Cryonics:
What is it?:
Cryonics is the act of freezing cells or entire corpses with the hopes of reviving them someday. Some people with terminal diseases and money opt to have their body frozen, just in case a cure for their disease might someday be found. If a cure is found, the body can then be thawed out. By now, at least hundreds of corpses have been cryogenically frozen. Most (pardon the expression) frozen 'stiffs' are entirely intact, but some people have their head removed from their body before they are placed in deep-freeze.
Cryonics is an outgrowth of cryogenics, a science which studies the production and effects of low temperatures. Frigid cold can either kill or preserve life. The tricky part of cryonics is preserving bodily tissue without destroying cells.
How is cryonics done?:
Liquid nitrogen has a freezing point of minus two hundred degrees Celsius. Experts in the field of cryonics can freeze most living things or corpses with minimal damage to cells. (to be cont'd)
[The original version of this essay, then entitled "Cryonics" first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and as part of my unpublished manuscript "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays]
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