Life as a popsicle
By Kevin Miller

OTTAWA — It’s the stuff of science fiction and pseudo-scientific websites. The idea of freezing people and then thawing them out decades, if not centuries, later sounds like something out of an episode of Star Trek.

But the truth is, people are having their bodies frozen right now in the hopes of being brought back to life at a later date when their illness has been cured or scientists have found the fountain of youth.

However, according to Dr. Kenneth Storey, a cryobiologist at Carleton University, the reality is that while deep-freezing may eventually work for organ transplants and storage, it will never work for entire bodies.

Storey regularly suspends individual cells at his lab (a process called vitrification) but he says the problem occurs during the thawing process.

Dr. Kenneth Storey disagrees with claims that people will one day be able to revive frozen bodies.

This same vitrification process is what cryonics proponents believe will save DNA in frozen cells. They are relying on future advancements to provide the technology to thaw the bodies without damage.

The current thawing process destroys the cell at what Storey calls the “moment of reckoning.” This is when the temperature is at the right level to form ice which destroys the cell and turns it into useless genetic mush.

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