When you’re 85 years old, you are aware that the Grim Reaper is somewhere in the vicinity and it might be time to incorporate a few delaying tactics. Sitting quietly in Section 109 and hoping he won’t notice you sometimes works, as does taking a different route from your house to Publix every week. A nice trapdoor into an alligator pit just inside the front entrance to your home is a thought and Reaper-proof socks that smell like Vieux Boulogne cheese would send anyone off at a run. Over the centuries, all civilizations have had to contend with the problem, some with better luck than others.
Chinese alchemists and European nobles such as Diane de Poitiers in the 16th century consumed gold and mercury to achieve immortality, believing that because gold did not decay it could prevent human deterioration. Someone should have told them that Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China tried it and died of mercury poisoning in 210 BC.
These days, death-defiers like Bryan Johnson on the West Coast are getting injections of young blood from twentyish donors. Pope Innocent VIII tried that in 1492, receiving blood from three young men, all of whom died in the process. So did Innocent not long after.
“Virginal Warmth” was once a thing. The practice was based on 1 Kings 1:1, where elderly regents like David were accompanied by young virgins in bed to transfer heat and vigor into a cold old body. If it didn’t work, well, who’s to complain?
Trepanning, the practice of drilling holes into the skull to allow evil spirits to escape, thereby extending life, once seemed like a good idea. Didn’t work, but some ancient skulls showed bone regrowth, indicating the patient survived the procedure. What’s left? Holding your breath? Moving to Venus? A Cloak of Invisibility? The Reaper is a diligent adversary with cheap transportation, a high success rate and a dearth of mercy, but an abundance of caution around demons, which he hates. So if you know any of the little devils, think about inviting them over for tea and a game of cribbage. If they like the surroundings, maybe they’ll stay. And you, too.
Baby, It’s Cold Inside
Cryogenics, the study of the effects of very low temperatures (-150 degrees Centigrade), began in the late 19th century with the liquefication of gas, notably oxygen in 1877. Pioneered by figures like Raoul Pictet, Louis Cailletet and James Dewar (inventor of the vacuum flask in 1892), it evolved from scientific curiosity into industrial gas manufacturing, supercomputing, medical preservation and rocket propulsion. In 1908, Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes successfully liquified helium at 4.2 K, allowing for experiments near absolute zero. In 1911, Onnes discovered that certain materials lose all electrical resistance at cryogenic temperatures. Cryogenic hardening of materials was discovered in the 1940s, increasing the lifespan of tools and putting some weird ideas into the brains of outlaw scientists. Finally, it happened: in 1967, Dr. James Bedford became the first human to be cryogenically preserved for future resuscitation.
James Bedford (1893-1967) was a University of California psychology professor who was fascinated by the possibilities of Cryogenics. Dying of kidney cancer but hoping for future revival, he volunteered to be the first person to undergo cryopreservation to escape imminent death. Following his demise, his body was immediately treated to keep blood flowing, then frozen using early methods and transported to a facility in Arizona. Over the decades Bedford’s body was moved from one storage facility to another as preservation techniques supposedly improved. James Bedford is easily the longest-surviving human being in terms of cryogenic preservation, having now rung up 57 chilly years. In the cryonics community, January 12 is celebrated as “Bedford Day.”
How Does It Work, Dr. Science?
Cryopreservation works by replacing body fluids with antifreeze agents to prevent ice damage and then cooling to approximately –196C using liquid nitrogen. The process stops biological decay by halting metabolic activity, allowing cells to enter a state of suspended animation known as vitrification, where liquids become a glassy solid rather than expanding ice crystals. The dead guy or gal is slowly cooled, often over several days, until the body reaches the desired temperature, then stored in a vacuum-insulated container known as a cryostat, which does not require electricity, ensuring long-term stability. Nobody wants his future annulled by a silly water oak tumbling onto an electrical wire.
Like any new venture, the early Cryogenics business had its ups and downs. Early efforts were plagued by disasters, including nine bodies decomposing in a Los Angeles crypt in 1979, a big oopsie in anybody’s book. There were also unhappy reports of “dying sludge” at some facilities and James Bedford’s 1991 examination found him with a collapsed nose and a cracked chest. He’ll be so disappointed when he wakes up to that annoying inconvenience.
Currently, the oldest company in the Cryocare business is Alcor Life Extension Foundation, which first appeared in the early seventies. Struggling with all those ungainly old bodies, the folks at Alcor came up with a new idea---preserving only the heads of new customers, the philosophy being that future tech would either regenerate the body or transfer the head or brain to a spanking-new one. Probably just as well---examinations of early thawees showed severe physical trauma, including snapped spinal cords and fractured hearts. Dr Bedford must be rolling in his cryostat.
If you’re looking for a Latter Day Saint of the Cryogenics persuasion, that would be one Bredo Morstol, who died of a heart condition in 1989. His loving daughter and grandson brought Bredo to the States for Cryogenic preservation and wound up in Colorado in 1993, where they stored the body in a Tuff Shed on dry ice. The Chamber of Commerce in Nederland, always looking to increase tourism, initiated Frozen Dead Guy Day in 2002, with events like coffin races, a polar plunge and a parade of hearses to honor “Grandpa Bredo.” In 2023, the festival was moved to Estes Park with headquarters at the famous Stanley Hotel, where Turkey Bowling has been added to the event card.
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| In Zuzalu, that's how conditions are. |
Others
Some immortality advocates view aging as a disease for which we have a moral responsibility to find a cure. Others believe everlasting life will ultimately come from humans uploading themselves to computers so they can live forever in digital form. Life expectancy has already doubled in the last 100 years, so with billions now being invested in longevity research there’s every reason to believe greater gains are possible. Here are some of the shenanigans today’s anti-aging pioneers are up to:
1. Stitching old and young mice together. No, really. Scientists Mike and Irina Conboy, trying to understand the role blood plays in how tissues age, decided to see what would happen to an old mouse when it received young blood. So they did what any curious young imps would do and stitched a few pairs of mice together. As the tissues healed and blood vessels formed, blood trickled from one animal to the other.
The results were compelling. The old mice became stronger and mentally sharper, and markers of age were reversed. Although the sample size was small, the Conboys’ findings were notable enough to be published in the peer-reviewed journals Science and Nature and have significantly influenced the longevity community.
2. Getting injected with young blood plasma. Inspired by the Conboys’ research, tech entrepreneur Bryan Johnson began getting injections of his 17-year-old son’s blood plasma. “I never imagined my little baby would grow up to be a life-extender, but that’s what is happening,” said Johnson. “Now I am giving blood to my father, as well.”
Several others jumped in, including a company called Ambrosia Plasma, led by Jesse Karmazin, which launched a clinical trial to find out whether young blood plasma really could reverse aging. Each subject received a single dose of plasma and was measured for about 100 blood markers before and 30 days after the treatment. Media hype followed and the treatment briefly grabbed the attention of some of the biggest tech billionaires. Karmazin claimed striking results but the trial’s findings were never published. In 2019, Ambrosia Plasma ceased operations after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration admonished that “Such treatments have no proven clinical benefits for the uses for which these clinics are advertising them and are potentially harmful.” Spoilsports.
3. Testing anti-aging drugs on dogs. Biotechnology start-up founder Celine Halioua is determined to find a drug that can treat aging. Because humans age so slowly, however, running a clinical trial would take decades and cost billions. So, that wily Celine has found an ingenious hack---her company plans to test longevity on canines instead. She claims “dogs develop the same age-related diseases we do at approximately the same time in their lifespan.” But because they don’t live nearly as long, Halioua believes she could see results from a drug within six to twelve months.
Another clever bit: until now, U.S. regulators have never approved trials on a drug for aging. Celine contends that if her plan is approved, it will illustrate that anti-aging medicine is a legitimate field and potentially open a route for future drug research in humans.
4. Creating a longevity city. Russian-Canadian cryptocurrency superstar Vitalik Buterin wanted to see if he could radically extend human life for everyone, so in March of 2023 he set up Zuzalu, an experimental pop-up city that brought together 200 of the brightest longevity minds for two months to tackle the problem of aging. Buterin sought to create a test space where like-minded people could collaborate and “work on possible treatments in a very structured way,” with the ultimate aim of exporting their discoveries to the world.
Zuzalu got people talking about how to accelerate the longevity movement and raised the idea of a potential “longevity state” built around a belief that humans can and should defeat aging and death. In such a place, innovation would be encouraged and barriers to research removed, creating a new kind of society.
5. Merging humans with machines. Professor Nick Bostrom of Oxford University thinks immortality lies in giving ourselves over to technology entirely. He contends that “radical life extension won’t come from medical research but will go instead through us first developing really powerful Artificial Intelligence and incidentally unlocking a lot of other radical possibilities for humanity, like uploading into computers.” Other Transhumanists agree with this more extreme agenda---merging entirely with machines. The notion covers everything from biohackers inserting microchips under the skin to tech startups working on replicating the human brain. True devotees believe this is the key to humans ultimately cheating death.
Meanwhile, the Grim Reaper smiles, picks his teeth and sits on a rock reading Walden. He has all the time in the world.
That’s all, folks….
