"It may seem fantastic, but the fact that in aqueous solution, [the] water component can be slowly supercooled to the glassy state and warmed back without the crystallization implies that, in principle, if the suitable cyroprotectant is created, cells in plants and living matter could withstand a large supercooling and survive," Bogdan explained. In present cyropreservation, the cells being preserved are often damaged due to freezing of water either on cooling or subsequent warming to room temperature.
(Via Betterhumans.)
Ironically enough, "Singularitarianism" has been mostly ambivalent to cryonics. The reasoning seems to be that since immortality is imminent, the use of cryogenic technology as a temporal ambulance is, at best, dated -- and, worse, an outright admission of defeat.
Of course, it's neither of these things. Cryonics remains a viable prospect for research with the capacity to yield some helpful surprises. Certainly we should strive to conquer the aging process in our own lifetimes -- but we must concede the possibility of failure, despite the stark disappointment this is likely to sow among a transhumanist community increasingly self-convinced that a Kurzweilian future is only twenty years away.
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