Biostasis Newsletter January 2024
A new year, hostile critics, and cryonics without ischemia
Happy New Year!
We are confident that 2024 will be remembered as a landmark year in cryonics. Why? A number of new emerging technologies will come online in the field, new and existing providers will expand their capabilities and regional coverage, some long-anticipated high-profile scientific papers, reports, and books are scheduled to be published, and several major in-person events will be announced soon.
Hostile Critics
Increasingly, Wikipedia is no longer a neutral platform to educate yourself, but a toxic playground where the most fanatical keyboard warriors dictate what you read about a topic. The cryonics entry has not been exempt from this and has turned into something so obviously warped that it might actually incentivize people to consider other sources to learn about cryonics. Nonetheless, it would be preferable if there was a more neutral entry on the topic without inflammatory language and quotes from scientists who are clueless about cryonics. In his contribution “The False Claim of Cryonics as Pseudoscience” Max More brings his analytical mindset to identify the many errors and ignorant disdain displayed in the treatment of cryonics on Wikipedia.
The False Claim of Cryonics as Pseudoscience
Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash Cryonics does not reflect the criteria for pseudoscience. It does not claim to be a science but to be a medical practice informed by various sciences. It is based on empirical evidence, it uses scientific method, its research is in the context of standard science, it does not rely on anecdotal evidence, it changes with n…
Cryonics without Ischemia
Under real-world conditions it is challenging to completely prevent (cerebral) ischemia in a cryonics case. A new metric called the S-MIX (Standardized Measure of Ischemic Exposure) aims to bring more rigor to the practice of cryonics by estimating the total equivalent amount of ischemia sustained in a cryonics case. In his article about how to achieve an S-MIX of zero, Aschwin de Wolf describes what a cryonics protocol without any metabolic deficit should aim for. Cryonics as an elective medical procedure is not available yet but we can use this framework to think about how to upgrade and improve current procedures.
Cryonics Without Ischemia
Can there be cryonics without ischemia? To some critics cryonics is destined to fail because of (postmortem) ischemia (“the brain dies after 5 minutes”). This is an unfortunate and persistent misunderstanding because there is nothing inherent in the idea of cryonics that entails ischemia. In fact, if cryonics would be available as an elective medical procedure, it would not need to entail any ischemia at all.
Run For Your Life (Extension)!
On a lighter and faster note, it may not be a surprise that many cryonicists and longevity activists are endurance runners. There is perhaps not a more notable example than Alcor member Russell Cheney, who has run more than 400 (!) marathons and an ultra-marathon (!!) in every US state (see this Cryonics magazine member profile). To formalize some random social media and email interactions, there is now an official club of cryonics / longevity runners on the athlete social network Strava named “Run for Your Life Extension!”. To stick with our mission, this is an invitation-only group but we welcome experienced and aspiring runners to apply with a suitable introduction.