Am I remembering some fetid nightmare, or, did I see some years ago a news story about NASA successfully freezing and reviving a dog?

Been trying to track down a news story to no avail, so, did I dream it, was it an April Fool's day prank story, or did t really happen?

Any links appreciated!

Did you use the term "cryonic?" If so, no wonder. The term your looking for here is cryogenic. Have fun.

Originally posted by Gifted
Did you use the term "cryonic?" If so, no wonder. The term your looking for here is cryogenic. Have fun.

Go do a search for 'cryonic', I think you'll find that the term is widely used with specific reference to freezing people with a view to resuscitation;

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cryonic

rather than the general term cryogenics, which merely relates to low temperatures;

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cryogenic

So next time, before being a pedant, check your facts!

I stand humbled.

Originally posted by phlogistician
Did I see some years ago a news story about NASA successfully freezing and reviving a dog?No way. That is the holy grail of the cryonics movement. If it's been successfully done, and it's already been leaked to the press, it would be well publicized. That's what the cryonic suspension vault services need to start pulling in customers by the thousands.

Their big problem is that you can freeze cells but since they're full of water the freezing process scrambles them beyond repair. Imagine what happens to the electrical charges in frozen brain cells, the charges that are the transcriptions of our thoughts and memories. Or in this case, the dog's thoughts and memories.

When you thaw out a frozen animal, all you've got is meat.

I eventually found the story I was looking for. It seems they took a dog, and cooled it to 2degC, replaced it's blood with some fluid to preserve it, and held it that that temperature for nearly an hour. They then transfused the blood back re-warmed, and brought the dog back to life. Apparently, unharmed.

This procedure has been repeated with an ape too, but neither were actually frozen, 'cos like you say, the formation of ice crystals rips cells apart and they become lifeless. Hence the interest in vitrification techniques, and species like frogs and fish that can survive being frozen solid. Although pumping humans full of Glycerol isn't very good for them.

Some companies will store whole or part (just the head) promising some resurrection. Stupid, as the cell structure is so badly damaged by freezing it will never live again. Believers, the 'Drexler Clan' think that nanobots will be able to re-assemble all the damaged cells, and cloning will build a new body, and then the memories of the repaired brain can be copied into the new body. Oh, plus healing the thing that killed you.

Bollocks or what?

Originally posted by phlogistician
Some companies will store whole or part (just the head) promising some resurrection. Stupid, as the cell structure is so badly damaged by freezing it will never live again. Believers, the 'Drexler Clan' think that nanobots will be able to re-assemble all the damaged cells, and cloning will build a new body, and then the memories of the repaired brain can be copied into the new body. Oh, plus healing the thing that killed you.

Bollocks or what? Re-assembling the damaged cells? OK, why not. That's what nanobots are for. Cloning a new body? Sure, that sounds like the easiest part of the whole process. Healing the thing that killed you? Well of course, that's the whole basis of the cryonics movement. They just keep you frozen until somebody discovers a cure for what killed you, even if it takes ten thousand years. If nanobots can repair cells that have been ruptured by freezing and thawing, I don't see why they couldn't fix just about any problem.

But restoring the memories? No way. Some of that has just got to be electrical charges. Rupturing the brain cells by freezing will surely destroy any hope of recapturing their data storage.

So: yes, bollocks.

Ah, but the hardcore nanobot freeks think that nanotechnology will be able to recreate functioning brain from frozen brain mush, and then when kickstarted, it will contain all the memories, (because the magic nanobots are going to know which mushy cell to attach to which other mushy remnant in a synapse), and then used SQIDS to completely map it all, and get more nanobots to adjust the synapses in the new cloned body to be the same, so the memories transfer.

Supposedly. Of course, cloning humans is posing all sorts of problems, which some are starting to thing are intractable. Current failure rates for animal cloning aren't encouraging, Dolly too 330 attempts.

Originally posted by phlogistician
Ah, but the hardcore nanobot freeks think that nanotechnology will be able to recreate functioning brain from frozen brain mush, because the magic nanobots are going to know which mushy cell to attach to which other mushy remnant in a synapse.Uh, wait... that can't possibly be good enough, even if they succeed in doing it.

You can take a living brain and all you have to do is deprive it of oxygen for a few minutes. You've still got the cells all arranged and connected to each other in exactly the same pattern that it had when it was alive. But there are no more synapses.

Aren't the synapses manifestations of tiny electrical charges? Once you lose the charge you lose the organization that is the record of the memories. You've got a brain but no mind.

Am I right about this? One of you people must be a neurologist, we've got one of just about every kind of scientist here. Help me out.

Well, there are plenty of problems with the scenario, but the hardcore believers think that nanobots will take all of those woes away, like magic.

Others think that they should get 'backed up' by SQUIDS like devices periodically, to restore that to the new brain. But like you say, it's all very subtle stuff, fragile synapses, and perhaps even quantum events at the synaptic barrier level that could partially determine our personality. Backing that up, well, I think Heisenberg has something to say about that one.

Yes, making a backup copy of your mind to offline storage at periodic intervals is a common device in sci-fi. Stories set in the near future require a cloned body to be constructed so the brain cells have exactly the same layout. That way the backup file can be uploaded without reformatting.

The ones set further off assume that we will have mapped the human brain and know where all the bits go. Actually I'm sure the data format is analog but that's only a minor wrinkle. Your "mind" can simply be loaded into a computer and "you" can operate from there, free from the frailties of organic matter. Oh, but also, hmm... free from hormones. Don't they have a profound effect on our thoughts and personality? Oh well. Perhaps they'll have programmed hormone emulators.

But then you could upload the same backup copy into different computers, or even into different duplicate cloned bodies, as many times as you want. Who's got the government job of preventing a backup copy being uploaded into either a computer simulation or a duplicate cloned body, until they've made sure the original body is dead? The same civil servants who do safety inspections of the space shuttle?

Problem with being 'backed up' is that the brain is hardwired, the actualy connections of our synapses are the program. And quantum effects come into play when electrons cross the synaptic barrier. As quantum effects can't be measured properly, thank to Heisenberg uncertainty, how good is that backup going to be?

We can create a model which is approximately the same, but chaos rules, so a lot of smal differences could add up.

Not about to happen just yet, ....