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The Why Factor: Cryonics

Cryonics

27/01/2017 GMT

BBC World Service - The Why Factor, Cryonics

Why do some people choose to be frozen at death, hoping to be brought back to life?

Why would anyone spend tens of thousands of dollars to have their body frozen at death, in the hope of being brought back to life sometime in the future?  Could it ever happen?

Can deep-frozen bodies ever return from the dead?   Before death you can express a choice about what happens afterwards.  Burial perhaps?  Cremation?  Or something else?  Maybe you could ask for your body to be pumped full of anti-freeze, then suspended, upside down, in a vat of liquid nitrogen at 196 degrees below zero, in the hope that the medicine of the future can resurrect you.    Is this wishful thinking or the secret to a very, very long life?  

Mike Williams explores the science, the motivation and the ethics behind cryonics and asks whether frozen human bodies will ever be fit for a new life. 

Contributors: 
Peggy Jackson, hospice social worker 
Robin Hanson, associate professor of economics, George Mason University, USA
Danila Medvedev, co-founder and deputy director, KrioRus
Barry Fuller, professor of surgical sciences and low temperature medicine, University College London Medical School
Clive Coen, professor of neuroscience, King's College, London
Nils Hoppe, professor of ethics and law in the life sciences, University of Hannover, Germany

Presenter: Mike Williams
Producer: Sally Abrahams

(Photo: Peggy Jackson and Robin Hanson.  Credit: BBC Copyright - contributors gave us permission to use this image)

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