Alcor News, April 1, 2016
Yes, it is April 1. But, no, nothing in this issue of Alcor News is a hoax! It was supposed to go out at the end of March, but you know how these things go…
–Max More
Alcor President and CEO
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In this issue:
Aaron’s change of status.
Dewar delivery.
Why Cryonics Makes Sense
Correction to report on CT scan analysis of Kim SSuozzi
Recent media
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Aaron Drake: Now “Senior Medical Response Consultant”
After being on staff full-time with Alcor for over seven years (starting in late January 2009), Aaron Drake is undergoing a change of status. Imagine being on-call 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, for seven years and two months. That’s 62,736 hours of responsibility (not counting leap years). Aaron’s change of employment status will allow him to recharge while still remaining available to consult on urgent situations. His many years of experience will be invaluable in maintaining Alcor’s high standards of patient care.
As Alcor members should know, cases outside of Arizona but within the USA have primarily been handled by Suspended Animation (SA). During the transitional period, we are pleased to be able to tell you that SA has agreed to cover any Arizona-based cases. At the same time, we have working toward bringing in a highly-skilled individual in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area to take over Aaron’s core duties. In addition, we are building up our local capabilities by bringing in additional trained individuals (with credentials as paramedics or nurses) so that we have more personnel than ever available for Arizona-based (and international) standbys, stabilization, and transport.
We thank Aaron for his years of service. As of now, Aaron’s title is “Senior Medical Response Consultant”.
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Dewar delivery
Last time we ordered new Bigfoot dewars, they arrived with no warning. This was quite inconvenient since we have to go out and rent forklift trucks and plan the unloading of these large, heavy, valuable items. Last time, we had to send the truck away, to come back a few days later. Despite our repeated insistence on being given tracking information, our two newest Bigfoot dewars arrived unexpectedly on the evening of Easter Sunday (March 27).
Fortunately, the truck driver (an independent with no tracking capabilities who apparently stepped in for a mess-up by the major trucking company originally to be used) was content to sleep in his truck overnight. On Monday morning, Steve Graber and Hugh Hixon rented two forklifts, and I joined them in unloading and securing them inside the building.
Although the lack of notice (the fabricator later said the truck was supposed to show up on Tuesday) was inconvenient, I’m not complaining. Anything that gets me away from my desk and atop a tall ladder or driving a forklift is a welcome change.
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Why Cryonics Makes Sense
Some of you may be already be familiar with Tim Urban’s remarkable blog, Wait But Why. You might be among the 336,693 subscribers to Tim’s blog, or you might just have come across one of his stunning detailed and clever posts, such as on procrastination, the genius of Elon Musk, The AI Revolution, or Putting Time in Perspective.
A few days ago, Tim posted what is possibly the single best piece ever written on cryonics. Warning: It is long and, once you start reading it, you will find it hard to stop. Please use it to persuade your non-cryonicist friends and relatives! The blog post has already generated a surge in visits to Alcor.org and in people engaging Marji in online chat, and in serious requests for membership information packets. You can find it Wait But Why, Why Cryonics Makes Sense:
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Correction to Suozzi report – CT Scan Reveals Perfusion Much Better Than Initially Thought
Alcor has been doing CT scans of some patients for the last few years. When we started the project, we did not know how to properly calibrate the output of the scans. This, along with a mistaken assumption, led to a most unfortunately pessimistic assessment of the degree of cryoprotection of Kim Suozzi, the 23-year victim of brain cancer. Now that Alcor has more experience with CT scan data and has created correct calibration standards, we have re-analyzed that report. It turns out that cryoprotection was vastly better than originally reported.
Details here:
http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/CorrigendumA2643.html
Another, much briefer, correction: In the last issue, I said that all three of this year’s patients had been cryoprotected. That was incorrect. Two of the three were cryoprotected.
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Debuting this Sunday, April 3rd, 8PM EST National Geographic Channel
“Explorer: Faces of Death”
A few glimpses of the show are already available here:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/explorer/episodes/faces-of-death/
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Coming Up
You can expect another issue of Alcor News to follow this one quite soon. Among the contents:
** Yet another innovation by Steve Graber.
** Pointers to several new published case reports.
** New LED lighting in the Patient Care Bay.
** The Alcor Testimonial Contest.
** Alcor-2015 Conference DVD and downloadable videos.