A FROZEN FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
Twenty seven people are banking on the idea that modern science will someday find or engineer a fountain of youth. Those 27 people, all deceased, are “patients” of the Alcor Life Extension Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona, where their bodies—or merely their heads!—have been frozen in liquid nitrogen at minus 320 degrees F awaiting the day when medical science discovers a way to make death and aging a thing of the past.
Ten of the patients paid $120,000 to have their entire body frozen. Seventeen of the patients paid $50,000 to have only their head frozen, hoping that molecular technology will one day be able to grow a whole new body from their head or its cells. It is called cryonics.
As you can imagine, cryonics has its share of critics and skeptics. And of course, Stephen Bridge, president of Alcor, cautions, “We have to tell people that we don’t even really know if it will work yet.”
Nevertheless Thomas Donaldson, a 50 year member
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