The company proposing Australia's first cryonics lab has gained approval to build in Holbrook, southern NSW, and plan to begin freezing and stories bodies next year. <\/p>\n
Approval has been granted for the world's second cryonics facility outside the United States to be built in Holbrook. <\/p>\n
Building is set to start now the plans have been given the tick by Greater Hume Shire Council and by next year Southern Cryonics plans to begin storing and freezing dead bodies in the expectation that in the future science will be able to bring them back to life. <\/p>\n
Company secretary Matt Fisher and his team of four had hoped to unveil a facility in 2014 under the company name Stasis Systems, but ran into difficulties. <\/p>\n
In the intervening years, despite there still being no scientific guarantee of revival, Australians had warmed to the idea of cryonics. <\/p>\n
\"We have had quite a lot of people express interest, perhaps a dozen at this stage, that want to sign up as clients once we are up and running,\" he said. <\/p>\n
A price has not been set for the service but Mr Fisher said whole body preservation would cost $A80,000-$90,000. <\/p>\n
The facility will have the capacity to store 40 bodies in 10 specialised stainless steel vessels. <\/p>\n
It is hard to get a clear picture of how many people have been cryopreserved to date as there is no system of recording this information. However, there are estimated to be several hundred in the US and Russia where facilities exist. <\/p>\n
It has been a long road, but Mr Fisher said it was essential to find an appropriately zoned site for cemetery and mortuary use, in a location with low risk of disaster and bushfire. <\/p>\n
Safeguarding the facility was a priority, as was developing a corporate structure to survive as long as the built one. <\/p>\n
Greater Hume Council general manager Steven Pinnuck said there were no objections to the development but to satisfy the terms of the approval, Southern Cryonics needed to seek licenses from NSW Health to hold and store remains on site. <\/p>\n
\"It is certainly a different type of activity. We are quite comfortable with it,\" he said. <\/p>\n
\"It's going to be in an industrial area and as it turns out, it will be almost adjacent to the local cemetery so we don't see it as being out of character with the area.\" <\/p>\n
\"The patient has to be declared legally dead for any cryopreservation procedures to begin,\" Mr Fisher said. <\/p>\n
\"The patient is put in an ice bath and medications are administered to prevent blood clotting.\" <\/p>\n
Bodies are brought down to dry ice temperature (-78.5 Celsius) as a temporary phase. <\/p>\n
\"Once they get to the facility, Southern Cryonics would take over and bring that down further to liquid nitrogen temperature which is -196 Celsius.\" <\/p>\n
The rule of thumb with cryonics was the faster the better and the colder the better. <\/p>\n
The focus of cryonics is to preserve the brain to the highest fidelity so deaths with trauma to the brain or head or degenerative conditions such as dementia were problematic. <\/p>\n
Mr Fisher said while there were known concerns which would limit the success of a possible future revival, clients would not be medically assessed by Southern Cryonics. <\/p>\n
The elderly and others with illnesses had made inquiries but Mr Fisher said a growing number of young people were keen to know more, particularly as it was soon to be a real third end-of-life option. <\/p>\n
Mr Fisher, a software engineer, had his father's brain frozen - or what's called neurally coded - at a facility in Sydney. <\/p>\n
His passion for cryonics stems from the assumption that medical technology will improve to the point where people can live \"in a healthy physical state in perpetuity\", meaning theoretically that life expectancy would become open-ended. <\/p>\n
\"Anyone who has died in the years leading up to that point is going to miss out on the amazing opportunity of experiencing being fit and healthy for however long that they want to,\" he said. <\/p>\n
\"I would like to be on the other side of that transition and want everyone I know and care about to be on the other side of that transition as well.\" <\/p>\n
The story Building set to start on Australia's first cryonics lab first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald. <\/p>\n
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Building set to start on Australia's first cryonics lab - Cowra Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The company proposing Australia's first cryonics lab has gained approval to build in Holbrook, southern NSW, and plan to begin freezing and stories bodies next year. Continue reading