A company in Russia is giving people the opportunity to put their brain on ice when they die – in the hope they can be brought back to life in the future, Reuters reported this week.
According to the news agency, the firm, KrioRus, has frozen over 70 brains and human cadavers floating in liquid nitrogen in one of several meters-tall vats in a corrugated metal shed outside Moscow.
They are stored at -196 degrees Celsius with the aim of protecting them against deterioration, although there is currently no evidence science will be able to revive the dead.
In comments on the project, head of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Pseudoscience Commission Evgeny Alexandrov said: “It is an exclusively commercial undertaking that does not have any scientific basis.”
It is “a fantasy speculating on people’s hopes of resurrection from the dead and dreams of eternal life,” said Alexandrov.
Muscovite Alexei Voronenkov, who intends to undergo the procedure when he dies, said: “I did this because we were very close and I think it is the only chance for us to meet in the future.”
Valeriya Udalova, director of KrioRus, who got her dog frozen when it died in 2008, said it is likely that humankind will develop the technology to revive dead people in the future, but that there is no guarantee of such technology.
KrioRus, which advertises itself as “the first cryonics company in Russia,” says hundreds of potential clients from nearly 20 countries have signed up for its after-death service.
It costs $36,000 for a whole body and $15,000 for the brain alone for Russians, who earn average monthly salaries of $760, according to official statistics. Prices are slightly higher for non-Russians.
