• Question: If we froze ourselves would we be able to unfreeze and live in later years?

    Asked by issymaple to Aled, Ellie, Fiona, Kev, Willem on 10 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Kevin Arbuckle

      Kevin Arbuckle answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      The idea of Futurama is not quite as unbelievable as you might think. At least in theory this is possible, in fact, many animals (including some frogs) are able to freeze their entire bodies over winter and defrost the following summer.

      Walt Disney was actually frozen in the hope that he may be brought back in the future (with a cure for the disease he had), but at the moment it can only be done for so long – so no more ‘original’ Disney cartoons. Also, I’m not sure if we have the technology yet to thaw out a living body when it is frozen.

      I guess the short answer is that it might well be possible, but not quite yet.

    • Photo: Willem Heijltjes

      Willem Heijltjes answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Just to add to what Kevin said:

      The problem with freezing someone is that if you turn the water in your body into ice, it forms sharp crystals that can kill your cells. Some plants and animals can survive freezing because they make a special anti-freeze, which makes the ice crystals smaller and less dangerous. If we can get our own, human, anti-freeze, then we will be able to freeze people without breaking anything.

      All we then have to do, is learn how to unfreeze them again 😉

    • Photo: Eleanor Parker

      Eleanor Parker answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Adding on from Kevin and Willem, we can actually freeze cells without destroying them. The trick is to freeze them with a freeze protective agent (usually DMSO or glycerol) and then freeze them very slowly until they are very very cold (usually down to minus 170 degrees C). This prevents the water crystals from forming and killing the cells. To defrost you do the reverse, thawing slowly and slowly reducing the protective agent.
      The problem is with a whole human, there is so many different types of cells that it is hard to get the speed of the defrosting right. No one has successfully defrosted a human yet but other organisms have been. For example embryos are often frozen and thawed later for implantation and grow into healthy babies.
      A lot of people choose to be frozen like this so they can be brought back in the future, but I think Walt Disney is actually just a legend, he’s buried in Southern California I think with his wife. Which is a shame, I like the story of him being frozen!

    • Photo: Fiona Heesen

      Fiona Heesen answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      Hi issymaple,

      Thanks for the question – I really can’t add anything, as I didn’t know myself! Nice to read answers from others though, I now think I learned something as well!

      Fiona

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