Can you freeze humans

Alternatively, they can consider being awoken when we can upload our consciousness to computers, and we won't need our flesh-prisons. I hear that day is near. Cryonics is the idea that you can use extremely low temperatures to preserve humans and animals through cryogenic freezing.

It's basically like the premise of Futurama, but without the egg timer. However, the procedure is controversial, and the only humans that have been revived after cryogenic freezing are living embryos. The process would probably kill an adult.

In Switzerland, though, that could potentially be passed off as "euthanasia. According to Tsolakides, the company already has 32 members who will one day preserve their bodies with Southern Cryonics. It will then be packed in ice and injected with heparin, an anticoagulant, to prevent blood clots. Water will then be removed from the cells of the body and replaced with a glycerol-based chemical called Cryoprotectant or human antifreeze.

Ice crystals could damage the intricate structure of the cells. We do a lot of that. Cryopreservation may also one day aid in the treatment of common cancer. The youngest cryogenically frozen person. Frozen body: Can we return from the dead? In pictures: Frozen in time. Image source, Thinkstock. It looks like a futuristic film set - but it is also the inside of a cryogenic freezer farm. How unlikely? What happens to the body?

And the big question is, do the solutions work that are currently used in people who are frozen by cryonics companies? According to proponents of cryonics, their solutions work, but experts doubt it.

The solutions do not penetrate the cells or 'solve' damage. They are hella-dead and scrambled," says Dr. Kenneth Storey, a physiologist at Carleton University who works with wood frogs. For the sake of argument, let's assume scientists are able to revive a person frozen for hundreds of years. Then what? This is one of many questions raised recently in the case of a year-old girl, called JS, who died of a rare form of cancer.

JS made the news in when she won a court battle that allowed her to be cryopreserved after her demise. Her parents are betting on the long shot that, someday, science may be able to revive her and cure her cancer. But, what if it works? What world would JS wake up to? Who will look after her then? Will she have family then? Or funds in the bank to support her?

These questions are impossible to answer accurately, as anything could happen in a few hundred years. Also, you could imagine a more pessimistic outcome. What if, after hundreds of years frozen, there is some neurological damage.

Then you would wake up trapped in an unresponsive body, in a coma or in an otherwise disabled condition. This precedent also raises the concern that other families will look into cryonics as a viable option for their dying child. However, right now, the science behind cryonics is basically non-existent. So unlike the nifty wood frog, the most likely outcome is that none of these frozen individuals will ever wake up.

Explore further. This article first appeared on Particle , a science news website based at Scitech, Perth, Australia. Read the original article. More from Biology and Medical. Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form.

For general feedback, use the public comments section below please adhere to guidelines.