2023-09-23 04:00:00
Businessman Robert Miller has just sold his company Future Electronics Inc. for CA$5 billion as he faces allegations, which he denies, of having abused minors for 20 years. The media coverage of his affair brings under the microscope the fact that the 80-year-old Montrealer is a fan of cryonics.
He wants his mortal remains to be frozen so that he can come back to life when scientific advances allow it. In a 2014 article, the magazine Forbes reported that he supported Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a nonprofit cryonics, or cryonics, center.
Several personalities, including “did you see me” Paris Hilton and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel will also entrust their bodies to Alcor in the hope of being resurrected.
Paris Hilton at the Grammy party last February. Photo AFP
The Foundation has an emergency team ready to intervene to freeze the corpse of one of its members as soon as his death is medically certified.
The Alcor response team immediately immersed the corpse in an ice bath. He is injected with heparin so that his blood does not clot during his transfer to the Alcor facility in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The corpse is then placed on a machine that circulates blood and maintains oxygenation. A cryoprotectant acts as an antifreeze to prevent tissues and organs from turning into ice crystals during freezing. The body is placed upside down in a container of liquid nitrogen, its cells hibernating.
Its adherents see cryopreservation as a way to defeat death, but scientists say it is nothing more than pseudoscience, offering false hopes of eternal life through technology rather than religion.
Court says yes to cryopreservation
In November 2016, a 14-year-old English girl requested that her body be cryopreserved following her death, hoping that one day a therapy would be found for her cancer. His mother was in favor of it, but his father was once morest it. The court ultimately ruled in favor of the mother. The affair has divided the British scientific community.
Professor Clive Coen, a neuroscientist from King’s College London, opposed the High Court’s decision to authorize the cryopreservation of the young girl. He went so far as to call for a ban on cryopreservation so that we do not take advantage of the vulnerability of people afflicted by their inevitable death or that of a loved one.
Cryobiology specialist Ramon Risco told the newspaper The Guardian that within five to ten years, research will have progressed to the point of reviving small mammals frozen in liquid nitrogen: “It is very risky to say that something is impossible in science or technology in the 21st century.”
The myth of Walt Disney’s frozen head
What regarding the Hollywood legend that Walt Disney’s head was frozen following his death in 1966 and kept in a secret storage facility at Disneyland?
Diane, the producer, director and screenwriter’s daughter, said in 1972: “There is absolutely no truth that my father, Walt Disney, wanted to be frozen. I doubt my father had ever even heard of cryonics. »
Walt Disney was cremated two days following his death and buried in the presence of his wife, daughters, their husbands and children. The urn containing his ashes is located at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. Photo provided by Disney
Also freeze your cat or dog
At Alcor, your body can be cryogenically preserved for around US$200,000, or $80,000 for just the head. The oldest body in storage is that of a 101-year-old woman, while the youngest is only 2 years old. On January 12, 1967, psychologist James Bedford was the first person to undergo cryopreservation. His frozen body still rests at the Foundation.
Alcor has nearly 2,000 members, more than 170 of whom are cryogenically preserved. For around a hundred of them, only the head was frozen. Dozens of bodies of participants’ pets are also preserved.
Cryonics is considered a scientific experiment for which people voluntarily donate their bodies and organs. Cryonic conservation organizations cannot therefore be held responsible if they fail to resuscitate their clients. Alcor has private competitors in the United States, England and Russia.
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