[extropy-chat] Alternative to Cryo was The Amazing Cellular Repair device

[The Avantguardian]

--- Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> Whilst looking through my hardcopy files for the
> Fahy article on the
> feasibility of brain repair I found these diagrams
> on a "Merckle-Drexler
> scenario" for a "Nanotechnology derived Cell Repair
> Device". The
> source (which does contain the Fahy article, is an
> Alcor publication
> from 1993).

I found the Fahy article (a Fahy article?) Fahy et
al., Cryobiology 2004. Will read it when I get a
chance.

> See if you can see what's wrong with the picture.
> 
> Here's the device.
> http://www.entrepitec.com.au/page2A.html
> 
> Here's the device shown against a background with
> red blood
> cells.  http://www.entrepitec.com.au/page3A.html
> 
> Here's the same device drawn approaching a synapse. 
> http://www.entrepitec.com.au/page4A.html
> 
> Hint. A red blood cell has a diametre of around 2000
> to
> 8000 nanometres. 
> 
> A synaptic gap might be about 5 nanometres across.
> The lipid 
> membrane of a cell is about 6 nanometres. 

Well I assume you mean the change in scale of the
device from a micron scale device to a nanoscale
device between the pictures? Your preaching to the
choir here, buddy, considering that a single flagellin
filament in a bacterial flagellum is ~20 nm in
diameter.
 
> Sadly, what seems possible to us when we are younger
> and
> less knowledgeable *because* we are less
> knowledgeable does
> not always remain possible. 

Yes. But my take on cryogenics is not to freeze people
and to repair the damage later but figure out a way to
put them in suspended animation without damaging them
in the first place. It might not even require lowering
their temperature to 0 Celsius. Are you familiar with
the work of Blackstone et al., Science 2005? Here's
the link, I assume you have an institutional
subscription:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/308/5721/518

Anyone who can't access it but wants to read the
article, email me and I will send it offlist. In a
nutshell, the authors demonstrate a state of suspended
animation in their mice, in an atmosphere where oxygen
is replaced hydrogen disulphide gas. They show that
the core body temperature of the mice drops to
essentially ambient temperature and the mice's
metabolism dropped to 10% normal rate thus aging at
10% normal rate. The mice were kept in such a state of
torpor for 6 hrs then revived with no ill effects. The
authors didn't lower their temperature to below 13
degrees celsius, but I have hunch they could have
lowered it all the way down to just above 0 Celsius at
which point, the mice would have probably not aged
appreciatively at all. No actual freezing means no
freezing damage, yet there is almost no metabolism
because there is no oxygen to metabolize. Of course
the authors might have tried this and failed but they
don't mention it. In any case, I think THIS technology
is a bit more immediately attainable than error-free
freeze thawing. Especially because Science is an
impecable peer reviewed journal.


The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying." - Woody Allen

"Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope" - Robert G. Ingersoll


		
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