Re: MEDIA: Cryo article in Jan 31 Wall St. Journal

Hara Ra (harara@shamanics.com)
Thu, 06 Feb 1997 21:24:58 -0800


> The front page center column (normally odd little stories) of Friday's
> Wall Street Journal has a report on the cryonics industry, with particular
> coverage of Paul Wakfer and Dr. Olga Visser. Mr. Wakfer is president of
> Cryospan and organizer of the Prometheus Project which would attempt to
> demonstrate revival of a central nervous system.

Paul is stuck at about $300K in pledges cuz he's now tapped everybody
who
is into cryonics. When asked at a Bay Area Cryo meeting about his
motivation
it was to the effect that a successful revival would spark interest in
cryonics. I'm in the nanotech camp myself and see little point to the
Promethius project. IMHO it will take far more than $1M in research to
accomplish the putative task, and it may actually not be possible.

> Dr. Visser is a South
> African researcher who claims to have revived a rat's heart after cooling to
> liquid nitrogen temperatures in a secret preservative solution.
>
> The Journal reports that Dr. Visser's work is going to be examined and
> possibly replicated by her at this weekend's Alcor festival in Arizona.
>
Two hearts, two failures. Turns out that the demo prior to the festival
involved 60 seconds immersion, not 17-20 minutes. Visser claims 45
minutes
in South Africa but there are questions re the apparatus used. It is not
clear that 60 seconds results in anything like LN2 temperatures in the
heart,
and a small crack across the neurons in the heart would prevent revival.
IMHO
Visser goofed on the first law of demos: CHANGE NOTHING!

The reason she tried the 17 minutes is that Paul Segal of Biotime told
her
the previous day that he would believe her results if a minimum of 15
minutes
immersion were done and she agreed to do this (I was there, heard the
discussion).

Secret preservative solution apparently discussed in last week's
Cryonet, I
didn't notice (2am hardly conducive to readign caarefullalydyt.,.. :-))

> The company Biotime (BTIM, NASDAQ small cap stocks) in Berkeley,
> California, is said to be "getting back" a "decent percentage" of the
> hamsters that it plunges into a freezing bath and reheats.

Did successful demo of this last year, cooled to around -2 C. Was there,
saw it, etc. Plunge into freezing bath NOT the technique used.

> [Remember that
> hamsters have a stong hibernation reflex, while humans have only a limited
> hibernation capacity, in cold water for instance.]

Not relavant here. Ask me when we are face to face and I can give more
details.

> Biotime is testing a
> proprietaty solution to dilute blood in surgery, organ preservation, and
> other human applications.

Hextend, going into FDA trials with human subjects. I have prospectus of
latest stock rights describing in detail. I bought at 5, currently at
32.5.

This weeks cryo meeting at Ralph Merkle's house. How about coming to
the meeting??

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| Hara Ra <harara@shamanics.com> |
| Box 8334 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 |
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