A British pensioner says he wants to have his body frozen after death in the hope that future generations will one day be able to bring them back to life.

The unnamed 73-year-old, from Nottingham, has signed up to a programme that allows customers to be cryogenically frozen soon after death.

Their body will then be cooled and transported to the US where it will be placed in liquid nitrogen at a chilling temperature of -196C in a facility in Arizona, operated by the firm Alcor.

The scientific procedure is described as "life extension" and patients are put in "pause" before returning to humanity potentially thousands of years in the future when it is technologically and scientifically possible.

The man said: "The number of people signing up to cryonics isn't booming but it is increasing all the time, it has been for many years.

"Most people are taking up the option because there is less belief in religion these days and there's a gradual realisation that with the constant advances in science, cryonics will work.

"It is advancing at an exponential rate, it always has.

"Compare the time from the discovery of electricity or the invention to mobile phones to now, and then look to the end of this century.

"The advantage is extending your life for possibly a very long time. It's a way of taking advantage of technology that will be available in the future.

"Part of our role with Cryonics UK is to help you get there by cooling your body down as quickly as possible and doing our best to preserve it by using cryogenic preservatives to replace the blood and most of the water in your body so you won't suffer ice crystals in your brain, though in the future there will probably be a way of getting around that.

"Then we put your body in a large casket with dry ice that's minus 79 degrees and ship it off to America."

The British man's body will stored by Alcor, a firm specialising in 'life extension'. According to the company, the process is not new with people trying to prolong their lives since as far back as the 1960s.

Their services are not cheap, with the majority of patients usually needing a life insurance policy of $200,000 (150,000) for a "whole-body cryopreservation or $80,000 (60,000) for neuro cryopreservation".

It is vital the procedure begins within the first minute or two after the heart stops beating.

Alcor says: "Longer delays place a greater burden on future technology to reverse injury and restore the brain to a healthy state, and make it more uncertain that the correct original state can be determined.

"Except for embryos, no human has ever been revived from temperatures far below freezing."

See more here:
Brit pensioner plans to freeze his own corpse in hopes of being revived centuries later - Daily Star

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