Lifeboat Foundation

The Brain Preservation Foundation (BPF) announced that the Small Mammal Brain Preservation Prize has officially been won. The spectacular result achieved by 21st Century Medicine researchers provides the first demonstration that near-perfect, long-term structural preservation of an intact mammalian brain is achievable.

A team from 21st Century Medicine, spearheaded by recent MIT graduate Robert McIntyre, has discovered a way to preserve the delicate neural circuits of an intact rabbit brain for very long-term storage using a combination of chemical fixation and cryogenic cooling. Proof of this accomplishment, and the full “Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation” (ASC) protocol, was recently published in the journal Cryobiology and has been independently verified by the BPF through extensive electron microscopic examination conducted by the two official judges of the prize: BPF President Ken Hayworth and Princeton neuroscience professor Sebastian Seung, author of “Connectome: How the Brain’s Wiring Makes Us Who We Are.”

“Every neuron and synapse looks beautifully preserved across the entire brain,” said Hayworth. “Simply amazing given that I held in my hand this very same brain when it was frozen solid… This is not your father’s cryonics.”

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“After decades of piecemeal progress, the science of cryogenically storing human organs is warming up”

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The legal death of Marvin Minsky was publicly reported on Monday, January 25, 2016. There has been speculation on the part of numerous individuals and publications that he may have been cryopreserved by Alcor. This notice is Alcor’s formal response to inquiries on this issue.

In a public ceremony at the Extro-3 conference in 1997, nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler presented Prof. Minsky with a bracelet given to all new Alcor members. This bracelet provides emergency contact information and basic instructions. Minsky has spoken publicy many times about his advocacy of overcoming aging and the inevitability of death and about cryonics (human cryopreservation) as a last resort. He was also among the 67 signatories of the Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics and a member of Alcor’s Scientific Advisory Board. This much is public knowledge. None of this necessarily means that Prof. Minsky had cryopreservation arrangements at the time of legal death. Alcor neither confirms nor denies whether Prof. Minsky had such arrangements.

Alcor’s official response may puzzle some readers, so we would like to point out the privacy options that have been and currently are available to our members. When a member signs up for cryopreservation by Alcor, they have four options:

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Cryogenics are an old science fiction dream, but today we still struggle to store large tissues without harming them. Now a breakthrough could lead to a safer, more reliable approach.

” This could be an important step toward the preservation of more complex tissues and structures”

Overcoming past challenges

Continue reading “Discovery Provides Hope Of More Effective, Safer Cryopreservation” »

Humai, a Los Angeles-based tech company, is hoping to bring back the dead within 30 years. A Los Angeles-based technology company has a goal of bringing dead people back to life within the next 30 years. Humai’s official website states that artificial intelligence and nanotechnology are being used to analyze human processes, and the creation of “an artificial body” is in the works. Once the artificial body has been perfected, the member’s brain, which will have been preserved through cryonics after death, will be implanted to direct movement and function. Helping the integration will be the extensive information the company gained while tracking each person for years during his or her life, according to the company’s founder and CEO Josh Bocanegra. An artificial intelligence app will retain the voice, personality, and behavioral patterns of each person and deploy as needed. This app is expected to launch among the membership by 2017. Aiding in this pursuit is the nanotechnology Humai is assisting in developing, which “will repair the cells destroyed in the brain after death.” The company, which employs five people total, is thus far self-funded but may be open to investments in the near future.

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Most science starts off at the fringe and slowly makes it way to the mainstream. Cryopreservation is commonly achieved in a laboratory setting, but for many years serious applications remained confined to science fiction. Is it time to change how we see cryonics?

The science of freezing things

Scientific research requires great storage, and huge amounts of material including cells are frozen every day to be used at the later date. If you follow the correct protocols, many forms of life can be re-awakened after their cryogenic sleep. DMSO, propylene glycol and glycerol help abolish problems like ice crystals which can rupture cells, and storage temperatures can drop to below −120 °C. At these levels biological reactions are essentially halted.

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To whom it may concern,

Cryonics is a legitimate science-based endeavor that seeks to preserve human beings, especially the human brain, by the best technology available. Future technologies for resuscitation can be envisioned that involve molecular repair by nanomedicine, highly advanced computation, detailed control of cell growth, and tissue regeneration.

With a view toward these developments, there is a credible possibility that cryonics performed under the best conditions achievable today can preserve sufficient neurological information to permit eventual restoration of a person to full health.

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What the nervous system of the roundworm, frozen embryos, and extreme hypothermia tell us about preserving the mind.

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Aristotle is frequently regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of antiquity. So why didn’t he think much of his brain?

In this brief history of the brain, the GPA explores what the great minds of the past thought about thought. And we discover that questions that seem to have obvious answers today were anything but self-evident for the individuals that first tackled them. And that conversely, sometimes the facts which we simply accept to be true can be blinding, preventing us from making deeper discoveries about our our world and ourselves.