Contacts

image

Alcor
7895 East Acoma Dr., No 110
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
T: (480) 905-1906
T: (480) 922-9013 Emergencies only
F: (480) 922 9027
(800) 367-2228
website: www.alcor.org

American Cryonics Society
Mailing address
P.O. Box 1509
Cupertino, CA 95015

1901 Old Middlefield Way No 1
Mountainview, CA 94043
T: (800) 523-2001
T: (650) 254-2001 main office
F: (650) 254 0128
(408) 308 4403 pager

e-mail: cryonics@jps.net
main office e-mail: cryonics@americancryonics.org

Cryonics Institute
24355 Sorrentino Court
Clinton Township, MI 48035
(810) 791-5961
(810) 792-7062
website: www.cryonics.org
e-mail: cryonics@cryonics.org

Also The Cryonics Society www.cryonicssocieety.org

The Science of Cryobiology

Resuscitation and Hypothermia

Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine

Biotechnology and Aging

General Science

Cryonics

Cryonics Organizations

Other links of interest

Off beat and humour

The process

image

About cryonics

Cryonics is the process in which those who have died are preserved by keeping them at a very low temperature until a means is developed to reverse the cryonics process and a cure for their illness or death is found.

So far cryonics is only a theory. No adult human has ever been revived as a result of a cryonics procedure. Although human embryos can be successfully cryopreserved and revived.

The cryonics procedure is begun when the heart stops beating – cardiac arrest (legal death). Blood circulation and oxygenation are restored in the cryogenics patient, to prevent deterioration, and the cryonics preservation procedures begin.

It costs between $80 and $130,000 depending on whether you request whole body to neuropreservation. Many people pay for it with life insurance.

The majority of cryonics organisation are situated in the US. Michigan-based Alcor, for example, has 650 future patients signed-up and 59 cryopatients. Future patients have wristbands and a card giving detailed instructions on what should happen on their death ie that no post mortem is carried out.

Cryonics Europe, based in the UK, has a team of volunteers trained to carry out the first stages of the preservation process. This includes putting the body in a portable bath filled with dry ice and attaching it to a machine designed to maintain circulation – this stops the further deterioration of cells. The blood is then drained off and replaced with a glycerol which works a bit like anti-freeze. Then the corpse is wrapped in polythene, submerged in alcohol, placed with ice and insulated in a fibre-glass box before being airlifted to Alcor in Michigan. Once in Michigan is it immersed in liquid nitrogen which sends its temperature plunging to -196C.

More detailed information on the procedure can be obtained from the Alcor web site and the contacts in this section.