Could dead people frozen in liquid nitrogen be revived by future technology?

[Vexen]

Could dead people frozen in liquid nitrogen be revived by future technology?

[Itoero]

29 minutes ago, Vexen said:

Could dead people frozen in liquid nitrogen be revived by future technology?

It depends on future technology.

 

[CharonY]

A) Wrong topic, that has nothing to do with evolution (though understandably the nomenclature here is a bit all over the place).

B) No. Without precautions the freezing process itself leads to tissue degradation. One would need at least to avoid the formation of water crystal, which usually requires the involvement of some sort of antifreeze, but that, in turn, is usually fairly toxic itself. There are exceptions such as wood frogs who have cryprotectant mechanisms, but it goes beyond just dipping the in liquid nitrogen (which they don't survive).

Also, if already dead, the freezing won't really help.

[Itoero]

'Many' animals can survive freezing temperatures (like the water bear). So if we copy a mechanism into a human then maybe in the future we can find a technology in which people can survive being frozen.

[Samantha Priss]

I guess the only problem is whether the state of the brain's neurons can be recovered.

[Sensei]

On 3/4/2019 at 8:10 PM, CharonY said:

Also, if already dead, the freezing won't really help.

...unless future new technology will repair eventual damage...

 

[Samantha Priss]

6 minutes ago, Sensei said:

...unless future new technology will repair eventual damage...

They could probably grow all of the other parts. The only thing not predictable from DNA is the brain state.

[CharonY]

10 hours ago, Sensei said:

...unless future new technology will repair eventual damage...

 

The issue with such predictions is that obviously we do not have a real idea on what would be possible. Subcellular regeneration on that scale would be akin to immortality for example, so not sure how far one would want to expand the scope of OP.

 

On 3/9/2019 at 10:37 AM, Itoero said:

'Many' animals can survive freezing temperatures (like the water bear). So if we copy a mechanism into a human then maybe in the future we can find a technology in which people can survive being frozen.

Actually very few larger animals can do that. The water bear is a tiny organism, and certain frogs are a different example. But after that there are not a lot who are known to survive prolonged freezing time. 

 

10 hours ago, Samantha Priss said:

The only thing not predictable from DNA is the brain state.

Not so. Development is highly dependent on environmental cues, both pre- and post-natal. The genetic information is expressed dynamically, depending on the situation it finds itself in (which is the role of regulatory circuits).

[Itoero]

15 hours ago, CharonY said:

Actually very few larger animals can do that. The water bear is a tiny organism, and certain frogs are a different example. But after that there are not a lot who are known to survive prolonged freezing time. 

Is it known what damage the freezing water causes? Maybe there evolved/developed material of an organism that survives freezing damage….if proteins are elastic enough maybe they can survive it.

[Sensei]

1 hour ago, Itoero said:

Is it known what damage the freezing water causes?

Ice has smaller density that liquid water. i.e. the same mass but larger volume. Crystals growing inside of cells, are exploding cells, organelle, nucleus and tissue.

"The current state-of-the-art in cryopreservation is replacement of water with organic solvents, followed by rapid freezing to achieve an ice-free state, known as vitrification."

"Vitrification can also occur when starting with a liquid such as water, usually through very rapid cooling or the introduction of agents that suppress the formation of ice crystals. This is in contrast to ordinary freezing which results in ice crystal formation. Additives used in cryobiology or produced naturally by organisms living in polar regions are called cryoprotectants. Vitrification is used in cryo-electron microscopy to cool samples so quickly that they can be imaged with an electron microscope without damage.[11][12] In 2017, the Nobel prize for chemistry was awarded for the development of this technology, which can be used to image objects such as proteins or virus particles.[13]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrification

 

Edited March 26, 2019 by Sensei

[Bufofrog]

If in the future if a person could be dead for awhile and then could be brought back to life then there is a slight possibility it could happen.  Doesn't seem likely at all.

[zapatos]

43 minutes ago, Bestinati said:

To be honest, it sounds like science fiction, but I think it can be something else but not liquid nitrogen.

Why not liquid nitrogen?

[John Cuthber]

On 3/26/2019 at 11:30 AM, Itoero said:

Is it known what damage the freezing water causes? 

Get a strawberry.

Freeze it and then thaw it out.

[Bufofrog]

To be fair, there are frogs that can be at least partially frozen for 6 months and survive.  So based on that maybe, possibly sometime in the distant future it just barely concievable you could freeze someone and unfreeze them at a later date unharmed.

But dead people do not come back to life.  Freezing a dead guy isn't going to change the fact that he is dead.

[Ken Fabian]

I don't think people frozen when they die will ever be revivable. Freezing healthy live people would seem to give more likelihood of success - the frogs that survive freezing were live and healthy, not dead when they got frozen. But I expect the process will kill anyone who tries it. Any volunteers?

Until there are successful trials with mammals it is all speculation. I am not aware of any such successes.

Science fiction themes using cryonics to make interstellar travel in a single lifetime possible are common enough - with healthy people. Not always freezing is used, sometimes induce torpor or hibernation - which seems to me (with zero real knowledge) more achievable.

[squiggle]

I do not believe so.