1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:16,285 This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. 2 00:00:16,285 --> 00:00:20,806 The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily 3 00:00:20,806 --> 00:00:29,768 the only ones to the mysteries we will examine. 4 00:00:29,768 --> 00:00:40,490 Frozen alive to 100 degrees below zero, a three-day old embryo is held in suspended animation. 5 00:00:40,490 --> 00:00:46,291 As temperatures approach absolute zero, all chemical and biological activity ceases. 6 00:00:46,291 --> 00:01:00,253 In this state, frozen life might be preserved forever. 7 00:01:00,253 --> 00:01:06,254 Since the dawn of man, cold has been our cruelest enemy. 8 00:01:06,254 --> 00:01:11,735 Even today, blizzards claim a yearly toll of the unprepared. 9 00:01:11,735 --> 00:01:23,698 During winter, death by freezing remains a constant threat. 10 00:01:23,698 --> 00:01:31,579 Below the freezing point of water, zero degrees Celsius, human flesh can freeze solid. 11 00:01:31,579 --> 00:01:37,060 Hands and feet are especially vulnerable to frostbite. 12 00:01:37,060 --> 00:01:40,861 In severe cases, the damage is irreversible. 13 00:01:40,861 --> 00:01:50,382 When flesh freezes, cells are usually disrupted beyond repair. 14 00:01:50,382 --> 00:01:56,704 Research has led to advances in design of protective clothing. 15 00:01:56,704 --> 00:02:01,785 Along the Alaskan pipeline, properly dressed workers are safe down to minus 60 degrees 16 00:02:01,785 --> 00:02:03,985 Celsius. 17 00:02:03,985 --> 00:02:12,107 No such temperatures, however, cold becomes increasingly lethal. 18 00:02:12,107 --> 00:02:16,747 For most of us, once temperatures drop into the subzero range, we've reached the limit 19 00:02:16,747 --> 00:02:18,948 of our knowledge about cold. 20 00:02:18,948 --> 00:02:23,309 We all know that food keeps better in the refrigerator, but it lasts even longer in 21 00:02:23,309 --> 00:02:24,709 a freezer. 22 00:02:24,709 --> 00:02:30,790 But beyond freezer temperatures, we enter the realm of cryogenics, the realm of the 23 00:02:30,790 --> 00:02:37,951 very cold. 24 00:02:37,951 --> 00:02:47,993 At 196 degrees below zero, nitrogen, the main ingredient of air, becomes liquid. 25 00:02:47,993 --> 00:02:57,155 73 degrees further down, helium, the gas most resistant to cold, also becomes liquid. 26 00:02:57,155 --> 00:03:04,196 As temperatures drop still further, we approach the ultimate limit of minus 273 degrees, or 27 00:03:04,196 --> 00:03:09,997 absolute zero. 28 00:03:09,997 --> 00:03:15,798 To understand how freezing damage occurs, MIT scientists freeze cells under controlled 29 00:03:15,798 --> 00:03:18,039 thermal conditions. 30 00:03:18,039 --> 00:03:23,560 Using a special cryo microscope, they have made films and videotapes of blood cells, 31 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:28,921 embryos, and human tissue cells. 32 00:03:28,921 --> 00:03:36,322 Red blood cells are relatively easy to freeze safely. 33 00:03:36,322 --> 00:03:44,044 With the aid of protective chemicals and moderate cooling speeds, most cells survive. 34 00:03:44,044 --> 00:03:46,524 They're chill at the correct rate. 35 00:03:46,524 --> 00:03:53,045 Even human tissue cells sometimes survive freezing. 36 00:03:53,045 --> 00:04:05,848 But when the freezing is too fast, ice forms within the cells, causing them to flash black 37 00:04:05,848 --> 00:04:12,489 and die. 38 00:04:12,489 --> 00:04:16,930 In nature, not all living things die when they are frozen. 39 00:04:16,930 --> 00:04:25,451 Some trees and plants have adapted to the bitter arctic winter. 40 00:04:25,451 --> 00:04:31,212 Certain insects, like the tardigrade, survive below minus 50 degrees. 41 00:04:31,212 --> 00:04:37,933 The tardigrade and other arctic insects freeze in winter and thaw without ill effect in summer. 42 00:04:37,933 --> 00:04:43,615 Is it conceivable that larger animals, perhaps even people, could survive freezing? 43 00:04:43,615 --> 00:04:48,735 To answer this provocative question, we must first examine the state of the art of freezing 44 00:04:48,735 --> 00:04:52,776 the separate elements of life. 45 00:04:52,776 --> 00:04:58,177 At the Carnation Genetics Company in California, workers get a sample of sperm from a prized 46 00:04:58,177 --> 00:05:03,778 bull. 47 00:05:03,778 --> 00:05:09,219 They add the sperm to a solution of glycerol, the same chemical arctic insects produce to 48 00:05:09,219 --> 00:05:14,540 prevent freezing damage. 49 00:05:14,540 --> 00:05:21,221 The sperm is frozen in liquid nitrogen at 196 degrees below zero Celsius. 50 00:05:21,221 --> 00:05:29,063 At this low temperature, it remains in a state of suspended animation. 51 00:05:29,063 --> 00:05:33,904 Years or even years later, the sperm will be shipped to cattle breeders. 52 00:05:33,904 --> 00:05:39,185 They thaw the sperm, bringing it back to life, and use it to artificially inseminate their 53 00:05:39,185 --> 00:05:41,065 cows. 54 00:05:41,065 --> 00:05:46,746 By carefully matching bulls and cows, farmers have vastly improved production of milk and 55 00:05:46,746 --> 00:05:49,107 beef. 56 00:05:49,107 --> 00:05:54,788 At the Tyler Clinic in Los Angeles, human sperm is preserved for many years. 57 00:05:55,188 --> 00:06:00,309 Reportedly, there have been human births from sperm kept in frozen suspended animation 58 00:06:00,309 --> 00:06:02,709 for over 10 years. 59 00:06:02,709 --> 00:06:09,510 No one knows how long it keeps its potency. 60 00:06:09,510 --> 00:06:15,351 Human sperm frozen today could possibly sire a child hundreds or even thousands of years 61 00:06:15,351 --> 00:06:18,512 from now. 62 00:06:18,512 --> 00:06:21,273 Blood is the very symbol of life. 63 00:06:21,273 --> 00:06:29,514 It carries warmth and oxygen to all parts of the body. 64 00:06:29,514 --> 00:06:36,555 Today however, blood freezing is routine. 65 00:06:36,555 --> 00:06:48,718 The red cells are protected by adding glycerol. 66 00:06:48,718 --> 00:06:53,479 If frozen blood cells stay alive for many years, their use has greatly increased the 67 00:06:53,479 --> 00:06:58,439 available supply of this precious substance. 68 00:06:58,439 --> 00:07:08,161 The frozen blood can be thawed, and the glycerol washed out in less than an hour. 69 00:07:08,161 --> 00:07:16,923 Dr. Charles Huggins directs the blood bank at Massachusetts General Hospital. 70 00:07:16,923 --> 00:07:22,724 He is also a pioneer on the next frontier of cryogenics, the preservation of whole organs 71 00:07:22,724 --> 00:07:24,484 by freezing. 72 00:07:24,484 --> 00:07:30,245 By freezing the organ, you would make it much easier to coordinate the donor organs and 73 00:07:30,245 --> 00:07:34,086 the potential recipient in a much higher percentage of people could be. 74 00:07:34,086 --> 00:07:38,207 It could have successful transplants with good genetic matching, and I don't think there's 75 00:07:38,207 --> 00:07:43,688 any fundamentally unsolvable problem, but it's not going to come in the next day or 76 00:07:43,688 --> 00:07:48,449 two, and in fact, I think it will be quite a number of years before we have clinical 77 00:07:48,449 --> 00:07:53,090 banks of kidneys and hearts and that sort of thing. 78 00:07:53,090 --> 00:07:58,611 Attempting to solve the organ freezing problem, biologists chill living tissue below the ice 79 00:07:58,611 --> 00:08:00,171 point. 80 00:08:00,171 --> 00:08:06,012 They observe how blood vessels are damaged when the tissues freeze. 81 00:08:06,012 --> 00:08:11,493 Such difficulties limit the size of organs which can be frozen. 82 00:08:11,493 --> 00:08:18,534 The UCLA, Dr. Josiah Brown has frozen the tiny pancreas gland of fetal rats and successfully 83 00:08:18,534 --> 00:08:21,695 transplanted it into adult rats. 84 00:08:21,695 --> 00:08:27,056 We're trying to work out in the rat pancreas the technique for freezing the pancreas so 85 00:08:27,056 --> 00:08:32,737 that it can be frozen permanently and implanted into a diabetic animal in order to reverse 86 00:08:32,737 --> 00:08:34,457 the diabetes. 87 00:08:34,457 --> 00:08:41,338 Our vision, our dream is to have a laboratory with large banks of frozen pancreas and then 88 00:08:41,338 --> 00:08:48,980 implant the donor organ into the diabetic human and have it function. 89 00:08:48,980 --> 00:08:55,301 Of all life processes, none is more awesome than the growth of a tiny embryo into a complete 90 00:08:55,301 --> 00:09:02,182 animal. 91 00:09:02,182 --> 00:09:07,463 If human embryos could be frozen successfully, we could send our children on journeys into 92 00:09:07,463 --> 00:09:15,025 the distant future. 93 00:09:15,025 --> 00:09:23,586 Protected by a chemical called DMSO, a mouse embryo is carefully frozen. 94 00:09:23,586 --> 00:09:34,108 Icy fingers hold it hostage down to 100 degrees below zero, suspending all growth or change. 95 00:09:34,108 --> 00:09:42,790 With thawing, the embryo swells back to normal size, ready to continue its development. 96 00:09:42,790 --> 00:09:49,991 At the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, scientists have frozen mouse embryos in liquid nitrogen. 97 00:09:49,991 --> 00:09:56,472 They take embryos from the uterus of a pregnant mouse. 98 00:09:56,472 --> 00:10:03,634 The embryos are gently put in DMSO. 99 00:10:03,634 --> 00:10:09,795 Then the scientists freeze the living embryos and store them in liquid nitrogen. 100 00:10:09,795 --> 00:10:16,396 Days later, the embryos will be thawed and re-implanted in the wombs of other mice. 101 00:10:16,396 --> 00:10:24,077 Remarkably, they develop into normal, healthy mice. 102 00:10:24,077 --> 00:10:29,638 Soon after the mouse experiments, cattle breeders also began freezing embryos. 103 00:10:29,638 --> 00:10:35,079 They flush weak old embryos out of cows known to have superior calves. 104 00:10:35,079 --> 00:10:42,481 By super-ovulating with fertility drugs, they can get as many as 15 embryos per cow. 105 00:10:42,481 --> 00:10:49,402 The embryos are cooled slowly in DMSO, then plunged into liquid nitrogen and held in cold 106 00:10:49,402 --> 00:10:50,402 storage. 107 00:10:50,402 --> 00:10:56,804 When it is time to bring them to life, the breeders thaw the embryos, remove the chemical 108 00:10:56,804 --> 00:11:01,004 antifreeze, and prepare cows for implantation. 109 00:11:01,004 --> 00:11:05,205 They inject an embryo into the cow's womb and sew her up. 110 00:11:05,205 --> 00:11:08,926 The embryo will grow naturally to term. 111 00:11:08,926 --> 00:11:15,127 This calf is the first frozen embryo calf ever born in the United States. 112 00:11:15,127 --> 00:11:20,128 Such use of suspended animation could revolutionize the cattle industry. 113 00:11:20,128 --> 00:11:25,609 By selecting genetically superior-parent cows and bulls, a farmer could quickly build up 114 00:11:25,609 --> 00:11:31,770 a champion herd. 115 00:11:31,770 --> 00:11:40,652 Blood cells and embryos have survived cooling to within a few degrees of absolute zero. 116 00:11:40,652 --> 00:11:47,373 As the temperature drops toward its theoretical limit, molecular motion virtually ceases. 117 00:11:47,373 --> 00:11:50,653 Processes of growth and deterioration stop. 118 00:11:50,653 --> 00:11:55,334 In this state, the essence of life could be preserved forever. 119 00:11:55,334 --> 00:12:09,977 Here are those who would like to imagine that freezing could make man immortal. 120 00:12:09,977 --> 00:12:14,378 The balance of temperature within a human body is incredibly delicate. 121 00:12:14,378 --> 00:12:20,219 A drop of only five degrees in body temperature brings on the potentially lethal state called 122 00:12:20,219 --> 00:12:34,302 hypothermia. 123 00:12:34,302 --> 00:12:41,223 Without adequate clothing, an injured skier is potentially in danger of losing her life. 124 00:12:41,223 --> 00:12:46,344 In direct contact with snow, her body will cool rapidly toward the point where no amount 125 00:12:46,344 --> 00:12:54,825 of exercise or clothing could restore adequate warmth. 126 00:12:54,825 --> 00:13:09,828 Unless she is rescued, death would then be inevitable. 127 00:13:09,828 --> 00:13:16,389 Dr. Paul Siegel is conducting experiments on hypothermia in rats. 128 00:13:16,389 --> 00:13:18,990 We're taking the rat down to zero degrees centigrade. 129 00:13:18,990 --> 00:13:26,311 We're taking it down to the ice point and seeing how long we can stay at the ice point 130 00:13:26,311 --> 00:13:29,952 without breathing, without respiration. 131 00:13:29,952 --> 00:13:32,232 The rat's heart has stopped. 132 00:13:32,232 --> 00:13:34,273 Its vital signs gone. 133 00:13:34,273 --> 00:13:46,435 The rat is clinically dead. 134 00:13:46,435 --> 00:13:50,756 Dr. Siegel's assistant uses a desk lamp to warm the rat. 135 00:13:50,756 --> 00:13:54,636 She gives it artificial respiration. 136 00:13:54,636 --> 00:14:00,998 Usually between 15 and 18 degrees we reestablish heartbeat sometimes before, so in the next 137 00:14:00,998 --> 00:14:08,079 couple of minutes, since the temperature is rising rapidly, we should begin to see a heartbeat. 138 00:14:08,079 --> 00:14:09,079 That's it. 139 00:14:09,079 --> 00:14:10,079 We've got a beat. 140 00:14:10,079 --> 00:14:11,079 That is a heartbeat. 141 00:14:11,079 --> 00:14:12,080 There's another one, yeah. 142 00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:13,080 Keep going, Judy. 143 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:14,080 Beautiful. 144 00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:15,080 Beautiful. 145 00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:22,482 All right, heartbeat established at 13.5 degrees centigrade. 146 00:14:22,482 --> 00:14:29,803 During long, cold winter months, when food is scarce, some animals are able to hibernate. 147 00:14:29,803 --> 00:14:36,924 This suggests another approach to suspended animation. 148 00:14:36,924 --> 00:14:42,285 During hibernation, the ground squirrel drastically reduces its metabolic rate. 149 00:14:42,285 --> 00:14:45,646 To the touch, it is icy cold. 150 00:14:45,646 --> 00:14:50,567 Although heartbeat and breathing do not stop, they are greatly slowed. 151 00:14:50,567 --> 00:14:56,888 As the squirrel warms to room temperature, it gradually regains consciousness. 152 00:14:56,888 --> 00:15:01,449 They're only beginning to understand how some animals hibernate. 153 00:15:01,449 --> 00:15:08,730 As yet, we know of no fundamental barrier to human hibernation. 154 00:15:08,730 --> 00:15:18,412 A freeze-dried animal retains its external form years after its contemporaries have decomposed. 155 00:15:18,412 --> 00:15:24,573 Mammoths frozen for 10,000 years have been found in Siberia, their meat so fresh that 156 00:15:24,573 --> 00:15:26,873 it can be eaten. 157 00:15:26,873 --> 00:15:41,156 Some people have concluded that freezing and reviving whole animals might be possible. 158 00:15:41,156 --> 00:15:45,477 The finality of death is hard to accept. 159 00:15:45,477 --> 00:15:51,198 The lure of finding a window to the future is strong. 160 00:15:51,198 --> 00:15:55,919 In California, Art Quafe operates a cryonic suspension facility. 161 00:15:55,919 --> 00:16:01,120 Displacing patients into low-temperature suspension after they've been pronounced legally dead 162 00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:05,641 in the hope that at some future date medical science may be able to cure whatever they 163 00:16:05,641 --> 00:16:14,042 died of, repair any damage caused by the freezing procedure, and restore them to life. 164 00:16:14,042 --> 00:16:18,963 In this capsule, we have the head of a 79-year-old man who was a retired Army colonel. 165 00:16:18,963 --> 00:16:23,724 He died about two years ago of respiratory ailments and was placed in suspension by a 166 00:16:23,724 --> 00:16:27,085 team in Los Angeles. 167 00:16:27,085 --> 00:16:29,845 This capsule contains two whole-body patients. 168 00:16:29,845 --> 00:16:35,086 One is a 65-year-old Maryland man, other was a 75-year-old Midwestern woman. 169 00:16:35,086 --> 00:16:38,127 Both of them died four years ago of cerebral strokes. 170 00:16:38,127 --> 00:16:46,848 It also contains the brain of a 15-year-old girl who was murdered in Berkeley in 1976. 171 00:16:46,848 --> 00:16:54,970 Over eight films and videotapes by amateur cameramen document the original encapsulation. 172 00:16:54,970 --> 00:17:05,732 One of the patients arrives already frozen to dry ice temperature. 173 00:17:05,732 --> 00:17:09,812 His body is placed in a plastic bag. 174 00:17:09,812 --> 00:17:16,134 It is wrapped in alternating layers of foil and fiberglass. 175 00:17:16,134 --> 00:17:21,335 The insulation will reduce the risk of thawing in case the liquid nitrogen in his capsule 176 00:17:21,335 --> 00:17:26,536 temporarily boils away. 177 00:17:26,536 --> 00:17:35,897 Carefully, the patient is eased into the steel capsule where he will remain until someone 178 00:17:35,897 --> 00:17:43,019 tries to revive him. 179 00:17:43,019 --> 00:17:46,619 After encapsulation, liquid nitrogen was added. 180 00:17:46,619 --> 00:17:51,180 It has been replenished ever since. 181 00:17:51,180 --> 00:17:57,141 Has any person or animal ever been brought back, revived after having been frozen such 182 00:17:57,141 --> 00:17:58,862 a long time? 183 00:17:58,862 --> 00:18:02,022 No human has ever been revived from the temperature of liquid nitrogen. 184 00:18:02,022 --> 00:18:03,902 We wouldn't know how to do that today. 185 00:18:03,902 --> 00:18:07,903 But there have been many successes with lower forms of life and less complicated organisms. 186 00:18:07,903 --> 00:18:14,784 If I were interested in cryonic suspension, what would it cost me to enroll in your program? 187 00:18:14,784 --> 00:18:17,825 First you would become a suspension member of the Bay Area Cryonic Society and that 188 00:18:17,825 --> 00:18:19,905 would cost you a thousand dollars. 189 00:18:19,905 --> 00:18:22,026 Beyond that you would have to provide funding for your suspension. 190 00:18:22,026 --> 00:18:25,586 We recommend a minimum of fifty thousand dollars worth of funding. 191 00:18:25,586 --> 00:18:31,067 If I were to decide to find out for the program, what assurance do I have that you would keep 192 00:18:31,067 --> 00:18:35,668 the temperature even, that you would keep me in suspension, that you would bring me 193 00:18:35,668 --> 00:18:36,669 back? 194 00:18:36,669 --> 00:18:38,269 That's basically an act of faith. 195 00:18:38,269 --> 00:18:40,869 Well the procedure isn't perfected so no, we can't give any guarantee. 196 00:18:40,869 --> 00:18:43,590 The only guarantee we can give you is that if you're put in a grave you have virtually 197 00:18:43,590 --> 00:18:45,190 no chance of coming back. 198 00:18:45,190 --> 00:18:47,110 If you're frozen you have some chance. 199 00:18:47,110 --> 00:18:52,151 It seems very dubious to me that we'll ever be able to successfully freeze all humans. 200 00:18:52,151 --> 00:18:56,312 You have all the problems of preserving each of the separate organs of the person and the 201 00:18:56,312 --> 00:19:01,193 thousands of problems of that multiplied by the thousands of different organs that are 202 00:19:01,193 --> 00:19:02,193 in the body. 203 00:19:02,753 --> 00:19:07,634 I personally don't feel that this will ever come before seven hundred or a thousand years 204 00:19:07,634 --> 00:19:08,794 from now. 205 00:19:11,475 --> 00:19:17,276 There is no exact count but in the world today there are about twenty frozen bodies waiting 206 00:19:17,276 --> 00:19:20,477 with a bare wisp of hope for the future. 207 00:19:24,157 --> 00:19:27,878 Most advocates of cryonic suspension are immortalists. 208 00:19:27,878 --> 00:19:33,359 They believe that medical science will eventually find a way to reverse the process of aging 209 00:19:33,359 --> 00:19:35,879 and extend our lives indefinitely. 210 00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:46,161 The more realistic chance of immortality however, exists for the frozen embryo. 211 00:19:46,161 --> 00:19:50,362 For mice and calves the technology already exists. 212 00:19:50,362 --> 00:19:53,603 The process will surely work for humans as well. 213 00:19:54,603 --> 00:20:01,604 It is believed that embryos could be kept frozen in suspended animation for generations. 214 00:20:02,604 --> 00:20:08,606 A woman of the future could choose her child from a frozen embryo bank. 215 00:20:09,606 --> 00:20:15,607 If whole body suspended animation is ultimately achieved, citizens of tomorrow could practice 216 00:20:15,607 --> 00:20:17,607 an intriguing new lifestyle. 217 00:20:18,607 --> 00:20:24,608 They would have themselves suspended before they grow old. 218 00:20:26,609 --> 00:20:32,610 Intending to sample life in centuries to come, they would launch themselves into the unknown. 219 00:20:33,610 --> 00:20:39,611 Millennial later they would be revived, take part in life for a decade or so in a fantastic 220 00:20:39,611 --> 00:20:43,612 new world and then continue their voyage into the future. 221 00:20:48,613 --> 00:20:51,613 In Search of 222 00:20:52,614 --> 00:20:57,615 The use of cold storage to preserve human sperm, embryos and even whole people 223 00:20:57,615 --> 00:21:00,615 raises many ethical and social questions. 224 00:21:00,615 --> 00:21:03,616 Whose sperm and embryos should be saved? 225 00:21:03,616 --> 00:21:07,616 Could everyone afford to be frozen or only the rich? 226 00:21:07,616 --> 00:21:12,617 The research in cryobiology will surely lead to life-saving medical advances. 227 00:21:12,617 --> 00:21:17,618 But even if we achieve suspended animation, we may not be able to deal with the unknown 228 00:21:17,618 --> 00:21:20,619 consequences of frozen immortality. 229 00:21:42,623 --> 00:21:47,624 Thank you for watching!