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A Breakthrough in Cryogenic Technology. Futurama may not just be a TV Sitcom after all.
By Angelica King / October 25, 2013 9:00 pm 
Get ready to have your socks blown off. Researchers today are getting closer to reversing the effects of cryopreservation of human and animal life - put simply, unfreezing dead humans so they can live forever in the future without their frozen cells bursting in the thawing phase. However, this is not a new idea, as it was first introduced in the 1960’s but it was not until recently that scientists have tried to reverse the process. How could anybody come up with such an idea? “I accidentally ran over my neighbour’s cat. Oh no, what to do, what to do? I know, I’ll stuff him into my freezer and wait until somebody comes up with a way to unfreeze him, bring him back to life and give him back to my neighbour. But for now, goodbye Mr. Whiskers, you will be missed. Now if you could do that with humans too so we could live forever that would be awesome. What’s that smell?” Wait a minute - no way… that means scientists have been freezing over 200 people since the 60’s without a known reversible process and enough evidence to show this theory could be falsified!
This may seem like quite a simplistic idea, but the way the web has documented the information, you and I can now look forward to our own customized cryogenic tubes that will keep us frozen until the day in which we live on a planet completely submerged in water. However, most can argue that we’re no closer to this futuristic fallacy. Surprisingly, the media seems to have thrived off of quote from scientists such as Sir Arthur C. Clark (who invented the communications satellite) who said that “Although no one can quantify the probability of cryonics working, I estimate it is at least 90% - and certainly nobody can say it is zero.” The media should have taken Groening’s word that Futurama will exist in the near future. Can we really blame people for their skepticism on the controversial topic? After all Back to the Future predicted that we’d have flying cars by now, but instead we have rubber bands shaped like different kind of animals.
What Clark thought, along with many other scientists, was that we shouldn't be so pessimistic about the research. Usually, the procedure requires clients to be deceased for only for a few minutes as it requires a fresh corpse so that there is a lower risk of ice formation taking place on the body. It is actually the brain which needs to be crucially protected as it is stores every useful and useless piece of information and controls the rest of the body. That explains why there are so many talking heads in jars of liquid on every episode of Futurama.
To freeze someone, without causing too much damage through chemical and enzymatic activity, scientists have to coat them with special, specific protectants but research has shown that some of these protectants can have toxins in them that can effect the bodies, so scientists are looking for other ways to do the freezing, which is less damaging to the body, along with coming up with a reversible technique.
Bibliography:
“Futurama” - Matt Groening’s TV Sitcom
Cryonics and related information and facts etc - Wikipedia
Cryogenic Tubes - Futurama Wiki
Sir Arthur C. Clark Quote - http://www.alcor.org/notablequotes.html
Back to the Future - Film Franchise
For Future Use in Article - http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/cryonics.htm
The Magazine's Logo & Links to other Articles - Discover Magazine
For Future Use in Article - http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/genetic/cryonics.htm
The Magazine's Logo & Links to other Articles - Discover Magazine
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