NEWS & VIEWS

Cryonics Institutes President’s Report

Despite earlier announcements many of our Members do not understand our newer funeral director policies, so I want to emphasize this as my first item. NOTE WELL!

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Funeral directors are no longer asked to do washout or perfusion of any kind. Funeral directors should inject the patient with heparin, apply CPR-like chest compressions for at least 5 to 10 minutes. The patient should be cooled and shipped to Michigan as soon as possible. Asking funeral directors to do perfusions and washouts has resulted in shipping delays will worsen problems by causing reperfusion injury for patients who have not had a Standby (almost all patients).

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All Members should now be aware that the Cryonics Institute is close to being approved as a 501(c)13 tax-exempt cemetery. The one thing standing in our way is the provision of our By-Laws and Articles of Incorporation allowing for distribution of Membership payments (Option One and Option Two) to Members if CI dissolves. Proxies have been mailed to Voting Members for approval of this change. Membership dues are normally non-refundable, but dissolution of CI would be an extraordinary situation which we hope will never occur before our patients are reanimated. Members are strongly urged to vote for the change in our By-Laws and Articles.

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A few Members wondered if the non-refunding assets to Members upon dissolution would apply to pre-payment funding. Definitely not! Pre-payments are a liability of the Cryonics Institute. CI cannot claim as assets payment for services that have not been rendered. Prepaid money is held in a separate (non-checking) bank account and is not mixed with CI assets. Prepaid money is invested entirely in US Treasury Bills (the most liquid securities in the world) and could be entirely refunded to Members on short notice.

The research work that CI staff cryobiologist Dr. Yuri Pichugin did at UCLA before coming to CI was published in the April 2006 issue of the peer-reviewed journal CRYOBIOLOGY: "Cryopreservation of rat hippocampal slices by vitrification" Pichugin Y, Fahy GM, Morin R. (Cryobiology 2006 Apr;52(2):228-40). The paperis available on-line as a PDF file

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An in-person Directors'/Advisors' meeting was held at the CI Facility at the end of March. Our financial position is looking good and tax-exempt status will make things better. We have decided again that there will be no increase in Cryopreservation Fees at the present time, but the matter will continue to be reviewed.

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Our 73rd patient was a post-mortem, autopsied patient who was straight-frozen and shipped to us in dry ice. Her son was aware that her chances for reanimation are much worse than for the typical cryonics patient, but he felt that a small chance is still better than no chance.

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We now have six candidates for the four open Board of Director positions being contested next September. Proxies will be mailed to Voting Members in August.

If you are want to be a Director candidate, please submit a short candidacy statement (100 words or less) before August 11, 2006.

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Another appeal is being made to contest British Columbia's anti-cryonics law and to ensure that BC funeral directors know that they can assist in a cryonics case with impunity. CI Member Charles Grodzicki has been leading this effort. See Pg 20 of the link.

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There will be no Potluck Dinners scheduled for the foreseeable future. In talking to people I had the impression that as many as 15 might come for the February potluck, but only 3 people (aside from myself) came. I thought that the March Potluck could not fail because I timed it to coincide with the Directors'/Advisors' meeting, but the only people who came were those who were here because of the meeting.

As of 28-Apr-2006 the Cryonics Institute had 584 Members, 250 of whom were fully funded with contracts (4 of the 250 funded Members had contracts with Suspended Animation).

The breakdown of Membership by country and Finding/Contracts is as follows):

COUNTRY------FUNDED/CONTRACT/TOTAL

Last year there were more than 73,000 cars stolen in Los Angeles, more than in any other American city. But the future doesn’t look too bright for LA car thieves. The Los Angeles Police Department has begun testing digital license plate readers. The $20,000 system consists of two sets of cameras mounted on the squad car’s roof, two more pointing out the rear window, a processing system in the trunk, and a Dell Laptop on the dashboard.

The system can take a photo, read the plate number, and process up to 240 plates a minute. When the system spots a stolen car, the photo of the car freezes on the screen and a voice says "stolen vehicle, stolen vehicle." Commenting on the new technology, one commander said "this is a big piece of the force’s push into the 21^st century. It will have as dramatic effect on police work as the radio did in the 40s and 50s. It’s essentially doing the work of 10 pre LPR patrol cops." Four companies are competing for the exclusive contract. Similar trial programs are under way in Florida, New York, Ohio, Connecticut, and Arizona. Adapted from WIRED

Ask any homeowner in the country what their biggest problems with lawns are, and it’s a pretty sure bet you’d hear "watering, maintenance and weeds". Jim Hagedorn, CEO of ScottsMiracle-Gro says he has the answer.

Over the past decade, biotechnology has revolutionized agriculture. In 2005, 13 per cent of US farmland was planted with bio-tech crops - primarily corn, soybeans, and cotton. The amount of pesticide used on crops shrunk by 34 percent from 2003 to 2004. That’s 15.6 million pounds of chemicals not going on fields because biotech crops don’t need much herbicide. What if grass were engineered to require less water, fertilizer and pesticide? What if it required fewer trimmings by carbon monoxide spewing mowers? What if grass were customizable? (GM) Genetically Modified grass is coming and Hagedorn plans on being first to sell it. Ibid

WE’RE LIVING LONGER!

Listen to Aubrey!