News & Views

NEVER SAY DIE

Dr. Paul Segall, a giant redwood towering in the cryonics forest, has suddenly left us. He deanimated on June 23, 2003. I don’t believe he would have preferred to be said to have died. "Never say die" was the motto he lived to the utmost.

The first cryonics meeting I attended was in 1978. There was Dr. Segall stressing the need for research funding. Shortly thereafter, the sum of $25 to perfuse a hamster in his garage was appropriated by the American Cryonics Society.

Many hamster experiments followed as Dr. Segall tinkered with the constituent ingredients of the perfusate. However, the first hundred hamsters or so could not be revived. Only a personality, which would not accept discouragement, would maintain his spirit in the face of such repeated failure. Finally, however, one of the test subjects miraculously revived. Later experiments followed on dogs and monkeys as well.

The breakthrough was a beagle named Miles. When Segall’s scientific paper on Miles was received with approval at a scientific conference, there was an explosion of worldwide publicity. For a while, Miles and Dr. Segall were international media superstars, and the development was the biggest boost for cryonics in the brief history of the movement. An interview with Phil Donahue on nationwide T.V. led to hundreds of inquiries from this one show alone.

The increased interest in cryonics-related research led to considerable source of capital from outside of the cryonics movement, which forced Dr. Segall to thereafter downplay his earlier connections with cryonics.

In 1992, Dr.Segall and others founded BioTime, Inc., a research corporation based in Berkeley, California, which is just now finding a booming business for its products. This is due in large part to Dr. Segall's worldwide travel and nonstop workaholic personality, pushing the entire research effort forward with great energy. { http://www.biotimeinc.com/ contains news of Dr Segall's demise, but no mention of his cryopreservation. - J de R}

One week Dr. Segall would be in New Zealand, the next might be Korea, and then a round of meetings with New York mortgage bankers. It has been said that money is liquid energy, and suddenly that energy was perceived as beginning to liquefy. In the process, Segall chilled and thawed more test animals than anyone else on earth. Here was a man working seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, to bring the precious gift of immortality through science to all of us.

In the last analysis he was a man, like John Kennedy, so full of life that even death was caught off guard. Now the cryonics torch is passed to others to carry or the progress of our noble and inevitable movement. Paul, we will not rest until we can bring you back. We’ll be immortal or die trying, and our eventual victory will be shared by you and the rest of mankind.

H. Jackson Zinn

Attorney At Law

1430 N. El Dorado Street, Stockton, CA 95202

"Much of the research I performed during my 1997-98 sabbatical at UC Berkeley was accomplished at BioTime. Paul Segall made this possible. I greatly regret his passing and, like others of the cryonics community, I hope to see him again someday."

I've met Paul Segall and was both glad that he was working on cryopreservation and sad that he could not continue his work with Timiras, which then and now had the potential of providing a serious treatment for aging. And naturally I hope that he was suspended as well as possible.

He was also one of the early cryonicists, and his deanimation (which I hope was not his death) should really have been noticed much more. I would HOPE that those who knew of it would tell a complete story, perhaps in THE IMMORTALIST. The note by Ben Best is the first time I heard of his deanimation.

Reading the cryonet archives today, I found the sad news about Dr. Segall. I did know him from my years of association with what is now the ACS in the mid 1970's, early 1980's.... We did share some of the cultural sensibilities of the times back then. As well, I also disagreed with some of his ideas and attitudes or perhaps I was just not won over.... In any case, I admired his enthusiasm and hands on work in cryonics. I hope his many contributions are appreciated and recognized. I also hope that he was suspended albeit under the sudden and tragic circumstances. My thoughts are with his family and friends...

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CI HAS ITS 49^th AND 50^th PATIENTS
Both were emergency sign-ups, patients not previously members. Although again we were able to pull things together on short notice, we must emphasize once more that usually this is not possible, and every effort should be made to sign up and get all arrangements in place long before any emergency. In these particular cases, it helped that key people in the families were already familiar with cryonics and CI. We also had especially good hospital cooperation in one case when it was needed.

One patient was washed out and perfused at the CI facility, with Dr. Pichugin in attendance; the other at a mortuary in another state. Further information may be published at a later time.

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BETTERHUMANS BIOETHICS DEBATE IN TORONTO—Aug. 29

Betterhumans will be holding an important event on Friday, August 29, 2003

called "Debating the Future: Bioethics from Science Fiction to Science Fact."

The event will feature Canada's leading bioethicist, Margaret Somerville, and controversial US bioethicist James Hughes. In debate moderated by journalist Tim Falconer, they will address life extension, cloning, nanotechnology and genetic engineering.

I think that this event will be extremely exciting and informative, and I want you to have an opportunity to attend. We are holding the event during the World Science Fiction convention, which attracts thousands of people If you are interested, please visit

http://www.betterhumans.com/Events/Debating_the_Future/ . Here you can learn more about the event and purchase tickets. If you are interested or know others who might be, you can also download information about sponsoring the event.

George Dvorsky

Deputy Editor, Betterhumans

E: george@betterhumans.com

ANNUAL MEETINGS

The annual meetings of the Cryonics Institute and the Immortalist Society will be held as usual on the last Sunday in September, this year falling on Sep. 28, at our headquarters--24355 Sorrentino Court, Clinton Township MI 48035. If anyone needs directions we can send them. Telephone is (586) 791-5961. E-mail is CIHQ@aol.com .

The Cryonics Institute business meeting starts at 2 P.M. The Immortalist Society business meeting starts at around 5:30 P.M. At around 5:00 there will be a supper provided. Members and guests of members of CI and IS are welcome at both meetings. If you plan to attend, please try to remember to let us know in advance, so we will know how much food to have on hand.

Members will receive a notice by mail, with a tentative agenda. Perhaps the most important item is election of new presidents for CI and IS, since Robert Ettinger is retiring as president, although not from the board of directors of CI.

The only candidate so far for the presidency of CI is Ben Best, whom most of you know at least by reputation. A current member of our Board of Directors, he has a long history of activity in cryonics, with extensive technical knowledge and administrative experience. He is careful and prudent and always willing to listen. Ben lives in Toronto, but if elected he may relocate here; or if he does not relocate he plans to spend many week-ends here.

Robert Ettinger

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Is CI prepared to prevent a hostile takeover?

Robert Ettinger was recently asked on crenate what safeguards are in place at CI to prevent takeovers by some group aiming perhaps to milk the assets for personal profit, or to radically change the orientation. He replied:

"The first safeguard is that the directors are elected in staggered years, only one third in a given year. Also, the voting membership is closed a month before a membership meeting. It would be very difficult for any group to organize a coup at any one meeting.

"Next, although it is not enshrined in the by-laws, our officers and directors receive no pay and no perks of value.

"Next, all directors must be voting members with contracts and funding in place.

"Next, prospective directors receive careful scrutiny, especially those without a long term record of involvement in cryonics. Any red flags would make election unlikely. CI has a very low turnover of directors.

"Next, in case of any alarm bells, the membership have the final say, and can remove directors.

"Next, any radical change requires more than a simple majority of directors or of the membership. Finally, it only takes two directors to challenge any non-customary action, per the following article of the by-laws":

Any group comprising five percent (5%) of the voting members, or five voting members, whichever is greater, or two members of the Board of Directors, can delay any new or non-customary action by the Board or by the officers of the corporation, on the grounds that it is not justified by the corporate purposes.

Following any such petition, the Secretary shall call a meeting of the membership as soon as it is feasible. At such a meeting, a majority of the voting members present shall be sufficient to override the action, if a quorum is present. If a quorum is not present, the action shall be further delayed until a meeting is held at which a quorum is present or until a petition supporting the action signed by a majority of the voting members is presented to the Board. No action contrary to Article II shall be authorized in any event.

Robert Ettinger

Apparently it is in Tokyo, where cemetery plots are priced up to $86,000. As reported in FLORIDA TODAY the city government started taking applications for 50 newly opened spots at Aoyama Cemetery, the first such sale in 43 years. Tokyo is notorious as the world’s most costly city, and skyrocketing real estate prices have filtered down to cemetery plots.

A city official said "this is a very reasonable price, as this is a very famous cemetery, so we expect a large number of people to apply. Smaller plots start at $30,000, with a 40 square foot plot going for $86,000.

The cemetery, famed for its flowering cherry trees and proximity to exclusive neighborhoods opened in 1874. The ashes of more than 110,000 people have been interred there, including many politicians, artists and actors.

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RESEARCH NOTES

Following are notes on some of the work done by Dr. Yuri Pichugin since our last report.

In general, the work involved rat brain slices, rat heads, and rat hearts. Brains are obviously in many ways the most important. Heads allow more information about results under actual conditions for an individual patient. Hearts are useful in that we have a quick and easy criterion of viability--whether the heart beats. (Lack of beating doesn't prove anything about degree of damage, but presence of normal beating is encouraging.)

More information was gathered about relative toxicity of various vitrification mixtures (VMs), on which we are not ready to provide specifics. Progress was made. In some cases hearts showed full viability after exposure to VM and then washout.

Much of Dr. Pichugin's work involves devising techniques of manipulation of small specimens, designing and building equipment. The problems include how to introduce the VM and how to ascertain the concentration in various parts or tissues. Here is a brief description of the procedure of cryoprotectant content determination in tissues:

Pieces of weight 0.1-0.2 gm were soaked in 0.4-0.5 ml of distilled water by periodic shaking for 24 hours at 4 deg C. After centrifugation at 2,000 rpm for 10 minutes, the refractive index of the supernatant was measured at 25 deg C, allowing calculation of the concentration. In the case of the hearts, the refractometric method was applied to four different parts of the heart, and showed the hearts completely saturated with the VM.

To work with rat heads it was necessary to design and make a device to hold a syringe and introduce solutions into rat heads automatically without use of the hands. Working with rat jugular veins is difficult, since they are fine and have thin walls. Instead, a method was developed using cannulation of the superior vena cava to collect effluents from the rat heads.

The rat model is far from ideal, once we get beyond brain slices, not least because the blood-brain barrier in rats is less permeable than in most other mammals. There may be some additional work with rats, but the future work is expected to turn mainly to other models.

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BRITISH SIX FEET UNDER

John de Rivaz reported on CryoNet that Barry Albin, CI’s European Funeral Director, is to appear on British television in six 1/2 hour "reality television" programs. The series started on Tuesday 22 July 8:30pm ITV1 (networked)

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From The Venturists:

We still have an opening for one worker at the Creekside Lodge in Arizona. We have 15 cabins & 4 lodge sleeping rooms, a dining room, Great room, two conference rooms, 34 acres of lush high desert grounds, surrounded by Federal and State lands ---- A Paradise. We are only 1 hour drive from Phoenix.

We hope to build a cryonics community in the area in a few years. You can take a hand in helping to change the world.

Great place for a single cryonicist or a cryonics couple. Drop me a line and let's talk. davidpizer@cableone.net

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On the 4th of July weekend I attended the joint annual conference ("gathering") of American Mensa and Mensa Canada in St. Paul, Minnesota where I gave a presentation on cryonics. Out of 1,400 attendees roughly one-in-a-hundred (about 14) attended my presentation.

Proponents of cryonics claim that low-temperature preservation of recently deceased persons may allow them to benefit from a future technology that has cured all disease and can rejuvenate people to a condition of everlasting youth. Ben Best will discuss recent technical advances that are making cryonics increasingly feasible. He will also address the controversy surrounding the desirability of cryonics if it proves feasible.

Hear about recent technical advances that are making cryonics – low temperature preservation of recently deceased persons -- increasingly feasible. The presenter also addresses the controversy surrounding the desirability of cryonics.

Given this description and my title (CAN CRYONICS SAVE YOUR LIFE?) I would expect that the only people who would attend would be those suffering from a "premature" terminal illness -- or concerned about someone near death.

In my informal questioning of people this was the unanimous perception of the purpose of cryonics -- life extension, rejuvenation or the prospect of enduring youth was not in anyone's awareness.

It is hard to tell, but only a couple of people out of those who attended my presentation showed a serious interest. One woman may have come to heckle. She said that her San Francisco Mensa group had learned that a couple of cryonics companies had gone out of business in the last two years because of the power problems in California -- with the implication of a Chatsworth-like disaster for the patients in storage.

I decided that she might be talking about CryoSpan. I reminded her of what I had said about patients being stored in "thermos bottles" not vulnerable to short-term power loss. And I told her that I had been personally instrumental in negotiating the safe transfer of patients from CryoSpan to Alcor.

In general, I was surprised & disappointed by the lack of technophilia of those attending the conference. There was surprisingly little reference-to or interest-in computers.

The quality of the presentations was in general poor, but there were some excellent ones on sex and on game theory. There were also some quite interesting people there, but I was feeling very tired, discouraged and not inclined to spend time or energy socializing.

Instead I went to the excellent Science Museum and to the Mall of America. The Science Museum had a cryogenics demonstration with no mention of cryonics (unlike a similar demonstration I saw at the Ontario Science Centre where the presenter said that cryonics is a hoax because ice crystals destroy tissues).

Many Mensans love puzzles and intellectual games. I was inclined to indulge my introverted nerdy side and work on revisions/additions to the probability puzzles on my website – and add some comments about cryonics. For those interested the URL is:

http://www.benbest.com/science/theodds.html

Ben Best