Frozen humans could be brought back to life in 50 to 70 years, according to a Cryonics expert. The breakthrough came about after extinct worms were successfully reawakened after 46,000 years – when woolly mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers still roamed the earth.
After being found frozen in a Siberian permafrost in 2018, experts have resurrected the creatures by awakening them from their prolonged slumber, having been trapped since the real-life Ice Age.
So.. what now?
The discovery has since raised the question: What does this mean for frozen humans?
The 46,000-year-old worms were able to be resurrected, as they’d been able to shut down their bodies due to unsuitable environments – a process called anabiosis.
Experts are now if the process could be transferred to humans in cryopreservation.
Valeriya Udalova, CEO of Russian cryogenics company KrioRus has emphasised the differences between the cryopreservation of humans and the anabiosis of animals. She says:
“Humans lack the biological mechanisms for entering anabiosis, unlike certain animals like roundworms, frogs and Siberian anglerfish.” She continues. “Cryonics procedures for humans typically involve draining the body of blood and replacing it with cryoprotectant solutions to safeguard cells and tissues. This process must ideally begin shortly after legal death is declared, and bodies are frozen to extremely low temperatures.”
How could it work?
This distant goal of human resurrection may become a reality in the next 50 to 70 years, thanks to significant advances in medicine and tissue engineering – a concept Portuguese microbiologist, Dr João Pedro de Magalhães explained to Gizmodo in 2018.
He states: “It will take huge scientific advances in areas like tissue engineering and regenerative medicine to make cryopreserved individuals alive and healthy again.”
“Patients with terminal diseases, including children, could opt to be placed on cryostasis until a cure was discovered,” he adds.
“We would have an alternative to death, which has profound philosophical, ethical and medical implications.”
Either way – how fascinating!