forum.oregoncryo.com

I've decided it's time to increase the concentration of cryoprotectant that we use. We've been using 65%, but we're going to move closer to 75% or 80%. Higher concentrations have the very important advantage completely preventing all ice formation, regardless of temperature or cooling rate. This wil...

I see the link above is broken. I've been more focused on developing protocols, and have eased up on trying to explain them to anyone. I just added a short explanation of toxicity to this page: http://www.oregoncryo.com/suspendedAnimation.html If you don't see it at first, hit refresh. Toxicity is w...

Not quite sure what you're getting at. A can of spray paint would be considered toxic, I suppose.

I'll have to make a web page to explain the cost comparisons. It's not lower cost after all. When compared to a CI Cryostat, it uses 3x as much LN2 per volume, and when compared to an Alcor Bigfoot, it uses 2x as much LN2. Those larger dewars are more efficient. But, for its size, it's probably abou...

The LN2 slowly hits a heat exchanger at the top of the space. Some gas gets vented out the top of the unit as this happens. If the heat exchanger gets too cold, it will pause for about 10 minutes to prevent liquid from coming out the heat exchanger and to prevent the exhaust gas from being too cold....

It's a short and fat dewar, unlike many of the tall dewars in use in cryonics, so the stratification is not as significant. The cooling heat exchanger is at the top of the space. The top and bottom of the space do have slightly different temperatures. Might be a 5-6 degree difference? That spread is...

It's been cooled down to -135, now. The thermostat is set so that if it warms to -131, it will start a cooling cycle with liquid nitrogen. The cooling cycle is gentler than I thought it would be, and takes well over an hour. Even more surprising to me is that it only has to cycle about once every 15...

I had to move the server that runs this forum over to a different building on the other side of town. It took a lot longer than I anticipated. I had to deal with some really complicated issues like permits, fiber, radios, new IP address blocks, etc. I didn't feel any huge urgency, because there aren...

As needed.

We don't currently accept credit cards. We do have a truck.

I tried. I really did. But every pilot I met seems to have a story of a crash. Engines fail for many different reasons. There are visibility issues. There are instrument issues. You can't just slow down and pull over if something goes wrong. The statistics are out there. The risk is acceptable if yo...

In spite of the usefulness of these tools, we are now going back to leaving the brain within the braincase, if at all possible. As I'm working on these brains, I just keep thinking, "would I want this done to me?" The answer is clearly no. There's too much human error, and just too much da...

Normally, payment plans are never allowed in cryonics because it's not ethical to remove a patient from liquid nitrogen and cause the additional inevitable severe damage. But… things might be changing. If we have strong evidence of adequate fixation and cryoprotection, and if ITS is used, then subze...

Our ITS dewar arrived last month, and we are trying to find time to test the LN2 consumption rate, etc. http://www.oregoncryo.com/intermediateTempStorage.html I'm really curious to see what the cost is to keep it running. I was really excited about it last year. But as I've thought hard about the pr...

Under one minute, now, with a clear path to achieve 30 seconds before too much longer. Just need to fabricate the newly-designed cannula.

We are now down to under two minutes.

We only preserve brains, so it's important to have good tools for removing the skullcap in order to safely remove the brain. Over the last few years, we have tried a number of different tools, including an electric reciprocating autopsy saw, a cordless electric craniotome, a nitrogen-powered craniot...

Done! After years of work, we finally have a safe, reliable, and tested cannulation procedure. http://www.oregoncryo.com/manual/surgicalProcedures.html It currently takes about 8 minutes from start to finish for cannulation of the first carotid artery and beginning of washout. It should easily be po...

This is a response to the following article which was just reposted by Aschwin de Wolf: http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/2017/04/01/im-not-dead-yet/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DepressedMetabolism+%28Institute+for+Evidence-Based+Cryonics%29 But of course t...

Aschwin de Wolf has reposted an article from 2014: http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/2017/03/27/the-case-for-brain-cryopreservation/ Now that I have experience with the removal of dozens of brains, I have a lot to say about this article. Brain removal is not a good idea in traditional cryonics. I...

Kurzweil just gave an interview: https://futurism.com/kkurzweil-claims-that-the-singularity-will-happen-by-2029/ His new definition of the singularity (there are many shifting variations) is the point at which some computers could achieve roughly human-level intelligence. Well, that would be a miles...

There is a fallacy in argument called appeal to authority. It does not apply in this case because the authorities in question are experts on this topic. Now, I'm not aware of anyone having done a poll of the experts to see what their actual opinion of suspended animation is. If some of the experts t...

Thank you for your thoughtful post. On any given highly specialized topic like this, there are only a handful of scientific experts in the world who deeply understand the topic. They have spent their entire lives learning all the nuances of the topic from all angles. Deep understanding matters. Thei...

Cannulation refers to the surgical procedure of inserting a cannula (tube) into a major artery. This then allows various solutions and chemicals to be perfused (pumped) into the circulatory system. Cannulation remains our most urgent unsolved problem. We've spent years working on this problem, and i...

This paper was published today: http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/9/379/eaah4586.full I have been skeptical that it might be possible to develop organ banking technology, and I have been vocal about my skepticism. After reading this paper, I will now admit that organ banking is theoretically possibl...

As part of my presentation at Laughlin a few years ago, I talked about using small planes to create a regional cryonics service. Shortly after that talk, I finished some advanced pilot training and got my instrument rating so that I could be just a few hours from any patient in need, between Seattle...

Dr. Jose Cordeiro just gave a talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vyw34o7KLo At 26:38 in the video, the three laws of the future were shown from Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Let's add another one. When someone says a fantastic new technology is coming in only 20 years, he is almost certainly wrong. Inst...

The term "singularity" has been used quite a bit recently to describe a supposed runaway technological growth due to an AI. It's complete nonsense with no good supporting evidence. It seems to be based loosely on Kurzweil's exponential growth graphs or on Moore's Law. In the real world, gr...

RAAD Fest 2017 is being promoted, and it makes me sick. What a bunch of suckers. http://raadfest.com/ To be absolutely clear, there are ZERO life extension technologies currently available. So here's how they advertise it: "Learn everything from the latest life extension science, to how to stre...

New conversation was posted with Dr. Michio Kaku, regarding digital immortality: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/5271009970001/?#sp=show-clips Dr. Kaku has discussed cryonics in the past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUjWcOGb8AE His critique on cryonics was basically correct if you assume he was o...