Cryopreservation - the freezing fountain of youth is under fire

The word cryobiology is derived from the Greek words 'cryo' meaning 'cold', 'bios' meaning 'life' and 'logos' meaning 'study of' or 'science'.

Today cryobiology is a tangible branch of biology that studies the effects of living things in extreme below freezing temperatures.


Behind the frozen veneer of cryobiology life extension innovation
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There are many distinctions in the cryo-science practice and the freezing of non-living matter, but in cryobiology the main focus is in the study of preserving life in biological matter including proteins, cells, tissues, organs and organisms in their entirety.

The freezing temperatures in cryo-science may range from very cold, sub zero, hypothermic conditions to extreme temperatures of –300 °C.

As a result of the below freezing temperature measurement studies, scientists created a new temperature scale from the commonly known Fahrenheit and Celsius, which they call the Kelvin and Rankine scales: whereas –300 °C or –508 °F translates to -27 K (conversion calculator)

The field of research in cryobiology techniques, evolved procedures and emerging technologies is primarily focused on trying to achieve cryopreservation suspension and reanimation. In recent years, with support of emergency medicine, the basis that cryobiology may surpass organ transplantation and may have the ability to increase the length of a life may be slowly becoming a reality. However, behind the frozen veneer of life extension innovation lies the very cause of the opposition. The progressing cryobiology research of cheating death and extending the human lifeline is also the same reason for fueling a heated ethical debate with a strong opposition on the morality of cryo-science.

Many medical procedures today would not even be possible if it had not been for cryobiology. The newly evolved medical procedures in the cryobiology field have been successful in treating certain skin tissues from lesions, sustaining cell life and also improved quality of life with various new cryosurgery transplantation processes. Thus in essence, cryobiology is in fact already extending life. The ability to lengthen a person's life allowed many groups to surface as societies pursuing, funding and supporting cryonic suspension of humans. However, the belief that the length of life should not be tampered triggered other opposing parties hindering the research and the science of cryobiology altogether.

In addition to the ethics of meddling with mother nature and as cryobiology is being further explored, the complications of these processes are also becoming well known. Another supporting argument from the opposition to the science that is starting to surface is that any type of cryobiological procedure affects the cells and the surrounding areas causing, in many cases, extensive irreversible damage. In cryosurgery, the reported damage is almost equal to the success of the treatment for the problem. This damage on the cellular level can cause future problems that will require treatment producing a cryo-dependency cycle for the patient.

Damage may also occur in cryopreservation suspension where defects have been known to be caused by implications; the exact underlined cause is still unknown to the science. The cost of most cryobiological procedures is still very expensive and unless a payment plan similar to life insurance can be implemented, the price tag for prolonging one's life with cryobiology is too expensive for the average person to afford. The fact that there are not any successful resuscitations recorded for cryonics patients demonstrates the probability that the damage factor occurrence may be preventing reanimation of a frozen human being and to date it is still not possible.

While there is much controversy about whether cryobiology advancement is scientifically or ethically justifiable, it does offer the possibility of redefining mortality. As a result, several societies for cryobiology based on the life preservation theory have surfaced around the world through the years with members that date back to as early as 1964.

With the many important medical contributions of cryobiology being promoted in the field of organ transplantation and the high expectation of cryopreservation as a future technology, medical research may be the governing force in the cryobiology science that can sway the argument in favor of pursuing the research further despite the current set-backs

Science of Sex versus Love

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Is it is chance love or cold hard sex?

Science is proving that love, very much like sex, is in fact scientifically measurable:

The human brain looking for a compatible mate is predominately guided by the natural human evolutional cycle and this may remain a never changing constant in our psyche. Humans don't just mate with anyone, the human brain has a lot to do with the distinction of the overpowering passion for lustful sex and the potent emotion of romantic love.

The fact that both sexes of the intelligent human race want sex and love is well known but there is a third underlined notion in human sexuality that keeps it all together and it is usually camouflaged in law or disguised with cultural traditions: marriage (monogamous attachment). The natural urge to reproduce and populate the earth almost has no place in today's overpopulated planet making the quest for a monogamous relationship with a mate more complex and intertwined with social status, health, physical appearance and overall likability.

In the first beginning stages of attraction, it is believed, and often publicly displayed in society, that males are 'visually aroused' and that females are 'personality and character inclined'. Even though modern society has somewhat changed the mating ritual rules with the passing of time, and continues to do so, one thing is certain in the quest to psycho analyze sexual behavior: the basis of attraction still stems from a primitive urge to reproduce. The need to create healthy offspring and all the social conditions people perceive as normal may simply be a cumulative evolution from this innate instinct embedded in the wiring of the human behavioral brain. In psychology experiments with children, beauty (the basis of attraction) was defined with balanced facial symmetry and also body measurements seemed to play a crucial role in defining someone as pretty or handsome. In studies with adult men, the balanced size ratio of a waist and breasts ranked very high in the preferability choice where in studies with adult women a deep voice and broad shoulders were popular factors of finding someone attractive.

The statistical data supports scientific research that the hormonal development of the female body promotes features that males find favorable in their quest to reproduce; women whose oestrogen hormones helped produce pronounced hips and breast also physically have the likelihood of bearing healthy children and the ability to provide ample breast milk to feed them. Men whose testosterone have favored them with a masculine voice and muscular physiques statistically have stronger immune systems that promotes them to their females counterparts as a wise choice for a mate with a promise of a plausible ability to give them healthy strong children.

For this reason the human body is determined by hormones making the human physique, in essence, an upright walking billboard for reproductive sex but it doesn't stop there, scientists conducted several experiments on University student athletes to determine if the smell of a mate also plays a contributing factor. It was determined that on a subconscious level, the human nose can detect compatible genes and even body symmetry simply by the scent of another which may explain the mysterious physical attraction to someone. The research shows that as the nose is trying to decipher the airborne molecules exuding from sweaty armpit glands (pheromones) the deciphering brain sparks its own coded signals to attract the sought out partner thus making an innate histocompatibility connection (a distinct realization of having the same or similar sets of genes) whereas the human brain plays an integral role in the evolutionary quest for the perfect mate.

So this may explain the sexual attraction of a mate but what holds the relationship together, can science explain love?

As the logical brain settles its neurotransmitters produced in sexual arousal and orgasm between two lovers, it is believed that a need for a bond is also triggered like a secondary evolutionary sense that ensures more of the same pleasurable experience. Theories vary that it is manifested in the need to cuddle after love making or when offspring are born the need to help raise them creating an unbreakable family bond based on fondness. This emotion acts like a reward and stimulates the same part of the brain chemistry in needing or wanting something similar to an appetite, hunger or addiction.

The romantic love chemicals that overwhelm the human brain and even trigger the human physiology all seem to serve the purpose of the continuation of the human species. These chemicals may even alter accordingly to encourage lust to turn into sex and evolve into love.

In conclusion, the human reproduction process may be very intoxicating. The next time you are out for drinks looking for the perfect mate, even though the alcohol may be to blame for releasing the natural sexual urges you are feeling and for increasing your social confidence.. remember that ultimately it is the 'hormonal cocktail' in the human brain that will determine the one you fall in love with.