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How can cryogenics be implemented and used in the future?

Cryogenics has been implemented in the maintenance and transport of food.

• The use of liquid nitrogen in deep freezers which can be sprayed and thus, when it evaporates, it freezes the interior. Gas nitrogen protects food against oxidation and rodents.
• Maintaining a steady temperature (so that food is not dehydrated).
• Easy control of the desirable temperature.

Cryogenic medicine

• Cryobiology: the study of low temperatures on living organisms.
• Cryogenic surgery: the use of a frozen catheter instead of scalpel.
• Ophthalmology: the removal of the retina.

Space applications

Freezing systems and fuel elements.

Future applications

• Transport and distribution of solar energy.
• Cancer therapy, fertility increase.

  Cryogenic fuel: no smoke, very little air pollution and water contamination.

Cryogenics from the point of view of ethics

We see that science has got a point of trying, for the present at least, to increase human life-span. Scientists, especially those in this field, are very enthusiastic. But what do the common people believe? What is their opinion on the idea that science promises to resurrect, at our will, the dead body?

Here opinions vary depending mostly on the age of the person and their opinions on many issues, like religion and science. It also depends on how each person is to accept such scientific ideas.

Most men and women, about the age of 45 and over, had a negative opinion. Some of them stated that this would be a good idea for some people who have left life early. For themselves, however, they didn’t like the idea. Still there were some people that were enthusiastic about it.

We asked people of different ages and sexes and according to their opinions we came up with the following categories:

From the people about the ages of 30-40 years old we had more or less the same positive and negative opinions. Some people considered the subject very cautiously, some very negatively and some others warmed up to the idea very much.

The younger people aged 20-30 were especially enthusiastic once they were informed about what cryogenicsinvolves. As a matter of fact, they supported their opinion stating that many young people die without reasonand that this would be a good way to start over again one day.

Most teenagers didn’t have much to say either way. They seemed to be afraid of the issue, probably because it was the first time they heard about it and they weren’t ready.

As it appears, each age category had its own opinion. But everyone, regardless of sex and age, asked the same question: What about God? So far we have believed that when God wantedsomeone with Him, He took him. We said that it was His will. Could it now be possible for cryogenics, or more generally science, to go against the will of God? Maybe God is expecting something like that from humans so that He makes them realize that they can’t run away from their biggest fear, death. Or could this be the beginning of the end of our understanding that someday we’re going to die and we have no knowledge of death.

Whatever may happen, whether they use the science of cryogenics or not, it’s a decision that an individual will make when scientists present that phenomenon in its finished form, and each person is to choose between mortality and immortality.

Man in his long-lasting course has almost managed to harness death and prolong his lifespan, thus achieving what would sound like science fiction. However, is it right to go against nature? Can it be that, despite all his efforts, man will end up doing what he is bound to? We don’t have the answer yet. Time and the results will show us whether it is worth investing on Cryogenics or whether we shall in the end accept nature’s mortality, thus letting nature complete its circle, driving us to the absolute unknown: Death.

Iconography

• www.genciencia.com
• www.esrf.fr viomundo.globo.com
• www.airliquidesanita.it/.../17_CRIOGENIA1.jpg
• www.otago.ac.nz
• www.powerlabs.org
• www.watchblog.com

Bibliography

• www.cryogenicsociety.org
• www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/cryogenic/cryogen1.html
• www.brymill.com www.cryonics.org

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