craschworks / cryonics

Robert Ettinger, founder of the cryonics movement, dies at 92

25-Jul-11

Robert C. W. Ettinger, a physics teacher and science fiction writer who believed death is only for the unprepared and unimaginative, died July 23 at his home in Clinton Township, Mich.

He was 92 and had suffered declining health in recent weeks, said his son David, who could not specify a cause. “We’re obviously sad,” said the younger Ettinger. But “we were able to freeze him under optimum conditions, so he’s got another chance.”

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Mr. Ettinger is widely considered the father of the cryonics movement, whose adherents believe they can achieve immortality through quick-freezing their bodies at death in anticipation of future resurrection

via washingtonpost.com

I never met Mr. Ettinger in person, but his book was highly influential in my life. I spent about 5 years of my life doing organ cryopreservation research as a result of reading the successors to his book.

Henry Markram and the Human Brain Project are in talks with EU for $1.61 billion to achieve human brain emulation by 2024

18-May-11

via nextbigfuture.com

“Henry Markram, a neuroscientist at the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Switzerland, has assembled a team of nine top European scientists for the research effort to build a computer model of a human brain. The Human Brain Project is in discussion with the EU for a £1billion (US$1.61 billion) grant.”

Hat tip to Rand Fitzpatrick.

Alcor Life Extension Foundation Names Max More, PhD, as Chief Executive Officer

14-Jan-11

The Board of Directors of Alcor Life Extension Foundation announced on Dec. 24 that Dr. Max More, 46, has been named Chief Executive Officer effective Jan 1, 2011.

An internationally recognized advocate of the effective and ethical use of technology for life extension and cryopreservation, Dr. More brings experience in running non-profit organizations, many years of analyzing and writing about business organizations, and a long commitment to Alcor’s mission.

via kurzweilai.net

Good news for Alcor! Max is a great guy.

Until Cryonics Do Us Part

08-Jul-10

There are ways of speaking about dying that very much annoy Peggy Jackson, an affable and rosy-cheeked hospice worker in Arlington, Va. She doesn’t like the militant cast of “lost her battle with,” as in, “She lost her battle with cancer.” She is similarly displeased by “We have run out of options” and “There is nothing left we can do,” when spoken by doctor to patient, implying as these phrases will that hospice care is not an “option” or a “thing” that can be done. She doesn’t like these phrases, but she tolerates them. The one death-related phrase she will not abide, will not let into her house under any circumstance, is “cryonic preservation,” by which is meant the low-temperature preservation of human beings in the hope of future resuscitation. That this will be her husband’s chosen form of bodily disposition creates, as you might imagine, certain complications in the Jackson household.

via nytimes.com

Nice discussion of “hostile-wife” phenomenon in cryonics.

Posted via email from crasch’s posterous

Frozen in time: How life insurance can make you immortal

30-Jun-10

The “average cryonicist is male with an extremely high intelligence level, and is often a mathematician or computer engineer,” Hoffman says. John Dedon, a principal in the trust, estate and tax planning practice of Washington, D.C.-area law firm Odin, Feldman and Pittleman, agrees that his cryogenic clients are smart and accomplished. “There’s a somewhat limited audience, but the ones I’ve worked with are incredibly successful and bright,” he says, adding that he’s designed trusts for six to eight cryonicists. “I wish I had a hundred more of them.”

In addition to sometimes macabre misnomers, “one of the myths about cryonics is that it’s only for wealthy weird dudes,” Hoffman said. “Through the magic of life insurance, it’s also available to non-wealthy weird dudes,” he adds, with a self-deprecating laugh.

via foxbusiness.com

Fair coverage of cryonics at Fox Business. Original link here:

http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2010/06/30/frozen-time-life-insur…

Posted via email from crasch’s posterous

Frog awakens from winter freeze

10-May-10

via youtube.com

Via Stephan Beauregard.

Posted via web from crasch’s posterous

Brain Preservation Technology Prize

25-Mar-10

“How far has brain preservation technology progressed in the intervening decades?” and “Exactly what level of brain preservation is necessary to have a reasonable chance of restoring a person?”

A Brain Preservation Technology Prize has the unique ability to get the scientific community to start asking these questions. It can accomplish this purely by putting forward a clear set of milestones for a preservation technique to achieve. Brain preservation is simply the only possible alternative to death on the near-term (<20 years) horizon, but today there is almost no serious research being performed on the topic. We simply must reinvigorate scientific debate on this important subject. A well publicized and adequately funded prize will do just that.

via brainpreservation.org

Posted via web from crasch’s posterous

Fertility vs. Life Expectancy at birth

17-Jun-09

This is why I’m not worried about overpopulation due to life extension technology.

Via Alex Lightman.

The wedding of Katie Kirkpatrick

22-Apr-09

The story of Katie Kirkpatrick is simultaneously one of the sweetest and saddest I’ve ever read. This is why we need cryonics now.

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