Death is the law of life. Humans have always sought to escape death due to the inherent strong survival instinct. The idea of living an “immortal life” today is also of particular interest to the super-rich in Silicon Valley.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel are all tech elites. They don’t mind investing millions of dollars trying to figure out how to extend their lifespan.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos support frozen companies
Robert Ettinger is known as the “father of the freezing technique”. The Cryonics Institute’s first patient was his mother, Rhea Ettinger .
One of the most promising methods of prolonging life today is called Cryonics, or freezing of corpses. This is the process of freezing a person’s body after death, keeping them at very low temperatures in the hope of resurrecting them in the future.
However, to date, there have been no cases of successful reviving after long-term freezing, and there is no technology that can revive a person in a freezing chamber.
Many people think that freezing is simply freezing a person’s body, but in reality the process is more complicated than that.
Preservation of a body can only begin after a person is legally recognized as dead. According to Dennis Kowalski, president of the Cryonics Institute, the earlier the preservation process begins, the better the chance of success.
First, blood thinners are injected to prevent blood clotting and acid-reducing agents are given to the stomach. At the Cryonics Institute, an expert in freezing techniques, known as a “funeral guardian”, performs most of the necessary procedures.
It is then necessary to lower the body’s body temperature as much as possible for preservation. Kowalski said the specialist will attach an automatic CPR device to the body to keep the blood circulating, then place the body in an ice bath to cool down.
In the past, when new freezing techniques were developed, bodies were “directly frozen,” meaning bodies were simply frozen after death. However, this can cause internal damage due to the formation of ice crystals.
A stitch is made to access the patient’s vascular system, preventing ice crystals from forming
Today, after being moved to a freezing facility, the body is removed from the ice bath to undergo a process called “vitrification,” meaning the body is filled with an “anti-freeze solution.” . According to Mr. Kowalski, this process is inspired by the behavior of animals hibernating in cold weather.
The next step is to place the body in a special box with a refrigeration function. This box will slowly lower the body’s temperature down to the temperature of liquid nitrogen, which is -196°C. Such low-temperature storage will keep the body in a stable state, Kowalski said.
Finally, after the process is complete, the body is preserved in a chamber that resembles a “giant thermos flask”. The bodies were placed in urns and the chambers continued to add liquid nitrogen periodically to ensure liquid nitrogen was always full.
Pictures of cold rooms
Kowalski says people who subscribe to body preservation by freezing tend to be optimistic about new scientific breakthroughs in the future. Among them are science fiction lovers.
Cryonics Institute members pay a fee of $28,000 (VND 660 million) for the handling and preservation of a body after their death and this fee can be agreed to by a life insurance policy.
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, another US-based body freezing company, charges $200,000 ($4.7 billion) for the preservation of the whole body and $80,000 (1.8 billion) for the preservation of the brain alone. of a person, according to Reuters.
Dr Max More, former CEO of Alcor, once said that his intention was only to store his brain because for him, the body was completely “replaceable”.
Dr. Max More, former CEO of Alcor
Reviving a person who has been frozen may require the process of reversing aging and restoring any damage or disease in a person’s body, Kowalski added.
Scientists have yet to find a way to reverse the aging process and repair damage from diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer, and most of all, no one is sure if it will one day be revived. a person’s body in a storage chamber or not.
Mr. Kowalski said the Cryonics Institute also invests money carefully to ensure the company has enough money to stay afloat until science and technology develop strong enough to find solutions for crowded technology. cold body.
Kowalski commented: “We don’t know if it will work, but it’s certainly worth the effort.”