Category Archives: Cryonics

The shed above Nederland which houses the frozen body of Bredo Morstoel. Photo Wikimedia Commons

"We will continue on whether or not Bredo Morstoel is here," festival owner Amanda MacDonald said, referring to the man whose body has been packed in dry ice outside Nederland, Colorado, since 1993.

A financial dispute between Morstoel's grandson, Tryve Bauge, and the man hired to replenish the dry ice on a monthly basis, Bo Shaffer, has led to Bauge threatening to move his grandfather's body out of Colorado.

Each month for 18 years, Shaffer has hauled 770kg of dry ice - carbon dioxide in solid form - to a remote shed above Nederland to keep the corpse of Morstoel at -31degC and in a state of cryonic suspension.

But Shaffer said he quit after Bauge refused to pay for the rising costs of fuel and ice, which has made the endeavour unprofitable.

"It takes two of us to make the four-hour roundtrip," Shaffer told Reuters. "My quitting is the only way to get his (Bauge's) attention."

Bauge, who lives in Norway, did not immediately return an email message seeking comment about the dispute. But he told the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper that he is exploring the possibility of moving his grandfather to the Cryonics Institute in Michigan.

Cryonics is the process of freezing and storing a corpse to prevent decomposition in anticipation of medical technology that could bring the dead back to life. Liquid nitrogen, which is far colder than dry ice, is typically used for cryonic preservation.

Morstoel died of heart failure in his native Norway in 1989, and Bauge had his grandfather's body frozen and transported to a cryonics facility in California. Ultimately he had the corpse moved to Nederland, where Bauge lived at the time.

When Bauge was deported because of an expired visa, he hired Shaffer to act as an unofficial caretaker.

Read more:
'Frozen Dead Guy' party to go on, with or without corpse

A team competes in the Coffin Races during Frozen Dead Guys Days in Nederland, Colorado in this file picture. Reuters pics

We will continue on whether or not Bredo Morstoel is here, festival owner Amanda MacDonald said yesterday of the man whose body has been packed in dry ice outside Nederland, Colorado, since 1993.

A financial dispute between Morstoels grandson, Tryve Bauge, and the man hired to replenish the dry ice on a monthly basis, Bo Shaffer, has led to Bauge threatening to move his grandfathers body out of Colorado.

Each month for 18 years, Shaffer has hauled 770kg of dry ice carbon dioxide in solid form to a remote shed above Nederland to keep the corpse of Morstoel at minus-31 Celsius and in a state of cryonic suspension.

But Shaffer said he quit after Bauge refused to pay for the rising costs of fuel and ice, which has made the endeavour unprofitable.

It takes two of us to make the four-hour roundtrip, Shaffer told Reuters.

My quitting is the only way to get his (Bauges) attention.

Bauge, who lives in Norway, did not immediately return an email message seeking comment about the dispute.

The Ice Queen and King are seen with a Tuff Shed in the Cyronics parade during Frozen Dead Guys Days in Nederland, Colorado.

Cryonics is the process of freezing and storing a corpse to prevent decomposition in anticipation of medical technology that could bring the dead back to life.

Read the rest here:
Frozen Dead Guys festival to go on… with or without a corpse

DENVER For nearly two decades, Bo Shaffer has been hauling hundreds of pounds of dry ice each month up to a remote shed in Nederland, Colo., where he's keeping an unusual specimen on ice: the body of Bredo Morstoel, better known as the "Frozen Dead Guy."

Morstoel, a Norwegian, died of a heart attack in 1989 and has been kept frozen ever since at the behest of his grandson, Trygve Bauge. The corpse has inspired fascination, municipal legislation and even an annual festival, Frozen Dead Guy Days.

But now the fate of Colorado's Frozen Dead Guy is in limbo after an argument between Bauge and Shaffer. The caretaker is threatening to quit over disagreements about payment and procedure for keeping Morstoel frozen. Bauge in turn is talking of moving the corpse to Michigan.

"He refuses to pay what it takes to do this," Shaffer said of the grandson. "I've been after him for over two years for a raise, and he refuses to come up with it."

Bauge, who lives in Norway, tells a slightly different story, citing communications problems and saying Shaffer has not been adding enough dry ice to the freezer holding his grandfather's sarcophagus.

The disagreement highlights one of the troubles of cryonics, the preservation of human bodies for later reanimation by future technology, should such technology ever be developed. This particular trouble is that freezing a body indefinitely is complicated and expensive. [8 Wild Alternatives to Burial]

Tale from the cryonic crypt

The idea of cryonics has been bandied about for hundreds of years, but it wasn't until the 1960s that it really took off. In 1964, a man named Evan Cooper founded the Life Extension Society, dedicated to promoting freezing the dead in hopes that later medical technology could revive them.

Morstoel was aware of his grandson's interest in cryonics, Bauge says, but did not know that he himself would be frozen "though he once expressed a gut feeling" that he wouldn't be getting a regular burial, Bauge wrote in an email to reporters.

Few places in the world allow indefinite storage of frozen corpses, Shaffer told LiveScience, so Morstoel's body was shipped to Trans Time cryonics, a facility in Oakland, Calif. There it stayed frozen for four years in a steel sarcophagus surrounded by liquid nitrogen. Then Bauge and his mother had Morstoel moved to Colorado, where they planned to start their own cryonics facility.

Continued here:
Frozen Dead Guy May Move to Michigan

Nederland's most famous frozen resident may be on his way out of the small mountain town he helped put on the map.

Trygve Bauge, grandson of the late "Grandpa" Bredo Morstoel -- Nederland's world-famous Frozen Dead Guy, namesake of the town's annual spring festival -- on Tuesday said a disagreement with the body's caretaker has led him to consider moving the frozen corpse from the Tuff Shed where it has been on ice since 1993.

If you're interested in a job hauling dry ice up to Nederland to keep "Grandpa" Bredo Morstoel frozen, e-mail Trygve Bauge at trygve.bauge@getmail.no .

"Basically I have approached Cryonic Institute in Michigan and asked them if they will take over the storage of Bredo as soon as we can afford to move him there, which might be in the spring of 2015 at the rate we are presently saving up money," Bauge wrote in an e-mail from Norway, where he has lived since being deported in 1994.

Morstoel died of a heart attack in Norway on Nov. 6, 1989, and Bauge had his body cryogenically frozen in the hopes that one day medical technology would be able to bring him back to life. After a brief stop in Oakland, Calif., Morstoel's body has been kept at 24 degrees below zero with monthly dry ice deliveries from Bo Shaffer, Morstoel's now-former caretaker.

But Shaffer -- who responded to a peculiar want ad on the Internet in 1995 and has been hauling dry ice up to Nederland ever since -- recently e-mailed Bauge, saying he'd made his final monthly ice run.

"Furthermore, he has not been adding as much dry ice as we have been paying him to add, nor has he added it timely, nor has he sent us the prompt dry ice delivery reports that we have been paying him to send us," Bauge wrote in his e-mail to the Daily Camera.

But Shaffer, a former candidate for Boulder County sheriff, said Tuesday that he

Bo Shaffer places a framed photo of Bredo Morstoel, who is being preserved on dry ice in a Tuff Shed in Nederland, on March 8, 2003. (Jon Hatch / Camera file photo)

"It was a move of desperation," Shaffer said of his decision to quit. "It's a tough job. It takes four hours and three guys."

See the article here:
Grandson of Nederland's Frozen Dead Guy wants to move Grandpa Bredo

Kim Suozzi and her boyfriend are shown here in a YouTube video created to generate support for the young woman's bid to be cryogenically frozen. (suonodellanoche/Youtube )When 23-year-old Kim Suozzi learned that she was dying from brain cancer, she turned to the online message boards of Reddit.com for advice on what to do in her final months.

Of the more than 4,000 suggestions that rolled in, one stood out above the others: Don't die at all; instead be cryogenically preserved.

As this YouTube video and follow-up Reddit post show, Suozzi has decided to pursue the idea - with a little bit of help from her internet friends.

"I'm back on Reddit again, mostly to ask for help because I want to be cryogenically preserved upon my death," she wrote on Reddit on Aug. 17. "I know this is a big thing to ask for, and I'm sure many people are doubtful that preservation is plausible with cryonics. I'm far from convinced, but I would rather take the chance with preservation than rot in the ground or get cremated."

Suozzi explained that the procedure offered by Michigan's Cryonics Institute costs between $30,000-35,000, with transportation to the facility included - a fee that neither she, nor her family can afford.

"A lot of people on Reddit wanted to start a fundraiser for me awhile ago to aid in doing fun things before I die," she wrote. "I am hoping that Redditors will still have some interest in helping me even if it's not going towards vacation or skydiving ... Cryopreservation is sincerely what will bring me the most peace in death."

Kim Suozzi before she was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. (Society for Venturism)These posts and video have ignited firestorm of debate around the web.

Some commenters say that Suozzi, who has a highly aggressive form of brain cancer with recurring tumors called glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), should seek better treatment to recover from her (incurable) illness.

Others say she should just accept her condition and the outcome. Many more have come to her defence.

As difficult as the fallout of her new Reddit fame has been (Suozzi says her Christian parents were very resistant to the idea), the controversy helped her catch the attention of a group called Society for Venturism, which set up a fund on her behalf.

More:
Terminally ill woman raises funds to get cryogenically frozen

Animated comedy Futurama has turned cryonics into a running gag, with the frozen head of disgraced, and now dead, US President Richard Nixon getting most of the punchlines. Source: Supplied

A CRYONICS company is looking for a place to store the bodies of Australians who believe future generations will be able to bring them back to life.

Not-for-profit company Stasis Systems Australia is celebrating a key milestone of 10 investors, each paying $50,000 for the privilege of having their body stored when they die.

Now the company is looking for a suitable location to build their super-cool facility, possibly in South Australia or New South Wales.

Co-founder Mark Milton said he had been talking to both SA Health and the NSW Health Department and had received a sympathetic and supportive hearing.

More than 250 people have been cryonically preserved around the world, and close to 2000 more have signed contracts with overseas providers, he said.

Their optimism is still a long way from becoming reality, because scientists can so far only freeze and then revive single cells - not whole organs and certainly not whole people.

And Australians interested in cryopreservation were at a distinct disadvantage, having to travel overseas when sick or risk having the procedure done here and then "thawing out" on the way over.

"The logistical reason more than anything else is what prompted me to get together with Peter Tsolakides, who is the other founder, to get together and try and figure out whether it was feasible," Mr Milton said.

Cryobiology expert Dr Stephen Livesey, a senior researcher at St Vincent's hospital in Melbourne, said he hadn't heard of Stasis Systems.

Read this article:
ICY DEAD PEOPLE - It's a super-cool way to go out, but do we want it?