About
You're viewing one of 40,739 blog entries. Click here to read some more.
Other views
Recent Comments
Comments By...
Last 100 Entries
Read Chronologically
Random Entry
Random Image
View by Category
Mobile Edition
Ad
Friday, 06 November, 2009
Bigfoot Dewar
(with comments)
What's a Bigfoot Dewar?
It's
a device used by the Alcor Life Extension
Foundation.
Bigfoot Dewars are Alcor's primary patient care system. Dewars are stainless steel vacuum-insulated containers that hold liquid nitrogen (named after their inventor, Sir James Dewar, in 1885). Alcor's Dewars are called "Bigfoot" because of the large casters at the bottom. Each Bigfoot can hold four wholebody patients, or 10 neuropatients in each space that would otherwise be occuppied by a whole body patient.
A neuropatient, I think, consists of only a head.
Patients are maintained at a steady temperature of -196 degrees Celsius, immersed under liquid nitrogen, with no need for electricity. Approximately 15 liters of liquid nitrogen per day evaporates from a Bigfoot Dewar, which must be periodically replenished.
From their FAQ:
Q: Is it moral to deprive children of their inheritance?
A: A couple with two children that chooses cryonics is splitting their wealth four ways. A couple that chooses to have four children instead of cryonics is still splitting their wealth four ways. Since there is no moral outcry against couples having four children instead of two (thereby depriving their eldest children of a larger inheritance) there should be no moral concern about families choosing cryonics.
Q: What happens to the soul?
A: Humans have been successfully cryopreserved and revived as embryos. The state of the soul of a cryopreserved person would seem to be one of quiescent waiting.
Q: What is the Christian view of cryonics?
A: Cryonics is strongly consistent with the pro-life views of Christianity and other religions that value the sanctity of human life.
- By Miss Cellania. Comment posted 06-Nov-2009 @08:25am:My mother is busy depriving me of my inheritance every day!
More power to her. - By L.. Comment posted 06-Nov-2009 @08:48am:"strongly consistent" - what does that mean exactly then?
- By Don Coyote. Comment posted 06-Nov-2009 @11:07am:Cryonics sounds too much like an eternal Canadian winter to me. I'll pass. Think I'd rather roast in hell.
- By Shel-tone. Comment posted 06-Nov-2009 @11:14am:"A: Cryonics is strongly consistent with the pro-life views of Christianity and other religions that value the sanctity of human life."
Here is why every pro-life christian should protest graveyards. In the words of the late great Bill Hicks: "There are options!" - By decibelcat. Comment posted 06-Nov-2009 @11:27am:Dewar is my middle name. It's no wonder that when I was drinking, I liked Scot's whiskey.
- By Evil Klown. Comment posted 06-Nov-2009 @12:23pm:
... "There are options!"
Ha ha. Good one. - By Christopher. Comment posted 06-Nov-2009 @05:32pm:They say they've cloned some of these folk?
"A: Humans have been successfully cryopreserved and revived as embryos."
Does this mean I could've cloned Dad and reared him as my own?
Gives new meaning to Payback is a Bitch! - By Tom Woad. Comment posted 07-Nov-2009 @12:07am:
"A: Humans have been successfully cryopreserved and revived as embryos."
Does this mean I could've cloned Dad and reared him as my own?
Pardon my reticence, but I have difficulty believing that your Dad is an embryo.