however, even if Wilson in the 1970s that we would have attained of course. Rather, he feels that extension of life himself found them so fascinating and breakthroughs in radical life extension and to around 400 years is most probable; then, those insightful. human cryopreservation by right about now. who live a few centuries will acquire further medical And from hindsight I also do not For example, on p. 118, Wilson recounts technology expanding life into millennia, hundreds understand the crush Wilson apparently had his visit circa 1973 to Leary in the prison at of thousands of years, millions . . . on Timothy Leary, who figures prominently Vacaville, California, where Wilson writes: “I expect to be alive when the solar system has

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 23 burned up 5½ billion years from now,” he said to that stage ahead of us. that way in case it becomes revivable happily. “Nobody in this generation has to die, Very well. Could Leary or Wilson have someday, Luna will face what many people unless they want to.” shown us in a textbook of neuro-anatomy confronted with the cryonics idea consider where to find these “higher circuits” in the deal-breaker and the best excuse to reject How has that “immortality” worked out the brain? And why would humans have cryopreservation for themselves: “But she for Leary lately? these alleged “circuits” conveniently lying wouldn’t know anyone in The Future!” Wilson later describes on pp. 120-124 and inside our heads which make us adapted Worse yet, she would come back to life with 126-130 the “Immortalist underground” for living in outer space, when just about no expectation from before her murder that which he says existed in the 1970s, and everything else in the body does not work she would wind up cryopreserved and then which seemed concentrated in the Bay efficiently in free fall? We know now that revived possibly centuries later, though she Area. These then-youthful scientists drew prolonged weightlessness causes a variety might have known about cryonics because inspiration from Robert Ettinger’s book, of illnesses in the human body which of her father’s friendship with cryonics The Prospect of Immortality, published in astronauts do not always fully recover activists in the 1970s. Luna’s mother, Arlen, the previous decade, and sought ways to from when they return to Earth, not to died in 1999, while Wilson, as I indicated decelerate or reverse the aging process, mention the damage inflicted by exposure above, died in 2007; and as far as I know, with the (lack of) results we can see all to cosmic rays. Perhaps Leary and Wilson neither parent went into cryopreservation around us now. Wilson references more did not know about these hazards in the in an attempt to accompany their daughter predictions of imminent breakthroughs 1970s, but the facts do not support Leary’s across time. Eventually everyone who in life expectancy and even “immortality” teleology about alleged “brain circuits” for knew Luna through the end of her first from these scientists writing in the 1960s helping us to survive in an extraterrestrial life cycle nearly 40 years ago will have died and 1970s, again fixed to dates which have environment humans did not evolve in and as well. Who, then, would want to assume already come and gone. which cannot support human life in general. the responsibility of looking out for her Wilson then throws out some more Wilson’s credulity about Leary’s pseudo- interests? speculations on pp. 214-218 which made neuroscience shows how infatuation with a Aschwin de Wolf has recently pointed me laugh, after the nonsense surrounding celebrity can sabotage judgment about the out the need to maintain the social the so-called “Mayan Apocalypse” on celebrity’s questionable pronouncements. visibility and identities of the people in December 21, 2012. According to Wilson, And in general Wilson depends on popular cryopreservation, and if Luna Wlison’s apparently the McKenna brothers, writings for his claims instead of trying brain has stayed cryopreserved, then she Terrence L. and Dennis J., developed a to discuss them intelligently by reading deserves this consideration as much as computer model based on some dubious textbooks or the scientific literature to see any other cryonaut. I would like to see math derived from the I Ching, and their what they have to say about them. the establishment of a tradition in the program predicted that “everything goes Wilson ends Cosmic Trigger with an account cryonics movement where we form what jackpot around A.D. 2012.” Wilson quotes of the murder of his teenage daughter Luna I call “asymmetric friendships,” for want the McKenna brothers: Wilson on october 3, 1976, and how his of a better term, where living cryonicists friends raised money to have Luna’s brain in effect “friend” our colleagues in in the last 135 minutes, 18 such barriers (i.e., cryopreserved by the TransTime company cryopreservation, even ones we did not barriers comparable to the appearance of life, in the Bay Area. Apparently Luna became know. If we lay the groundwork now, the invention of language or the achievement of the first charity cryonics case, about 30 when we go into cryo ourselves, future immortality [Wilson’s note]), will be crossed, 13 years before the Venturists assumed the generations of cryonicists will accept the of them in the last 75 X 10-4 seconds. role of raising money for people in similar responsibility of “friending” all previous situations. TransTime in the 1970s occupied cryonauts, ourselves included, during our Gee, where have I heard something like a spot in the world of cryonics comparable time of vulnerability, and their successors that before? to Alcor’s today, yet it has since fallen into will do so in turn etc., so that if and when Wilson’s description of Leary’s obscurity because infighting between the the revivals happen, the revived cryonauts speculations about eight “brain circuits” people who ran it and the members of the will discover benefactors waiting for them on pp. 197-206 also has not aged well. affiliated Bay Area Cryonics Society left who will help them to have soft landings Supposedly the first four of these TransTime in a weakened state. I gather into their new lives. We would certainly “circuits” activate in humans for dealing that TransTime still exists, but my efforts to want to welcome Luna into that community with terrestrial life; while the “circuits” contact anyone there—including by letter of asymmetric friendships. The emergence numbered V through VIII turn on in and by telephone—have not generated a of a culture of trans-temporal relationships response to certain drugs (marijuana, response. might turn into something analogous LSD, peyote, etc.) and mystical or occult So this raises the question of what to the Christian practice of “apostolic practices, and they exist to run human life happened to Luna Wilson’s brain. Has succession,” where the cryonicists alive in, in our allegedly destined migration off TransTime kept it cryopreserved all these say, the year 2113 can trace the transmission the planet and into space colonies and years? And if so, where did the long-term of their commitment to cryonauts’ welfare starships, where we will commune with funding come from? [1] to the cryonicists alive now. other advanced (and apparently drug- Assuming that Luna’s brain has stayed To sum up, Wilson does not use the tripping) intelligences who had developed cryopreserved and that it can remain word “transhumanism” in Cosmic Trigger,

24 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org but some of the people he writes about they cannot happen because they make simply does not need the “cryonics and advocated ideas which clearly fall into scientifically wrong assumptions. Wilson something else” burden which people like that category now, including Timothy fell into this trap when he writes on p. 218: Wilson have wanted to impose upon it for Leary with his prophecies of an imminent several decades already; and if anything, breakthrough in life extension. I had a sense By the turn of the next century, then, we will these “something elses” have proven of déjà vu from reading this book again after be a completely new species in many dimensions: counterproductive. 35 years, because today’s transhumanists living in space, not on a planet; able to program our The people who run cryonics make similar claims about impending nervous systems for any degree of any function we organizations or represent the community “immortality,” only they realize that they wish; possessing a lifespan in centuries, and well on could further gain credibility and status would sound foolish now to say that we our way to immortality. Between 2000 and 2012, in mainstream society by emphasizing “conquered aging” or became “immortal” if the McKenna scenario can be trusted, the real cryonics as a 300 year project instead in 1980, 2000 or 2012. Instead they have Cosmic Action will begin. of a 30 year project, and then acting rescheduled the year when “everything accordingly, because the “immortality goes jackpot,” as Wilson phrases it, to Delete the part about “the turn of the in 30 years” predictions coming from something like 2045. next century” and add about 40 years to transhumanists who try to link these claims Yet the people who make these kinds of the dates in the above paragraph, and it to cryonics become embarrassing when the forecasts miss an apparently nonobvious could pass for a recent post on one of the people who make them, like Robert Anton point: You cannot test the effectiveness transhumanist internet forums predicting Wilson and Timothy Leary, die according of an “anti-aging” or “life extension” when “the real Cosmic Action will begin.” to actuarial expectations. technology in humans any faster than the Cosmic Trigger supports my impression Or as wise elders have said for generations, rate at which humans happen to live—and that the cryonics community would do well people judge you by the kinds of friends humans in their natural state can already to keep the case for cryonics separate from you have. The companions you enjoyed live decades longer than most other the wider transhumanist “philosophy,” as a teenager do not necessarily serve you mammals. In other words, we have no way if you could call it that given its apparent well when you become an adult and want of knowing if a longevity breakthrough has lack of wisdom to love. Compare 1970s to earn the respect of other adults—and happened until a whole lot of people live transhumanism with today’s, and it still if you want high-status adults to take you well past 120 years, and in good physical sounds like an adolescent fad which seriously, you would not want to list people and cognitive shape. That rules out having promotes irresponsible beliefs about the like Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy any such knowledge in this century because next 20-30 years and resists maturing into Leary as character references on your every year between now and 2100 falls an adult world view. résumé, much less as intellectual influences. within current human life expectancies. [2] The field of cryonics, by contrast, has Until transhumanists start to show signs A baby born in 2013 could live to see her had opportunities for some time now of maturation and a reality-orientation 87th birthday in 2100, but we have 87 year to develop into a form of experimental in their thinking and conduct, instead of old people around now without having to medicine which can make progress in the repeating the same childish follies from one postulate anything science fiction-like to here and now, based on existing science generation to the next, cryonicists would act account for their longevity. and technology, and without having to prudently to keep a discreet distance from I find it sad that so many transhumanists associate it with science fiction, speculative their company to avoid discredit and ridicule suffer from the delusion that they live futurology, or in Wilson’s case, altered by association.  in the privileged generation which will states of consciousness. We can also state witness revolutionary transformations in realistic ambitions for cryonics by saying the human condition, including radically that human cryopreservation has the goal extended lives for themselves, instead of of trying to turn death from a permanent allowing for more likely scenarios: (1) They off-state into a temporary and reversible will age, sicken and die on schedule, like off-state through applied neuroscience Leary and Wilson; (2) The cool things they and biotechnology. This avoids the want to see might not happen for several problems of the transhumanist way of more centuries; or (3) Many of these describing cryonics as a means to turn things may never happen anyway; or worse, us into “immortal supermen.” Cryonics

ENDnotes

[1] The website of the Cryonics Institute has an undated but apparently old article by Art Quaife about Luna Wilson’s cryopreservation. I have not found anything recent about her disposition: http://www.cryonics.org/luna.html

[2] Physicist Michio Kaku understands this point as well. Refer to my review of his book, Physics of the Future: http://www.alcor. org/magazine/2011/08/30/physics-of-the-future/

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Delayed Aging Is Better alternative-energy version of lather-rinse- entire genome,” Lajoie said. The results Investment than Cancer, repeat—neither Rover nor Spot broke a of these two projects appeared oct. 18 sweat or uttered a complaint. They could in Science. The work was led by Church, Heart Disease Research have kept at it all day. That is because Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at they are robots, surprisingly low-tech Harvard Medical School and founding core On the heels of an announcement from machines that a start-up company called faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Google that the company’s next startup, Alion Energy is betting can automate the Biologically Inspired Engineering. , will tackle the science of aging, a installation and maintenance of large-scale new study showed that research to delay solar farms. Working in near secrecy until Jake Miller / Harvard Medical School aging and the infirmities of old age would recently, the company, based in Richmond, 17 Oct. 2013 have better population health and economic Calif., is ready to use its machines in http://hms.harvard.edu/news/ returns than advances in individual fatal three projects in the next few months in radical-recoding-10-17-13 diseases such as cancer or heart disease. California, Saudi Arabia and China. If all With even modest gains in our scientific goes well, executives expect that they can understanding of how to slow the aging help bring the price of solar electricity into process, an additional 5 percent of adults Biological Clock Able line with that of natural gas by cutting the to Measure Age of over age 65 would be healthy rather than cost of building and maintaining large solar disabled every year from 2030 to 2060, installations. Most Human Tissues revealed the study in the october issue of Health Affairs. Put another way, an Diane Cardwell / New York Times Everyone grows older, but scientists don’t investment in delayed aging would mean 14 Oct. 2013 really understand why. Now a UCLA study 11.7 million more healthy adults over age http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/15/ has uncovered a biological clock embedded 65 in 2060. The analysis, from top scientists business/energy-environment/ in our genomes that may shed light on why at uSC, Harvard university, Columbia putting-robots-to-work-in-solar-energy. our bodies age and how we can slow the University, the university of Illinois at html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw- process. Published in the oct. 21 edition Chicago and other institutions, assumes nytimesbusiness of the journal Genome Biology, the findings research investment leading to a 1.25 could offer valuable insights to benefit percent reduction in the likelihood of age- cancer and stem cell research. While earlier related diseases. In contrast to treatments biological clocks have been linked to saliva, for fatal diseases, slowing aging would have Researchers Advance hormones and telomeres, the new research no health returns initially, but significant toward Engineering is the first to result in the development of benefits over the long term. “Wildly New Genome” an age-predictive tool that uses a previously unknown time-keeping mechanism in the Suzanne Wu / USC News In two parallel projects, researchers have body to accurately gauge the age of diverse 7 Oct. 2013 created new genomes inside the bacterium human organs, tissues and cell types. http://news.usc.edu/#!/article/55969/ E. coli in ways that test the limits of genetic Unexpectedly, this new tool demonstrated delayed-aging-is-better-investment-than- reprogramming, opening new possibilities that some parts of the anatomy, like a cancer-heart-disease-research/ for increasing flexibility, productivity and woman’s breast tissue, age faster than the safety in biotechnology. “The first project rest of the body. “To fight aging, we first is saying that we can take one codon, need an objective way of measuring it. A Staff of Robots Can Clean completely remove it from the genome, Pinpointing a set of biomarkers that keeps and Install Solar Panels then successfully reassign its function,” time throughout the body has been a four- said Marc Lajoie, a Harvard Medical School year challenge,” said Steve Horvath, UCLA In a dusty yard under a blistering August sun, graduate student in the lab of george professor of human genetics and the Rover was hard at work, lifting 45-pound Church. “For the second project we asked, predictive tool’s inventor. solar panels off a stack and installing them, ‘OK, we’ve changed this one codon, how one by one, into a concrete track. A few many others can we change?’” Of the 13 Elaine Schmidt / UCLA Newsroom yards away, Rover’s companion, Spot, codons chosen for the project, all could be 21 Oct. 2013 moved along a row of panels, washing away changed. “That leaves open the possibility http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ months of grit, then squeegeeing them dry. that we could potentially replace any or ucla-scientist-uncovers-biological-248950. But despite the heat and monotony—an all of those 13 codons throughout the aspx

30 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org Hair Regeneration Method is technology is designed to integrate the http://www.washingtonpost.com/ First to Induce New Human knowledge of MD Anderson’s clinicians national/health-science/companies- and researchers, and to advance the cancer rush-to-build-biofactories-for-medicines- Hair Growth center’s goal of treating patients with the flavorings-and-fuels/2013/10/24/ most effective, safe and evidence-based f439dc3a-3032-11e3-8906-3daa2bcde110_ Researchers at Columbia university standard of care available, officials say. story.html Medical Center (CUMC) have devised a “One unique aspect of the MD Anderson hair restoration method that can generate Oncology Expert Advisor is that it will new human hair growth, rather than not solely rely on established cancer care simply redistribute hair from one part Vicarious AI passes First Turing pathways to recommend appropriate Test: Reads CAPTCHAs of the scalp to another. The approach treatment options,” said Lynda Chin, M.D., could significantly expand the use of hair professor and chair of genomic medicine transplantation to women with hair loss, Vicarious, a startup developing artificial and scientific director of the Institute for intelligence software, announced oct. 27 who tend to have insufficient donor hair, as Applied Cancer Science at MD Anderson. well as to men in early stages of baldness. that its algorithms can now reliably solve modern CAPTCHAs, including google’s The study was published today in the online Rajiv Leventhal / Healthcare Informatics edition of the Proceedings of the National reCAPTCHA, the world’s most widely used October 22, 2013 test of a machine’s ability to act human. A Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “About 90 http://www.healthcare-informatics. percent of women with hair loss are not CAPTCHA scheme is considered broken com/news-item/md-anderson-taps-ibm- if an algorithm is able to reach a precision strong candidates for hair transplantation watson-battle-against-cancer surgery because of insufficient donor hair,” of at least 1%. By leveraging core insights said co-study leader Angela M. Christiano. from machine learning and neuroscience, “This method offers the possibility of the Vicarious AI achieves success rates inducing large numbers of hair follicles Companies Rush to Build up to 90% on modern CAPTCHAs from or rejuvenating existing hair follicles, ‘Bio-Factories’ for Medicines, Google, Yahoo, PayPal, Captcha.com, and starting with cells grown from just a few Flavorings and Fuels others. This advancement renders text- hundred donor hairs. It could make hair based CAPTCHAs no longer effective transplantation available to individuals with Scientist Jack Newman’s biotech company as a Turing test. “Recent AI systems like a limited number of follicles, including Amyris is creating new organisms, most IBM’s Watson and deep neural networks those with female-pattern hair loss, scarring forms of genetically modified yeast, at rely on brute force: connecting massive alopecia, and hair loss due to burns.” the dizzying rate of more than 1,500 a computing power to massive datasets. This day. Some convert sugar into medicines. is the first time this distinctively human ScienceDaily Others create moisturizers that can be act of perception has been achieved, and 21 Oct. 2013 used in cosmetics. And still others make it uses relatively minuscule amounts of http://www.sciencedaily.com/ biofuel, a renewable energy source usually data and computing power. The Vicarious releases/2013/10/131021104242.htm made from corn. “You can now build a cell algorithms achieve a level of effectiveness the same way you might build an app for and efficiency much closer to actual human your iPhone,” said Newman. Some believe brains,” said Vicarious co-founder D. Scott MD Anderson Taps IBM this kind of work marks the beginning of Phoenix. Watson in Battle Against a third industrial revolution—one based on using living systems as “bio-factories” Vicarious.com Cancer for creating substances that are either too 27 Oct. 2013 tricky or too expensive to grow in nature http://news.vicarious.com/ Not just a Jeopardy! winner, IBM’s Watson or to make with petrochemicals. The post/65316134613/vicarious-ai-passes- has now joined the battle against cancer. rush to biological means of production first-turing-test-captcha According to a recent announcement from promises to revolutionize the chemical the university of Texas MD Anderson industry and transform the economy, but it Cancer Center and IBM, the Houston, also raises questions about environmental Synaptic Transistor Learns Texas-based medical center is using the safety and biosecurity and revives ethical While It Computes IBM Watson cognitive computing system debates about “playing god.” Hundreds for its mission to eradicate cancer. The of products are in the pipeline. two organizations will leverage Watson’s It doesn’t take a Watson to realize that computing power to help clinicians even the world’s best supercomputers Health & Science / Washington Post are staggeringly inefficient and energy- uncover insights from MD Anderson’s 24 Oct. 2013 patient and research databases. The intensive machines. our brains have

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 31 upwards of 86 billion neurons, connected cell to cell,” explains senior author Dr. Jens Novel Genetic Patterns May by synapses that not only complete myriad Karlsson, of Villanova university. “But Make Us Rethink Biology and logic circuits; they continuously adapt to the results of the present study indicate stimuli, strengthening some connections that the mechanism of tissue cryo-injury is Individuality while weakening others. We call that process much more complex than was previously learning, and it enables the kind of rapid, thought.” Professor of genetics Scott Williams, highly efficient computational processes PhD, of the Institute for Quantitative that put Siri and Blue gene to shame. Kurzweil AI Biomedical Sciences (iQBS) at Dartmouth’s Materials scientists at the Harvard School 6 Nov. 2013 Geisel School of Medicine, has made two of Engineering and Applied Sciences http://www.kurzweilai.net/findings-may- novel discoveries: first, a person can have (SEAS) have now created a new type of lead-to-new-tissue-cryopreservation- several DNA mutations in parts of their transistor that mimics the behavior of a methods-for-grafts-and-organ- body, with their original DNA in the rest— synapse. The novel device simultaneously transplantations resulting in several different genotypes in modulates the flow of information in a one individual—and second, some of the circuit and physically adapts to changing same genetic mutations occur in unrelated signals. Exploiting unusual properties in people. We think of each person’s DNA as Crispr Technique Heralds Gene unique, so if an individual can have more modern materials, the synaptic transistor Editing Revolution could mark the beginning of a new kind than one genotype, this may alter our very concept of what it means to be a human, and of artificial intelligence: one embedded A breakthrough in genetics—described as not in smart algorithms but in the very impact how we think about using forensic “jaw-dropping” by one Nobel scientist— or criminal DNA analysis, paternity testing, architecture of a computer. The findings has created intense excitement among appear in Nature Communications. prenatal testing, or genetic screening for DNA experts around the world who breast cancer risk, for example. Williams’ believe the discovery will transform surprising results indicate that genetic Harvard School of Engineering and their ability to edit the genomes of all Applied Sciences mutations do not always happen purely living organisms, including humans. at random, as scientists have previously 1 Nov. 2013 The development has been hailed as a http://www.seas.harvard.edu/ thought. His work, done in collaboration milestone in medical science because it with Professor of genetics Jason Moore, news/2013/11/synaptic-transistor-learns- promises to revolutionize the study and while-it-computes PhD, and colleagues at Vanderbilt treatment of a range of diseases, from University, was published in PLOS Genetics cancer and incurable viruses to inherited journal on November 7, 2013. genetic disorders such as sickle-cell anemia Findings May Lead to New and Down syndrome. For the first time, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth Tissue Cryopreservation scientists are able to engineer any part of / Eurekalert! Methods the human genome with extreme precision 7 Nov. 2013 using a revolutionary new technique called http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_ Researchers have gained new information Crispr, which has been likened to editing releases/2013-11/tgso-drf110713.php about the processes that promote the individual letters on any chosen page of freezing of cells within tissues, which an encyclopedia without creating spelling could ultimately lead to novel approaches mistakes. The technique is so accurate Researchers Regrow Hair, that scientists believe it will soon be used for preventing tissue injury during Cartilage, Bone, Soft Tissues cryopreservation, they report in the in gene-therapy trials on humans to treat incurable viruses such as HIV or currently Nov. 5 issue of the Biophysical Journal Young animals are known to repair their (open access), a Cell Press publication. untreatable genetic disorders such as Huntington’s disease. tissues effortlessly, but can this capacity Developing an efficient way to freeze and be recaptured in adults? A new study from store living tissues could transform many Steve Connor, Science Editor, researchers at the Stem Cell Program at aspects of medical care and research, but Boston Children’s Hospital suggests that it ice crystallization often occurs within cells Independent 7 Nov. 2013 can. By reactivating a dormant gene called during such cryopreservation procedures, Lin28a, which is active in embryonic stem leading to cell death. A long-standing http://www.independent.co.uk/ news/science/exclusive-jawdropping- cells, researchers were able to regrow hair obstacle to avoiding tissue damage during and repair cartilage, bone, skin and other freezing is that when cells are joined breakthrough-hailed-as-landmark- in-fight-against-hereditary-diseases- soft tissues in a mouse model. The study together within tissues, individual cells are also found that Lin28a promotes tissue more likely to crystallize than if the cells as-crispr-technique-heralds-genetic- revolution-8925295.html repair in part by enhancing metabolism are kept apart. “In tissues, ice crystals in mitochondria—the energy-producing are thought to be able to grow through engines in cells—suggesting that a membrane channels called gap junctions, mundane cellular “housekeeping” function thus allowing ice to easily propagate from could open new avenues for developing

32 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org regenerative treatments. Findings were Turning Nanoparticles into enlarged hearts and significantly improve a published online by the journal Cell on Complex Nanostructures damaged heart’s life-sustaining function,” November 7. “Efforts to improve wound says the study’s senior investigator Roger healing and tissue repair have mostly Animal and plant cells are prominent J. Hajjar, MD. “We are very eager to test failed, but altering metabolism provides examples of how nature constructs ever- this in our patients suffering a new strategy which we hope will prove larger units in a targeted, preprogrammed from severe heart failure.” Heart failure successful,” says the study’s senior manner using molecules as building remains a leading cause of hospitalization investigator George Q. Daley, MD, PhD. blocks. In nanotechnology, scientists in the elderly. It accounts for about 300,000 mimic this “bottom-up” technique by deaths each year in the United States. Heart Boston Children’s Hospital using the ability of suitably structured failure occurs when a person’s heart is too 7 Nov 2013 nano materials to “self-assemble” into weak to properly pump and circulate blood http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_ higher order architectures. Applying this throughout their body. releases/2013-11/bch-rrh110713.php concept, polymer scientists from Bayreuth, Aachen, Jena, Mainz, and Helsinki have Mt. Sinai Hospital, School of Medicine / recently published an article in the Eurekalert! 15 Nov. 2013 IBM to Announce More prestigious journal Nature that describes Powerful Watson via the a new principle for the self-assembly of http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_ releases/2013-11/tmsh-ngt111113.php Internet patterned nanoparticles. This principle may have important implications for On Nov. 14 IBM will announce that the fundamental understanding of such Watson, the computing system that beat processes as well as future technologies. all the humans on “Jeopardy!” two years The research team is headed by Professor ago, will be available in a form more Axel Muller. The research was conducted at than twice as powerful via the Internet. the University of Bayreuth and funded by Companies, academics and individual the German Research Foundation (DFG) software developers will be able to use it within the Collaborative Research Center at a small fraction of the previous cost, 840 “From Particulate Nano-Systems drawing on IBM’s specialists in fields like to Mesotechnology.” The self-assembly computational linguistics to build machines process described in Nature begins with that can interpret complex data and better chain-like macromolecules called triblock interact with humans. IBM’s move to terpolymers. make its marquee technology more widely available is the latest effort among big Nano Daily technology companies to make the world’s 14 Nov. 2013 most powerful computers as accessible as http://www.nanodaily.com/reports/ the Angry Birds video game. It is also an Team_succeeds_in_organizing_ indication of how quickly the technology programmed_nanoparticles_into_highly_ industry is changing, from complex complex_nanostructures_999.html systems that cost millions to install to pay-as-you-go deals that provide small companies and even individuals access to Novel Gene Therapy Works to technology that just a few years ago only Reverse Heart Failure the largest companies could afford. “The next generation will look back and see Researchers at the Cardiovascular Research 2013 as a year of monumental change,” Center at Icahn School of Medicine at said Stephen gold, vice president of the Mount Sinai have successfully tested a Watson project at IBM. powerful gene therapy, delivered directly into the heart, to reverse heart failure in Quentin Hardy / New York Times large animal models. The new research 13 Nov. 2013 study findings, published in November http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/14/ 13 issue of Science Translational Medicine, technology/ibm-to-announce-more- is the final study phase before human powerful-watson-via-the- clinical trials can begin testing SUMO- internet.html?_r=0 1 gene therapy. SUMO-1 is a gene that is “missing in action” in heart failure patients. “SUMO-1 gene therapy may be one of the first treatments that can actually shrink

www.alcor.org Cryonics / December 2013 33 MEETINGS

About the Alcor Foundation British Columbia (Canada): The Alcor Life Extension Foundation is a nonprofit tax-exempt scientific and The contact person for meetings in educational organization dedicated to advancing the science of cryopreservation the Vancouver area is Keegan Macintosh: and promoting cryonics as a rational option. Being an Alcor member means [email protected]. knowing that—should the worst happen—Alcor’s Emergency Response Team is ready to respond for you, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Oregon: The contact person for meetings in the Alcor’s Emergency Response capability includes specially trained technicians and Portland area is Chana de Wolf: chana. customized equipment in Arizona, northern California, southern California, and [email protected]. south Florida, as well as many additional certified technicians on-call around the United States. Alcor’s Arizona facility includes a full-time staff, and the Patient ALCOR PORTUGAL Care Bay is personally monitored 24 hours a day. Alcor Portugal is working to have good stabilization and transport capabilities. The ARIZONA October. A CryoFeast is held once a year. group meets every Saturday for two hours. Flagstaff: For information on Northern California For information about meetings, contact Arizona without the inferno. Cryonics meetings, call Mark Galeck at (408) 245- Nuno Martins at n-martins@n-martins. group in beautiful, high-altitude Flagstaff. 4928 or email [email protected]. com. The Alcor Portugal website is: www. Two-hour drive to Alcor. Contact eric@ alcorportugal.com. flagstaffcryo.com for more information. FLORIDA Central Florida Life Extension group TEXAS Scottsdale: meets once a month in the Tampa Bay Dallas: This group meets the third Friday of area (Tampa and St. Petersburg) for North Texas Cryonauts, please sign up each month and gatherings are hosted at discussion and socializing. The group for our announcements list for meetings a home near Alcor. To RSVP, visit http:// has been active since 2007. Email (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ cryonics.meetup.com/45/. [email protected] for more cryonauts-announce) or contact David information. Wallace Croft at (214) 636-3790 for details At Alcor: of upcoming meetings. Alcor Board of Directors Meetings and NEW ENGLAND Facility Tours—Alcor business meetings are Cambridge: Austin/Central Texas: generally held on the first Saturday of every The New England regional group We meet at least quarterly for training, month starting at 11:00 AM MST. Guests strives to meet monthly in Cambridge, transport kit updates, and discussion. For are welcome to attend the fully-public board MA—for information or to be added information: Steve Jackson, 512-447-7866, meetings on odd-numbered months. Facility to the Alcor NE mailing list, please [email protected]. tours are held every Tuesday and Friday contact Bret Kulakovich at 617-824-8982, at 2:00 PM. For more information or to [email protected], or on UNITED KINGDOM schedule a tour, call Marji Klima at (877) FACEBOOK via the Cryonics Special There is an Alcor chapter in England. 462-5267 x101 or email [email protected]. Interest Group. For information about meetings, contact Alan Sinclair at [email protected]. CALIFORNIA PACIFIC NORTHWEST See the web site at www.alcor-uk.org. Los Angeles: Cryonics Northwest holds regular Alcor Southern California Meetings— meetings for members of all cryonics For information, call Peter Voss at organizations living in the Pacific Northwest. (310) 822-4533 or e-mail him at peter@ For information about upcoming optimal.org. Although monthly meetings meetings and events go to: http://www. are not held regularly, you can meet Los facebook.com/cryonics.northwest Angeles Alcor members by contacting Peter. A Yahoo mailing list is also maintained for cryonicists in the Pacific Northwest San Francisco Bay: at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ Alcor Northern California Meetings are CryonicsNW/. held quarterly in January, April, July, and

If you are interested in hosting regular meetings in your area, contact Alcor at 877-462-5267, ext. 113. Meetings are a great way to learn about cryonics, meet others with similar interests, and introduce your friends and family to Alcor members!

34 Cryonics / December 2013 www.alcor.org What is Cryonics?

ryonics is an attempt to preserve and protect human life, not reverse death. It is the practice of using extreme cold to attempt to preserve the life of a person who can no longer be supported by today’s medicine. Will Cfuture medicine, including mature nanotechnology, have the ability to heal at the cellular and molecular levels? Can cryonics successfully carry the cryopreserved person forward through time, for however many decades or centuries might be necessary, until the cryopreservation process can be reversed and the person restored to full health? While cryonics may sound like science fiction, there is a basis for it in real science. The complete scientific story of cryonics is seldom told in media reports, leaving cryonics widely misunderstood. We invite you to reach your own conclusions.

How do I find out more?

he Alcor Life Extension Foundation is the world leader in cryonics research and technology. Alcor is a non- profit organization located in Scottsdale, Arizona, founded in 1972. Our website is one of the best sources of Tdetailed introductory information about Alcor and cryopreservation (www.alcor.org). We also invite you to request our FREE information package on the “Free Information” section of our website. It includes:

• A fully illustrated color brochure • A sample of our magazine • An application for membership and brochure explaining how to join • And more!

Your free package should arrive in 1-2 weeks. (The complete package will be sent free in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom.)

How do I enroll? Signing up for a cryopreservation is easy! Step 1: Fill out an application and submit it with your $90 application fee. Step 2: You will then be sent a set of contracts to review and sign. Step 3: Fund your cryopreservation. While most people use life insurance to fund their cryopreservation, other forms of prepayment are also accepted. Alcor’s Membership Coordinator can provide you with a list of insurance agents familiar with satisfying Alcor’s current funding requirements. Finally: After enrolling, you will wear emergency alert tags or carry a special card in your wallet. This is your confirmation that Alcor will respond immediately to an emergency call on your behalf.

Not ready to make full arrangements for cryopreservation? Then become an Associate Member for $10/month (or $30/quarter or $120 annually). Associate Members will receive: • Cryonics magazine by mail • Discounts on Alcor conferences • Access to post in the Alcor Member Forums • A dollar-for-dollar credit toward full membership sign-up fees for any dues paid for Associate Membership

To become an Associate Member send a check or money order ($10/month or $30/quarter or $120 annually) to Alcor Life Extension Foundation, 7895 E. Acoma Dr., Suite 110, Scottsdale, Arizona 85260, or call Marji Klima at (480) 905-1906 ext. 101 with your credit card information. You can also pay using PayPal (and get the Declaration of Intent to Be Cryopreserved) here: http://www.alcor.org/BecomeMember/associate.html

Call toll-free TODAY to start your application:

877-462-5267 ext. 132 • [email protected] • www.alcor.org Your best chance at achieving future immortality is to protect the latest vitamins and supplements, backed by scientific your precious health now so you can benefit from future medical research and available through a unique buyers club. breakthroughs. Staying informed about the latest health discoveries can mean the difference between life and premature death. FREE BONUS!

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