Alcor Conference Review
A review of last month's Alcor conference on cryonics can be found at Alcor News: "The presentations Sunday morning were more concerned with practical research considerations for cryonicists. Brian Wowk and Gregory Fahy presented a lot of technical explanation on what causes freezing damage, how vitrification techniques manage to avoid most of it, and what progress their laboratory is making on preventing freezing damage in rabbit kidneys (steady progress every year; but with many technical details still to be worked out). Brian Wowk noted that recent micrographs of tissue suggest it is possible that more brain structure is preserved by straight freezing than originally thought, although whether the preservation is at a level that could result in resuscitation is completely unknown. One of the high points (for me) of Greg Fahy's talk was his detailed summary of the original research on freezing damage and preservation done by Audrey Smith decades ago and the incredible persistence it took for her to achieve results."
Link: http://www.alcornews.org/weblog/2006/11/conference_review.html