Today's Longevity episode has Max More, president and CEO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Talking about cryogenics and the future of medical technology to bring back people from a cryonics state with Jason Hartman.
Key Takeaways
02:28 – It's not currently possible to bring people back from being cryopreserved yet, but what has been brought back and used are frozen eggs, sperm, embryos and types of tissue, and as showed with 21st Century Medicine who had successfully cryopreserved a kidney and re-implanted back into a rabbit, it's possible, just not there for people yet.
04:43 – One misconception people tend to have is, when a person is brought back from being cryopreserved is that they would still be the same age as when they were cryopreserved, but unless the aging process is reverse there won't be much point to bring a person back, and that will require major advances in regenerative medicine and maybe nanomedicine.
06:34 – To cryopreserve patients one has to wait for declaration of legal death, which is unfortunate for people who have brain diseases like Alzheimer, that are gradually destroying their brains and as it's against the law they can't ask for lethal injection in able to be cryopreserve. The meaning of clinical death has change many times and will counties to do so in the future.
10:25 – Judging by medical technologies, we might be waking up cryonics patients in a century.
11:56 – There appears to be re-interest in interstellar travel, organizations like NASA are starting to think about using cryonics for star traveling.
12:46 – Membership is lot less expensive than people think. Most of Alcor members pay their membership with life insurances.
14:32 – Alcor Life Extension Foundation has been for forty years and they are always thinking on how to stay for an even longer terms. People can always know more about the facility and the company and it's long history.
17:04 – Dewars are storage containers that store liquid nitrogen and patients. They do not run on electricity, no issues will arise if there is power outages.
19:15 – www.alcor.org/ for Alcor Foundation website and subscription to their monthly magazine. Looks like cryogenics is going more accepted in the near future.
Mentioned in this episode
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
21st Century Medicine
NASA