OVO

Wikipedia:

Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine until resuscitation may be possible in the future. Currently, human cryopreservation is not reversible, which means that it is not currently possible to bring people out of cryopreservation alive. The rationale for cryonics is that people who are considered dead by the current legal or medical definitions will not necessarily be dead by future standards – the most stringent standard being the information-theoretic definition of death – and that such people could be brought out of cryopreservation in the future.

Two recent articles at the remarkable lesswrong.com reminded me of cryonics.

Eliezer Yudkowsky, That Magical Click:

Yesterday I spoke of that cryonics gathering I recently attended, where travel by young cryonicists was fully subsidized, leading to extremely different demographics from conventions of self-funded activists. 34% female, half of those in couples, many couples with kids – THAT HAD BEEN SIGNED UP FOR CRYONICS FROM BIRTH LIKE A GODDAMNED SANE CIVILIZATION WOULD REQUIRE – 25% computer industry, 25% scientists, 15% entertainment industry at a rough estimate, and in most ways seeming (for smart people) pretty damned normal. Except for one thing.

During one conversation, I said something about there being no magic in our universe. And an ordinary-seeming woman responded, “But there are still lots of things science doesn’t understand, right?” Sigh. We all know how this conversation is going to go, right? So I wearily replied with my usual, “If I’m ignorant about a phenomenon, that is a fact about my state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself; a blank map does not correspond to a blank territory -” “Oh,” she interrupted excitedly, “so the concept of ‘magic’ isn’t even consistent, then!”

Click.

She got it, just like that.

There is a wonderful episode of the radio program ‘This American Life’ on cryonics titled Mistakes Were Made. + I first encountered cryonics around 1979-1980 in the book Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson.  Currently I practice passive cryonics.  My scattered atoms and memories will not necessarily be considered dead by future standards, with no effort on my part necessary.

One creosote plant, named “King Clone”, near Lucerne Valley has been carbon dated to 11,700 years old.

Larrea tridentata – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

36 hours under water, two hours drying off, back to normal.

Spider “Resurrections” Take Scientists by Surprise

Stromatolites are inhabited by organisms that were probably the first to colonize the planet. The jelly-like mass consists of micro-organisms.

The Life That Escaped Darwin’s Notice

Hyper-saline, devoid of oxygen, below freezing, isolated for 1.8 million years – full of life.

Ancient, frozen ecosystem produces blood-red ice flows – Ars Technica

they are relatives of bacteria that live in the subglacial lakes of Antarctica. Others are functionally similar to the extremophile bacteria living on the black smokers

Lost world of extremophiles hides beneath Great Lakes – environment – 27 February 2009 – New Scientist

Desulforudis audaxviator, or bold traveller as it is known in English, relies on water, hydrogen and sulphate for its energy.

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | Planet’s loneliest bug revealed

a pristine pocket of liquid whose ecosystem was separated from the rest of the Earth millions of years ago. As for what sort of organisms might lurk in that exotic environment today, no one can really be certain.

Damn Interesting » Raiders of the Lost Lake

the Surveyor 3 microbes turned out to be no lunar superbacteria. Rather, they were just common Earth Streptococcus mitus. The spacecraft had become contaminated upon assembly and the bacteria went along for a ride to the Moon.

Astroprof’s Page » Tough Bacteria

In 1995, an analytic chemist named William Chatham saw something unusual in the allegedly lifeless lake: a small clump of green slime floating on the water’s surface.

Damn Interesting » The Pit of Life and Death

“This organism is ideally adapted to extremely hostile environments. It likes to live in highly acidic solutions containing toxic heavy metals. It is unable to exist at all under normal conditions,”

Bacteria In Extremely Hostile Environments: New Protein Discovered That Repairs DNA Under Extreme Conditions

A date palm seed some 2000 years old – preserved by nothing more than storage in hot and dry conditions – has germinated, making it the oldest seed in the world to do so.

Jesus-era seed is the oldest to germinate – life – 12 June 2008 – New Scientist

a new ultra-small species of bacteria that has survived for more than 120,000 years within the ice of a Greenland glacier at a depth of nearly two miles. [See also GISP2 Drill Dome]

A survivor in Greenland: A novel bacterial species is found trapped in 120,000-year-old ice

They have the consistency of “snot”. They derive energy from chemosynthesis of volcanic compounds and water solution dripping from above. They are highly acidic, with the corrosive properties of battery acid.

Snottite – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Deinococcus radiodurans is an extremophilic bacterium, one of the most radioresistant organisms known. It can survive cold, dehydration, vacuum, and acid

Deinococcus radiodurans – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The world’s oldest recorded tree is a 9,550 year old spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden.

World’s Oldest Living Tree — 9550 years old — Discovered In Sweden

All stages of the medusa Turritopsis nutricula, from newly liberated to fully mature individuals, can transform back into colonial hydroids, thus escaping death and achieving potential immortality.

Reversing the Life Cycle: Medusae Transforming into Polyps and Cell Transdifferentiation in Turritopsis nutricula (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) — Piraino et al. 190 (3): 302 — The Biological Bulletin

The Immortal Life Cycle of Turritopsis

Developmental Biology Online: Cheating Death

Immortal jellyfish

Illustrations of cnidarians; Immortal jellyfish Turritopsis nutricula

A new species of bacteria discovered living in one of the most extreme environments on Earth could yield a tool in the fight against global warming.

‘Hellish’ Hot Springs Yield Greenhouse Gas-eating Bug