Feb 092016
 

Scientists have managed to freeze a rabbit brain solid without destroying it at the cellular level. This is certainly Big News; while cryonics has been going on for a couple generations, it has been a bad joke since Day One since the act of freezing cells destroys them. However, this – at least so far – does not make cryonics feasible. What it *does* do is permit a mammalian brain to be frozen into a solid lump with the neurons intact. What can then be done, at least in theory, is for the brain to be sliced into *incredibly* thin layers, with each layer scanned to equally high fidelity. A 3D model of the brain almost down to the molecular level could then  be assembled. *IN* *THEORY,* this would allow for complete digital emulation of the brain… functioning, personality, memories, the whole bit. Of course you only get one shot at it… a slip-up in scanning or a burp in the data would mess with the simulation. It might be as simple a thing as deleting the memory of that one time when that one thing happened, you know, the thing. If this is Hollywood, the screwup will result not only in the simulated person being rendered psychotic, but probably also psychic and susceptible to possession by electronic demons, supervillains from the future and lost aliens.

Aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation

 

 Posted by at 8:18 pm