Lifeboat Foundation

Dr. Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston hopes to pick up the movement where Jones left off, albeit with the significant twist that his version does not require freezing. A research fellow at Melbourne’s Monash University, Zeleznikow-Johnston wrote the new book, “The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death,” which makes the case that cryopreservation is possible and should be more widely available. Rejecting the popular notion that death endows life with meaning as “palliative philosophy,” Zeleznikow-Johnston’s book instead argues a human’s connectome — a high-resolution map of all their brain connections — could be theoretically recorded perfectly before they die.

Once that happens, that same internal brain activity could be recreated through high-powered computers, while a new brain is grown in a vat via stem cells or some combination of the two. As such, Zeleznikow-Johnston is proposing a spiritual descendant to the cryonics movement (which he dismisses as “unscientific” and “unsubstantiated”), one where the focus is not on preserving tissues but on the “data,” so to speak, of our distinct connectomes.

“We have very strong evidence that the static structure of the neurons is enough to hold onto someone’s memories and personality.”

When water freezes slowly, the location where water turns into ice—known as the freezing front—forms a straight line. Researchers from the University of Twente showed how droplets that interact with such a freezing front cause surprising deformations of this front. These new insights were published in Physical Review Letters and show potential for applications in cryopreservation and food engineering techniques.

When water freezes, it is often thought of as a predictable, solid block forming layer by layer. But what happens if the progressing freezing front encounters tiny particles or droplets? Researchers from the University of Twente have explored this question, discovering that droplets can cause surprising deformations in the way ice forms.

The biological and technological race to live forever is very much underway.

Proposed lunar biorepository could store genetic samples without electricity or liquid nitrogen. New research led by scientists at the Smithsonian proposes a plan to safeguard Earth’s imperiled biodiversity by cryogenically preserving biological material on the moon. The moon’s permanently shadowed craters are cold enough for cryogenic preservation without the need for electricity or liquid nitrogen, according to the researchers.

The paper, published today in BioScience and written in collaboration with researchers from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI), Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and others, outlines a roadmap to create a lunar biorepository, including ideas for governance, the types of biological material to be stored and a plan for experiments to understand and address challenges such as radiation and microgravity. The study also demonstrates the successful cryopreservation of skin samples from a fish, which are now stored at the National Museum of Natural History.

“Initially, a lunar biorepository would target the most at-risk species on Earth today, but our ultimate goal would be to cryopreserve most species on Earth,” said Mary Hagedorn, a research cryobiologist at NZCBI and lead author of the paper. “We hope that by sharing our vision, our group can find additional partners to expand the conversation, discuss threats and opportunities and conduct the necessary research and testing to make this biorepository a reality.”

A group of scientists has devised a plan to safeguard Earth’s species in a cryogenic biorepository on the moon.

Intended to save species in the event of a disaster on Earth, the plan makes use of craters that are permanently in shadow and therefore cold enough to allow cryogenic preservation of biological material without using electricity or liquid nitrogen, according to research from a group led by scientists at the Smithsonian, published last week.

The paper, published in the journal BioScience, draws on the successful cryopreservation of skin samples from a fish, and outlines a method for creating a biorepository that would keep samples of other species safe.

Bringing together the global cryonics field including leaders, researchers, and members.

In a stunning scientific feat in the field of cryonics, a team from Fudan University in Shanghai achieved a monumental breakthrough by successfully reviving a human brain that had been frozen for as long as 18 months. This record breaking achievement not only shatters previous records in cryogenic technology but has also been published in the esteemed academic journal Cell Reports Methods.

The team led by Shao Zhicheng created a revolutionary cryopreservation method, dubbed MEDY, which preserves the structural integrity and functionality of neural cells, allowing for the preservation of various brain tissues and human brain specimens. This advancement holds immense promise not only for research into neurological disorders but also opens up possibilities for the future of human cryopreservation technology.

Professor Joao Pedro Magalhaes from the University of Birmingham K expressed profound astonishment at the development, hailing the technology’s ability to prevent cell death and help preserve neural functionality as nothing short of miraculous. He speculated that in the future, terminally ill patients could be cryopreserved, awaiting cures that may emerge, while astronauts could be frozen for interstellar travel, awakening in distant galaxies.

Futurists, including some medical doctors, are signing up to be decapitated—and then have their brains frozen. But without a body, what will their minds become?

Could a future superintelligence bring back the already dead? This discussion has come up a while back (and see the somewhat related); I’d like to resurrect the topic because … it’s potentially quite important.

Algorithmic resurrection is a possibility if we accept the same computational patternist view of identity that suggests cryonics and uploading will work. I see this as the only consistent view of my observations, but if you don’t buy this argument/belief set then the rest may not be relevant.

The general implementation idea is to run a forward simulation over some portion of earth’s history, constrained to enforce compliance with all recovered historical evidence. The historical evidence would consist mainly of all the scanned brains and the future internet.