It's a bit expensive, but I got my tax re-fund and I think it will genuinely give me some piece of mind. Any advice before I go? It's at 10:00 am tomorrow (the appointments are astonishingly quick).
Too little info to advise on. As a Paramedic though I can tell you full body preservation is a total waste of funds and sperm banking is usually only good up to 12 years. :)
Well it's too late now, but I assume they had video tapes and magazines in the room?
When I went to give a sample for fertility treatment, in both rooms they had video tapes and magazines. The magazines weren't half bad, they were French magazines (the dr was French). I don't think I read them for the articles though!
Quote from: Jessica Merriman on November 13, 2014, 09:21:11 AM
Too little info to advise on. As a Paramedic though I can tell you full body preservation is a total waste of funds and sperm banking is usually only good up to 12 years. :)
I was sperm banking, also I heard with new tech it lasted a lot longer than that http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=7303722
I'm pretty sure the 12 year limit on keeping sperm is for legal reasons, not scientific ones. Organic matter gradually deteriorates at the temperatures you get in an ordinary household freezer, however the rate of deterioration at liquid nitrogen temperatures is much, much slower, and, as long as it's consistently held at that temperature, sperm would probably remain viable for centuries or longer. Perhaps the 12 year limit was put there to allow for periodic rewarmings due to technicians checking the label on the samples etc, or maybe it's just a case of legislators being excessively cautious.
I don't see anything inherently wrong with having yourself cryopreserved. Even in a worst case scenario you're not going to be any more dead than you were already, so, as long as it's not placing a burden on your still living relatives, I don't see why not. The freezing process causes extensive damage at the cellular level, so the only way you could be brought back to life is through technology far in advance of what we have now, that microscopically repairs all the damage and rebuilds you cell by cell. Who knows, that technology might arrive at some time in the future, after all, most of the stuff we have now would look like magic to people born prior to the industrial revolution. I'd agree that full body preservation is a waste of time though, since cloning a new body for you would be trivial next to rebuilding your brain.
Centuries? UM, no. Quite simply they succumb to "freezer burn" (not the technical term though) just like food products. The last stats I saw were that after 12 years the viability goes down exponentially every year after that.
Quote from: Jessica Merriman on November 21, 2014, 06:24:17 PM
Centuries? UM, no. Quite simply they succumb to "freezer burn" (not the technical term though) just like food products. The last stats I saw were that after 12 years the viability goes down exponentially every year after that.
Food eventually goes off in an ordinary freezer because chemical reactions still continue to take place (a lot more slowly than at room temperature, but nonetheless they still occur). At liquid nitrogen temperatures, those involving water at least essentially stop altogether, because it's now so cold that individual water molecules are unable to move. That's my understanding anyway. I'd be very surprised if you got significant deterioration after just 12 years.
The facts.
http://www.spermbankdirectory.com/freezing-sperm
In my professional experience it is harder to get a viable embryo after 12 years. Not saying it is impossible, just saying in my pediatric rotations 12 years appears to be guaranteed, but after that it gets progressively harder as time passes.