Sparks Brain Preservation

After thinking about it for a few more hours, I'm less concerned about the brains stored in fixative. The density of the brain would be very similar to the density of the liquid, so it would be well protected. But we will still look into improvements of course.

Let's start with the brains that are in liquid nitrogen. Those are the ones I've been thinking about for the longest. They will be fine. They are all individually wrapped in padding. But I have not spent as many years thinking about storage in fixative, and it seems that I overlooked some details. I...

The Cascadia earthquake is a non-issue. Risk = Severity x Frequency. With a frequency of once every 400 years, the risk is therefore extremely low. If we had that earthquake right now, I estimate tens of thousands of deaths along the Oregon Coast from the tsunami. But here in the valley, 50 miles aw...

I take it back. Fees will certainly not go down with economies of scale. Instead, response time will go down. Locations will be added in Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, Washington DC, Boston, etc, etc. Granted, we're a long way off from any of that, but it helps to plan very far ahead so w...

I would also like to point out that providing standby is much easier when it's a short drive for employees rather than a flight. They don't have to be very far from home and they can rotate through as needed. Our procedures can be performed very well by one or two people, so a standby is not the mas...

I've worked out a general plan for our fees over the next few years. Membership fees won't change. I like a nice stable and reasonable membership fee. But our preservation fee is going to need to go up significantly. As our nationwide locations get remodeled and staffed, the fee will need to reflect...

We do know that long term memories are stored in some sort of molecular structure that is durable enough to last more than a few hours. Aldehyde fixation is, therefore, preserving those memories. It doesn't really matter what the structures are. You've listed some things that you think are getting d...

Postponing these considerations will be required because of low tech. If all we have is microrobots and not nanobots, we won't be anywhere close to being able to upload. It would be too soon to worry about revival. Most of this post seems to be about how to revive earlier. Our little ape brains are ...

Andy and I are saying the same thing. Connectomics is the study of the shapes of the membranes of the neurons. Connectomics does not include biomolecular information. That information is very well preserved, but our current technology has trouble deciphering it. So he's saying our current technology...

I think you are misinterpreting current literature. I will use an analogy. Let's say we have a book that we want to preserve. We could cryopreserve the book by soaking the whole thing in cryoprotectant and cooling in liquid nitrogen. For this analogy, we will assume that the text on the pages slight...

I'm glad you're thinking hard about this. Most people take the easy path and just don't even bother. I'm not sure if you've seen this yet: https://www.sparksbrain.org/images/crosslinks400.jpg I created that to help visualize how crosslinking works. The red molecules are formaldehyde. That image show...

If we could grow a new body around an existing brain, we would only be about half-way to the technology we would need for revival. So there would be no point in growing a new body yet because it would be too early. By the time we had the technology to repair a brain, growing the new body would be ve...

I just read up on what "Until" is currently working on. We all know that the long-term solution to the organ shortage will be to grow new organs from stem cells. Let's assume that technology is still 50 years away. If "Until" perfected cryopreservation, it would only be a tempora...

I watched a very long podcast episode with John Smart and Max Marty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBhjRzxj6eY John was diving deep into some topics that most people would struggle with but that he clearly thinks about regularly. Max spent a lot of time trying to pin down how John viewed duplicate ...

Cradle has been renamed to "until", https://untillabs.com. They now have $100M to fail with.

Becca Ziegler and Max Marty hosted a discussion on the Cryosphere Discord server on the topic of Chemical Fixation vs. Vitrification https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvu8P9D6p0g There was really only one technical detail that I think didn't get enough attention. They both agreed that perfusion is typ...

We are opening staffed branch offices in SF, L.A., NY, and Atlanta. We also hope to soon open offices in Dallas, Chicago, and Miami. This will put us within a short drive and/or flight of everyone in the US. Finally. It's what I've been trying so hard to do for about 12 years. These will take a litt...

Charles Platt visited us here in Salem and then wrote an article about it in The Biostasis Standard
https://biostasis.substack.com/p/an-alt ... o-cryonics
A vigorous discussion then ensued on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cryonics/comme ... _cryonics/

I'm going to edit the scenario slightly. Electrodes that resemble neuralink will clearly also be part of this interface someday. It's just that we would need technology that could tunnel down slightly into the gray matter without damaging any neurons or synapses. It's really hard for me to envision ...

We made the membership fee reasonable at $150/yr. It's affordable by most as a single yearly payment instead of monthly. It's designed to be a number that works for young and old alike. Since we charge separately for the actual services, we will never run into all the drama that Alcor has gone throu...

I just added the Brain Implants section to the https://www.sparksbrain.org/futureTechnology.html page. Here it is: 60 to 90 years, gradual Stentrode is a currently available stent that gets implanted in a large blood vessel in the brain. It has electrodes on it, making it a brain-computer interface....

After sleeping on it, I think it should actually be an "Advisory Board of Directors". If they had control over the daily business activities, it would just cause sclerosis and drama. The real reasons people want a Board of Directors is for succession and patient care. So we will write into...

The member portal is now live and you are welcome to join as a full member for $150/yr: Sign up Once signed up, log in here: https://sparks-brain.circle.so We're working on a better explanation of the benefits of becoming a member. That will become more obvious as our website changes from technical ...

It's time for a Board of Directors. We are in a growth push, after all, and we don't want anyone to hesitate from signing up because of worries about succession. It's hard to know how growth will progress. I propose that we immediately open up to start adding directors. I don't think there should be...

We now have a plan for membership. We are revamping the website to be less technical and more marketing. Membership will be a very affordable $150 yearly payment that will be the same regardless of age. All payments toward membership over the years will result in an equivalent discount on services w...

Vitalist Bay had an event in May https://www.vitalistbay.com/biostasis Our research scientist, Dr. Andy McKenzie, gave a talk in May that is now online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqRW0_ERVtM Here's a summary: 0:00 Overview 1:39 Changing definition of death 3:47 Revival 6:35 Structure 8:21...

We've change the company name yet again to Sparks Brain Preservation. Since we decided to aggressively expand beyond Oregon, we found that the Oregon name was holding us back. Someone in SF would claim that we couldn't get to them fast enough even if we had a vehicle and staff in SF because they cou...

For context, the research program is separate from our main services. Brain preservation continues to be available anywhere in the US.

We've just ordered three ambulances to be built from scratch to our specifications. I spent 25 years looking for an appropriate vehicle, and there are simply no existing vehicles out there that are a good fit. Our ambulances will differ from standard ambulances as follows: -no sirens or lights -no e...

The best model for testing and refining structural preservation is donated human cadavers. We use a lot of cadavers. Organoids are very small. I suppose they could be useful to certain scientists for something, but it seems pretty far removed from what we are doing.