Cryonics Institute in the Press
The Detroit News looks at the Cryonics Institute: "Robert Ettinger, a former Wayne State University professor and Clinton Township resident, founded the institute more than 30 years ago. Unable to persuade scientists to preserve bodies at low temperatures after death in hopes of rejuvenation by yet-invented technology, Ettinger did it himself. The Cryonics Institute opened in Detroit in 1976 before moving in 1993 to Clinton Township.
For years, membership was in the single digits, but it has exploded 500 percent since 2000 to 830 worldwide folks who want to preserve themselves, DNA or pets. The facility has preserved 64 animals, mostly dogs and cats, but a few birds and a hamster.
Some credit the Internet for the growth. Others chalk it up to contemporary advances in science, including research into aging and disease, resuscitation after deep cooling and regenerative medicine. Joseph Kowalsky likens cryonics to 'an ambulance to the future' and thinks of it this way: Most people would have considered someone dead in the 1800s if they had dropped to the ground of a heart attack. But defibrillators and other technologies have evolved to normalize the heart and allowed many people to live. ... The whole question of cryonics is, when does somebody die? If you can hold someone in stasis, stop decomposition so that we can find out later with medical technology if the person is really dead. It may be that person needed some form of medication, gene therapy, things we may not have even heard of yet."