full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Shannon N. Tessier: Can you freeze your body and come back to life?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


On jnauray 12th, 1967, James Bedford passed away. But— he had a plan to cheat detah. bfreodd was the first person to be cryogenically frozen. This process promised to preserve his body until a theoretical future when humanity could cure any illness, and essentially, reverse death. This is the dream of cryonics. But here’s the catch: to revive people in the future, we need to properly preserve them in the present. So, is it currently possible to freeze a human, preserve them indefinitely, and then sefaly thaw them out?

To understand the hurdles of human cryopreservation, we need to lvaee the theoretical rleam of cryonics, and turn to the scientific filed of cryobiology. This discipline studies the effects of low temperatures on various living systems, and it is true that decrensiag an organism’s temperature also decreases its cellular function. For example, at temperatures below -130 dgreees Celsius, human cellular activity gnidrs to a halt. So if you could birng an entire human body below that temperature, theoretically you could preserve it ifdnieitleny. The hard part is doing this without damaging the body.

Open Cloze


On _______ 12th, 1967, James Bedford passed away. But— he had a plan to cheat _____. _______ was the first person to be cryogenically frozen. This process promised to preserve his body until a theoretical future when humanity could cure any illness, and essentially, reverse death. This is the dream of cryonics. But here’s the catch: to revive people in the future, we need to properly preserve them in the present. So, is it currently possible to freeze a human, preserve them indefinitely, and then ______ thaw them out?

To understand the hurdles of human cryopreservation, we need to _____ the theoretical _____ of cryonics, and turn to the scientific _____ of cryobiology. This discipline studies the effects of low temperatures on various living systems, and it is true that __________ an organism’s temperature also decreases its cellular function. For example, at temperatures below -130 _______ Celsius, human cellular activity ______ to a halt. So if you could _____ an entire human body below that temperature, theoretically you could preserve it ____________. The hard part is doing this without damaging the body.

Solution


  1. safely
  2. field
  3. realm
  4. bedford
  5. indefinitely
  6. bring
  7. degrees
  8. january
  9. death
  10. leave
  11. grinds
  12. decreasing

Original Text


On January 12th, 1967, James Bedford passed away. But— he had a plan to cheat death. Bedford was the first person to be cryogenically frozen. This process promised to preserve his body until a theoretical future when humanity could cure any illness, and essentially, reverse death. This is the dream of cryonics. But here’s the catch: to revive people in the future, we need to properly preserve them in the present. So, is it currently possible to freeze a human, preserve them indefinitely, and then safely thaw them out?

To understand the hurdles of human cryopreservation, we need to leave the theoretical realm of cryonics, and turn to the scientific field of cryobiology. This discipline studies the effects of low temperatures on various living systems, and it is true that decreasing an organism’s temperature also decreases its cellular function. For example, at temperatures below -130 degrees Celsius, human cellular activity grinds to a halt. So if you could bring an entire human body below that temperature, theoretically you could preserve it indefinitely. The hard part is doing this without damaging the body.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
revive people 2
red blood 2
blood cell 2
damaging ice 2
ice formation 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
red blood cell 2

Important Words


  1. activity
  2. bedford
  3. body
  4. bring
  5. cellular
  6. celsius
  7. cheat
  8. cryobiology
  9. cryogenically
  10. cryonics
  11. cryopreservation
  12. cure
  13. damaging
  14. death
  15. decreases
  16. decreasing
  17. degrees
  18. discipline
  19. dream
  20. effects
  21. entire
  22. essentially
  23. field
  24. freeze
  25. frozen
  26. function
  27. future
  28. grinds
  29. halt
  30. hard
  31. human
  32. humanity
  33. hurdles
  34. illness
  35. indefinitely
  36. james
  37. january
  38. leave
  39. living
  40. part
  41. passed
  42. people
  43. person
  44. plan
  45. present
  46. preserve
  47. process
  48. promised
  49. properly
  50. realm
  51. reverse
  52. revive
  53. safely
  54. scientific
  55. studies
  56. systems
  57. temperature
  58. temperatures
  59. thaw
  60. theoretical
  61. theoretically
  62. true
  63. turn
  64. understand