CRYONICS UK

By GERAINT SMITH.

A chilling first prize - the chance to live twice - Competition winner to be deep frozen after death in hope of future resurrection.

AS competition prizes go, this is easily the most death-defying. A magazine is offering one of its readers a semi-permanent place in a hi-tech deep freeze and with it, a chance to live twice.

The winner of the competition by New Scientist will receive what is being billed as a "second chance at life, rather than the inevitability of death" - the full-body version of a process called cryonic preservation.

When the competition winner dies, their body will be taken to Michigan, in the United States, where the nonprofit making Cryonics Institute will put it into a specially insulated, double-walled fibreglass vessel insulated with special beads and preserve it indefinitely.

Their corpse will be filled with a form of antifreeze and cooled to a temperature where physical decay of the body stops - about minus 78.5C degrees, says the magazine.

"They will be suspended in liquid nitrogen, in a state known as cryonic preservation. When and if medical technology allows, he or she will then be revived and woken to extended life in youthful good health."

Maybe. It is a very slim chance, its proponents admit.

Even if the body is frozen immediately after death, the knowledge of how to repair all the damage caused by dying, freezing and thawing is not even close. Neither is the technology, which would have to be able to repair the body cell by cell, and blood vessel by blood vessel.

Several types of living creatures have, it is true, already been frozen to liquid nitrogen temperature and below, where they exhibited no signs of life and experienced no signs of decay. They were then restored to a functioning, normal life.

But the process has never worked on humans or any other mammals of higher intelligence yet, nor does a breakthrough seem imminent, despite millions of dollars being spent on making it a reality.

So, is this something with which the previously respectable New Scientist should be getting involved?

"Cryonics is a fringe science," admits Jeremy Webb, the magazine's editor.

"Dozens of people have been frozen. None of them have been brought back. I think that scientists are split down the middle about it.

"If I had to pay for cryonics I would not do it. But if I won it as a prize I would definitely do it. The thought of waking up in a couple of hundred years really appeals.

"I would not say it is tacky. New Scientist is known for its quirky sense of humour. This is right in line with that. It is intended to be partly humorous."

But in case the winner prefers something a little less postmodern and rather more immediately pleasant, the magazine is offering an alternative, truly science-based prize: a holiday to watch the stars at the British observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

"We are calling it the 'live now or later' competition," says Mr Webb.

The winner will be chosen randomly from readers who collect a series of vouchers in the magazine.

Buy now, live later

There are about 1,000 people worldwide including around 100 from Britain who have signed up to cryonics schemes, all of which are based in the United States. Alcor, one of the biggest cryonics companies, is in California.

Signing up costs $28,000 or about £18,000 - payable upon the person's death, normally by a life insurance policy.

The oldest patient currently in cryonic suspension is a Dr James Bedford, who was put in suspension in 1967.

Cryonics is not exactly mainstream science. Indeed, Nobel Prize winner Sir Peter Medawar once called such schemes "self-imposed fines for gullibility and vanity".

The 1973 Woody Allen comedy classic "Sleeper" turns on the idea of cryonics as do the recent "Austin Powers" movie hits.

It's a long shot, but I've paid up

ONE OF the most fervent British supporters of the cryonics system admits that pinning your hopes of longevity on this method is a gamble of extreme optimism.

"It is a small chance," says former teacher Chrissie de Rivaz, 62, from Cornwall, who chairs a "cryonic support group". She is one of about 100 people in Britain who have signed up for cryonic preservation.

"But if you're stuck in a hole in the ground to rot, or sent up the flue of a crematorium chimney, you don't have any chance at all," she added. "It costs about the same to sign up as a packet of cigarettes a day, and may have exactly the opposite effect."

(Copyright 2002).

Sources: EVENING STANDARD 19/09/2002