BY KALAIARASAN SANGKAR
WELCOME to the strange world of cryonics. Cryonics sounds like science fiction but is based on modern science. Cryonics is the practice or technique of preserving life using subfreezing temperatures with the intent of restoring good health with medical technology in the future. The concept of pausing the dying process might sound cringe but an understanding of death continues to evolve as medical understanding and technology improve.
An organisation from Scottsdale, Arizona is known as Alcor Life Extension Foundation offers people an opportunity to preserve their body after clinical death with the hope that they can be revived in the future.
[ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type=”block” ihc_mb_who=”unreg” ihc_mb_template=”3″ ]Alcor Foundation preserves the body through a fusion of medicine and mortuary practices. Cryonics patients are preserved through vitrification which has been widely used to effectively preserve blood, stem cells and semen. Vitrification can preserve biological structure much better compared to freezing. It is a process that transforms a substance into a glassy solid. Before cryopreserving, a perfusion step takes place to prepare the body. Cryoprotectants are perfused into the bloodstream to reduce or even prevent freezing. Cryoprotectants should be nontoxic or minimally toxic and able to penetrate the cell membrane easily. Uncontrolled freezing could cause damage to the blood vessels, brain, and other organs. Then, the patients are cooled down to -196 oC, which cryopreserves the patient in a solid-state. The patient will remain in long-term care for decades by being stored in a vacuum-insulated metal dewar at subfreezing temperatures using liquid nitrogen.
The foundation believes that patients are not dead but rather in a suspended state.
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