-Pratyushee Ghosh, Amity University Kolkata
In pursuit of life everlasting, some turn to God. Others turn to science. Or rather, something scientific!
If you have ever thought of being cryogenically frozen, you may encounter a legal hurdle. While human cryonics is legal in several countries, you’ve got to be dead before going into the cryonics tank! Otherwise, freezing someone alive is tantamount to killing. So, as it is, you’ll only get your natural object or head frozen—and when thawed, you’d still be dead.
This doesn’t deflect a few people, who want to be cryopreserved until the day humankind aces the speciality of restoration. So that the scientists can re-animate them and cure their ailments. Or upload their consciousness into the cloud. Whichever comes first! Except for those who would favor travelling on ice before the immutability of death takes hold, there is also a legal loophole to assist. In keeping with The Telegraph, one company hopes to avoid that legal issue entirely by building a cryonics lab in an exceeding country where human euthanasia is legal. If Russian cryonics association KrioRus makes sense of how to help it, they envision to buy a fortress in Switzerland and convert it to a cryopreservation lab.
Cryonics is the concept in which you’ll be able to use extremely low temperatures (-196 ˚c). This low temperature helps to preserve human and animal cells through cryogenic freezing. However, the methodology is disputable in the case of preserving humans, and the only humans who have survived after cryogenic freezing are live embryos. The method would probably kill an adult!
It is a very delicate process. To date, we can freeze and revive only the cells of the human body, some tissue, and very few organs. This is because the formation of ice crystal will destroy the organs as a whole, specifically organs such as the brain. Also, the toxicity of the cryoprotectants that shall be used is questionable. At mankind’s current degree of information, cryopreserving a human being is still not possible. Another limitation of this technique is fracturing. Fracturing occurs in different parts of the body when they are contracted with cold at different speeds.
However, cryonics is unregulated, controversial, and unproven to figure. Technically, though, cryogenic freezing of non-humans is often used for fewer science-fictiony endeavours and isn’t synonymous with cryonics. There’s no guarantee that the pursuit of pre-mortem freezing will go anywhere, let alone conquer mortality. Perhaps the field of cryonics is just trading one eternal, icy embrace for another.
REFERENCE
- What problems currently exist for cryopreservation?; 2015; The Brain Preservation Foundation; URL: https://www.brainpreservation.org/faq-items/16-what-problems-currently-exist-for-cryopreservation/
- Tae Hoon Jang,Sung Choel Park,Ji Hyun Yang, et al.; Cryopreservation and its clinical applications; 2017; Integrative Medicine Research; Vol: 6(1): 12–18; DOI: 10.1016/j.imr.2016.12.001
Also read: MSG (AJI-NO-MOTO): A threat to health?
If this happens that the person is cryopreserved if he/she revives, let say 10 years down the line, will that person be able to walk, talk, and do the routine things again as before? Or able catchup things that were happended during his/her “Sleep”? That’s a big question!
You raised a very good question but the topic itself is still under research. The things you’ve written are a major part of that procedure.
Moreover, my purpose is to bust myths and put forth the related and available scientific facts😊