From: Alex F. Bokov (alexboko@umich.edu)
Date: Fri Sep 13 2002 - 11:30:59 MDT
Lydia, I hope you don't mind if I cc my pals on the Extropian mailing
list with this. I think they might have something interesting to say
about all three topics I address here.
1992?! Wow! Trouble is, I can't find any specifics on the frozen
baboon experiment. A published journal article would be most credible,
but then this is corporate research so maybe they didn't publish at
all. If that is the case, I still need to know the names and
credentials of the researchers reporting these results. So, I think
I'll call BioTime up on the phone (once it's business hours,
California time) and see if they can tell me. I'm sure there is some
element of truth to this, I just don't know how exaggerated it
is. What surprises me is, if they are able to do that already, then
cryonics would be front-page news by now, and Congress would be busy
banning it. We'll see.
By the way, here's a good book:
At The Bench
A Laboratory Navigator
Kathy Barker, The Rockefeller University
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
ISBN: 0-87969-523-4
...it may be less useful to you than to me because you're a more
'physically oriented' scientist, but it might still have some useful
information. Basically, it talks about lab techniques that are widely
used, but gives you the little details and subtleties of best practice
that are normally not taught and just written off as being a 'knack'
or a matter of 'good hands'.
By the way, have you been listening to the news? About the
'terrorists' in Florida getting pulled over on the highway? I wanted
to go on record predicting what happens next so you will see again how
brilliant I am and how nice my genes must be:
1) The students really are terrorists... but they have been doing
absolutely nothing wrong... except diverting the attention of the
police and the media while the cell that is really designated to be
the active one will carry out some kind of massive bombing in an
unexpected location or at an unexpected time. This is the less likely
scenario.
2) The students really are terrorists... but they're not out to blow
anything up in the literal sense. Rather, they are out to embarass the
government for assaulting individuals who have done absolutely nothing
wrong. In the process they might be able to raise some cash for their
cause by means of a nice, hefty lawsuit. This implies that the
terrorists see it as being to the benefit of their cause to undermine
the government's security measures, so I'm assigning this only a
medium likelihood.
3) The students are actually *patriots*, shilling for the ACLU or some
other civil liberties group. In order to strike down the Patriot Act,
set a legal precedent for limiting the powers of the executive branch,
etc. there first has to be a case to take to court. They're providing
this case. I'm assigning this a medium-high likelihood because I have
a hard time believing that people smart enough to think of this
wouldn't already be too busy with other things to do it.
4) We won't know which of the above is actually the case because the
police will plant whatever evidence will be necessary to save them
from embarassment. Carefully watch their story for inconsistancies as
it unfolds! This is, IMO, the most likely outcome. In fact, if we
think a little more, we can even predict the sort of evidence that
will be planted based on what the authorities would expect to be most
credible to the public. I'm assigning this high likelihood.
The one thing that I am damn sure will not happen is this simply being
what it appears to be on the surface. Terrorists don't sit down in
some road-side diner and talk to each other IN ENGLISH about what
they're going to do. Oh, one more thing--
...hmmm.
On Fri, 23 Aug 2002, Lydia Maria Bilinsky wrote:
>
> Apparently, in 1992 a company named BioTime, which makes a
> blood-substitute with antifreeze properties, replaced a baboon's blood
> with their product and had it frozen at 10 below 0 Celcius for an hour,
> before reviving it; apparently it was O.K. What surprises me is that I
> assume there was still water in the animal's brain, and yet that didn't
> freeze, expand, and destroy the brain as you'd expect to happen when
> you're below the freezing point of water. It seems that they should freeze
> kids and young people with terminal diseases--I realize the main
> motivation is old peole not wanting to die, but their bodies are a mess
> already, aside from freezing damage. I recall that Feynman's first wife
> Arlene died in her twenties from TB, which was cured maybe 15 years later:
> a real tragedy. It would be great if we could freeze these young and
> otherwise healthy people until the time when they could be cured. I can't
> imagine anyone having a problem with that.
>
> Lydia
>
>
>
-- * I believe that the majority of the world's Muslims are good, * * honorable people. If you are a Muslim and want to reassure me and * * others that you are part of this good, honorable majority, all * * you need to say are nine simple words: "I OPPOSE the Wahhabi cult * * and its Jihad." *
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