Capillary Burst Around Eyes

Erika, which returned from the cold.

Cryopreservation cryonics and suspended animation.

In the winter of 2001, and February 24, a Canadian baby of thirteen months named Erika Nordby mischief committed most of his short life, the kind of mischief that should have killed her child without reference . While his mother slept, Erika escaped from the home and the house through the back door. Outside was twenty-four degrees below zero and she was not able to find the way back to the warmth of home. Wearing only his diaper all over protection.

They found four hours later converted into a tiny pile of blue meat in the snow and ice, with a body temperature of 16 º C. Was, of course, clinically dead, had at least two hours from cardiac arrest. But as an attempt in extremis of CPR got some result, was sent with the utmost urgency to University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton . There, with advanced techniques and comprehensive intensive care experience in cases of hypothermia, managed get through.

Today, Erika is ten years old and remembers nothing, she was too young to remember, but it's okay, do not need any tip and no sequels have been. As always in these cases there was talk of miracle (then, these other what were they?) And even dedicated a song . Erika crawled to the cold and died and came back from the dead clutching the hand of science. And she, in turn, give a gift to science: the clear demonstration that it is possible to die of cold and return with no significant damage. That ultimately suspended animation could have a chance beyond the pure science fiction.

die and not-die from the cold.

Of course, if Erika is not unique, but yes, very likely the best documented and most extreme. In 2006, for example, a Japanese official named Mitsutaka Uchikoshi went with some friends to a barbecue at the top of the Rokko Mountains, a popular destination for hikers. When it came time to get down the other cable car did, but he decided to take a walk through the snow to the valley. One might think that Mr Uchikoshi, 35 years old, had gone a tad with sake, though doctors said only consumed mineral water along with the rest of products suitable for a barbecue. The case was lost, slipped on the ice and broke his pelvis. I'll find a mountaineer twenty-four days later, bloodied and half buried by snow.

However, Mitsutaka was not dead. should have died for at least half a dozen reasons, including hypothermia, dehydration, internal bleeding, fat embolism and starvation, but exhibited some striking, very weak, and a body temperature of 22 º C. Taken to a hospital Kobe also fully recovered from his injuries and being exposed to the weather with temperatures so low. In his case did not die as Erika-held small cardiopulmonary activity, though reduced to a minimum, "which is, if we, almost more amazing. He stated that "on the second day, the sun was gone ... I was in a field, and I felt great. That's the last I remember."

The Erika and Mitsutaka cases are exceptional. Normally in such circumstances is definitely dying : Exposure to extreme cold can kill a person even in a few minutes. At least until some time ago, the NATO operational procedures for wartime only watched the search for a pilot shot down over the North Atlantic in winter for up to an hour to prolong it would be a waste of time and much needed resources during a major conflict, as no doubt the poor guy would already bird, submerged in water at about 0 ° C.

In general, hypothermia is an old enemy that we carried with ease and a strange sweetness that feel good that he mentioned our surviving Japan. Always has been called sweet death , because apparently there is a moment you stop feeling the awful cold and it is replaced by a kind of drunkenness very nice, strong signal that you're dying. It is rare to find a frozen smile on his face, which many believe rictus, but according to those who have survived would correspond rather to the unique buzz. And no clothes: for some reason unknown brain, paradoxically tend to undress when we're dying of cold. Beyond

clinical death, when the activity is stopped, the frozen tissue cardiopulmonary really slow in die altogether. In fact, what happens when we freeze is a gradual slowing and eventually cessation of metabolic processes that keep us alive but also of death (as both are nothing but chemical reactions can only occur within a certain range temperatures, like any other.) Thus we have a kind of paralysis induced, allowing some animals evolutionarily adapted normally frozen and thawed.

However, human-and warm-blooded beings in general, things get complicated, it depends on a complex series of thermal equilibrium so that our bodies are not damaged. Very noticeable, cardiopulmonary arrest, with subsequent interruption of oxygen and nutrients, rapidly causes severe ischemic lesions in the brain that usually freeze later and therefore still needs to supply, the brain is destroyed before stopping also, making it impossible to recovery. This is precisely what makes the case extraordinary baby Erika, who was stop for more than two hours.

As the temperature continues to decline and low of zero degrees, there is another massive and permanent damage, cell destruction. On the one hand, ice forms between cells, separating them and causing damage to mechanical and chemical. On the other hand, if the freezing rate exceeds the loss of water by osmosis to the intercellular spaces, cytoplasm forms crystals that disrupt the cell membrane and irreversibly damaged. A frozen body, despite its appearance probably healthy cells is destroyed and can not be recovered. is definitely dead. Cryopreservation

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many years we know how to keep some tissues in cold without suffering this kind of damage. Today usually frozen human material such as semen, ova, embryos and blood for later use. James Lovelock was -that of the Gaia Hypothesis - who realized first that the damage to red blood cells during freezing was closely related to the rate of fluid loss by osmosis, and proposed a simple mechanism to prevent it by changing its salinity. A Lovelock is remembered also for his invention of electron capture detector , all of which puts him intellectually well above most of his critics.

Organs for transplant are also often transported refrigerated (not frozen). At present, various medical techniques to cool the patient and slow down their metabolism and the damage caused by a disease process while trying to correct, as, for example, hypothermic cardiopulmonary therapy.

The idea of \u200b\u200bfreezing a man to resurrect it after is even older, and is derived directly from the mummification, observation of the preservative properties of cooling (slow or stop all chemical reactions including metabolism) and animals that can hibernate and even freeze without damage when warmth returns. The concept has already been cherished by Ben Franklin and the Russian cosmistas , but would not be reflected in its modern form until the 60s of the twentieth century, following the work of American scientist Robert Ettinger and Evan particular Cooper, in essence, both suggested the controlled freezing of the human body to preserve it for an indefinite period.

The reasons to investigate these techniques are varied and powerful: the ethical obligation to protect the life of a patient by any means possible until you see the future in a way cure him doing so until it is found a way to stop or reverse aging, facilitating long-distance space flights or other activities of very long duration; advancing emergency medicine, dramatically improve conservation technology for transplantation, allowing and the emergence of organ banks much better than today, and many others. His critics are also diverse and strong, ranging from many fields of science (who consider it a remote possibility in the future and the current commercial offerings, a simple fraud) to religion, always suspicious to all these questions of life, death and reproduction radically beyond their traditions and skills.

The concept is simple. Involves freezing a human body or at least his brain to liquid nitrogen temperature, which can last for a very long time, so it is possible thawing and reanimation in the future. From here, of course, the difficulties begin, and not only scientific and technical in nature, but common human order. For example: it is very difficult to predict the long term. Any calculation to more than twenty or thirty years from now is extremely risky, and more than fifty, fantasy.

The preservation of the body and its conditions can be affected by many frequent events in human history, such as wars and revolutions of importance or social, political, ideological, religious and economic. The fact that now these attempts are a thing of private entities increases the uncertainty, because they are typically subject to market fluctuations, fashion, changes in economic and political model or simple matters of success and failure. The greater the delay before resuscitation, the greater these uncertainties: the Egyptian pyramids have lasted four and a half millennia, but its contents were looted before that after the first (and for that reason the following pharaohs chose to hide their burials in remote deserts as the Valley of the Kings , with similar success: none). And that this was a uniquely stable and orderly society, more slow and a much longer duration than any of the modern.

Technically, the problem is also far from resolved despite the hope we bring cases like Erika or Mitsutaka. Both, particularly the first, show that it is a freezing process without significant ischemic brain damage, but the exact reason they left off so lightly is not yet clear. Recently, researchers Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research proposed which could be due, paradoxically, that both were lying face down on the snow, nose and mouth at least partially blocked, and therefore deprived of oxygen to some extent, apparently, this deprivation in extreme cold could launch a process called anoxia-induced suspended animation for . And they claim to have applied a 97% success using worms about whose metabolism is very similar to ours. Part of the problem

all this, of course, is that experimentation is applied the most tricky. In all countries, to freeze a human being to stop not revive immediately below is-just-murder. And if not, by incorporating a voluntary waiver, and ethics committees would be willing to throw their hands in their head. This means that only you can freeze a body , a concept that can vary by country, generally accepted customs and practices, but it always involves previous cardiac arrest and death certificate. In the same way is not allowed euthanasia in most countries as much as the patient's request, nor allows cryopreservation in vivo (for legal purposes, it would be a form of euthanasia, there is no legislation providing for a third state suspended live well or dead , and someone who does not breathe or beats or brain activity has been technically dead , which would find to a murder by euthanasia ).

This greatly complicates any possible investigation and makes the integral cryopreservation, at present, in a form of burial ; which creates its own problems with religion, as many of them do not support as funerary practice. This is not the worst. The most serious is that, necessarily have to wait until the patient is legally dead, it makes much any possible future attempt resuscitation (because the tissues are already severely damaged and the decomposition process, initiated).

But cryopreservation is advanced enough to begin to address these problems? Depends on who says it. The mere fact that these investigations are so severely restricted, of course, slows the entire discipline. At present there is a clear demonstration that a person can stand cold -like little Erika, which is not the only, without suffering brain damage worth mentioning. In parallel, we are working in so-called vitrification techniques and the use of cryoprotectants (chemicals similar to those naturally occurring beings are capable of frozen and thawed without damage.) But if someone raises the question directly "Is it possible today to freeze a human being with a reasonable expectation to revive in the future?" the answer is "probably not" .

However, there are nuances to that "no" . First, almost by definition, since we can not predict the future, it is not possible to know whether this or that decade there will be reviving bodies now consider dead and well dead, it is possible to reasonably predict that the less damaged is the central nervous system, the easier it is. Moreover, it is possible that even small advances in vitrification and cryoprotection represent significant jumps in the possibility of a human body with cryogenic sensible expectations can be resurrected. Third, a legal opening to the voluntary suspension (with the guarantees you want) could significantly accelerate this research without having to be aware of horrific accidents and uncontrolled like the little Erika. That turned the cold hand of science and, if she could, others can.