
My whole family will be FROZEN at death – we'll lay as ice cubes until science breakthrough brings us back to life
Dennis Kowalski, a former paramedic who is now director of the Cryonics Institute, told The Sun he is one of over 2,000 people who have signed up to be frozen when they die
FROZEN IN TIME My whole family will be FROZEN at death – we'll lay as ice cubes until science breakthrough brings us back to life
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
WOULD you cheat death for the price of $28,000? Well, that's what thousands of people across the world are trying to do with cryonics.
Cryonics is the practice of deep-freezing the bodies of dead people, in hopes they can be revived in the future.
Sign up for Scottish Sun
newsletter
Sign up
5
Dennis Kowalski is one of over 2,000 people who have signed up to be frozen when they die
Credit: Cryonics Institute
5
Dennis' three sons Jacob, Danny and James have also agreed to be frozen
Credit: Caters News Agency
5
Dennis with his wife Maria who has also been signed up to be cryo-preserved
Credit: Caters News Agency
Dennis Kowalski, a former paramedic who is now director of the Cryonics Institute, told The Sun he is one of over 2,000 people who have signed up to be frozen when they die.
The nonprofit, based out of the US, is almost entirely made up of volunteers who have all signed up themselves.
About 270 people are currently being stored in liquid nitrogen filled tubes at the Michigan facility – and an equal number of pets.
Some of the pets have even been cloned, says Kowalski, and are scampering around homes today.
Other customers have given alternative forms of DNA to be frozen, like skin cells, in hopes of being cloned themselves in the future.
Kowalski, his wife and their three sons are all signed up, each contributing $28,000 to secure their tube and fund maintenance until future medicine can bring them back to life.
In theory, that money will be transferred into a bank account in their name for when they wake up, so they can cover medical bills (should they not be free) and have some pocket money for their new life in the future.
The family took some persuading, but were fully on board once Kowalski had given his reasoning behind the process.
"We don't propose fantastic futuristic medical science breakthroughs... we just propose to get you there," explains Kowalski.
"We're kind of an ambulance ride to a future hospital that may or may not exist."
Dissident Chinese academic has his brain FROZEN in the US with strict last wish to only thaw it 'after 500 years'
For Kowalski, who signed up himself in 1995, cryopreservation is the best way he can imagine being reunited with his family after some painful losses.
The concept of freezing a body until it can be brought back to life healthily is still just a concept.
'If it does work - oh my god... I would give everything I own for my my friends, my family, my mother, my father, people who have died in my life,' he says.
'It might be a shot in the dark... but it's the only shot we got.'
5
For cryopreservation to work, you need a viable candidate
Credit: Cryonics Institute
'Pie-in-the-sky'
Top neuroscientists have criticised the use of cryonics.
They say it gives people false hope for a second chance at life.
But Kowalski says there's "all sorts of evidence that this isn't just pie-in-the-sky".
He continues: "I mean we can freeze embryos right now. People [in embryonic form] have been frozen solid and brought back."
From eggs and sperm to skin, scientists can freeze all kinds of mammalian biological cells for medical application.
"We just haven't perfected the whole person," adds Kowalski. "We haven't been able to revive someone yet and once we do we won't need cryonics to get you to the future - we'll be in the future."
For cryopreservation to work, you need a viable candidate.
A body that has been dead for a long time, or even a near-centenarian, might not be a possible, or even a good idea.
'You don't want to come back as a 99 year old just to die again," says Kowalski.
5
Kowalski recommends all cryo-sleepers get their families on side before they die
Credit: Cryonics Institute
A family affair
Life is about who you share it with. And the same goes for your second coming, according to Kowalski.
You'll want people from your own timeline, with whom you can revel about the past and also grapple with the future.
Kowalski recommends all cryo-sleepers get their families on side before they die.
'The biggest people that can stand in the way of your cryopreservation is your family,' explains Kowalski.
'More often than not they want some more money out of the estate, that they think is maybe going to a foolish cause.
'So we suggest you give most of your money to your family and use life insurance as a savings vector. But the funny thing is this is affordable to just about anybody, its on par with an expensive funeral.'
This way, nobody goes into the future with bitter rivalries hanging over their heads.
'In my case, my family is interested and has signed up as well,' says Kowalski.
'My wife, my children. Two of my sons are paramedics so they understand the emergency medical procedures. So its not a problem with me.
'But I encourage people to keep this a family thing. You don't want to break up families.'

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Lord Sainsbury: Give Glasgow greater devolved powers
"A major challenge which government faces if it wants to increase Scotland's rate of growth is a way to find and support such clusters," he said. "All the evidence from other countries suggests that the only way to effectively support clusters is to do so at a city region level. Read more: "I appreciate in Scotland, unlike in England, metro mayors have not yet been introduced, but if you want to support high-tech clusters, this is something I think you should seriously consider, with Greater Glasgow being given powers similar to those devolved to Greater Manchester and the West Midlands." Lord Sainsbury was speaking at the Creating the Jobs of Tomorrow conference organised by Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, where he was introduced to the stage by former Labour chancellor and prime minister Gordon Brown. Mr Brown said growth and productivity have been perennial problems in the UK and Scotland, with innovation the key to boosting performance. A new study by economist Dan Turner, head of research at the Centre for Progressive Policy, has suggested this could unlock the creation of hundreds of thousands of high-value jobs. "There are huge sources of innovation and inventiveness in Scotland, just as has been traditional in our history," he said. "The question is can we turn that into scalable companies that stay in Scotland, invest in Scotland, create jobs in Scotland, and Dan's study suggests we could create 300,000 jobs in the next 10 years. "That's 300,000 well-paying jobs, 120,000 in the new industries, the spin-offs in terms of the service sector another 180,000 - that is a possibility if we invest in the infrastructure, the skills, and the development necessary to achieve that." Lord David Sainsbury (Image: Nate Cleary) Lord Sainsbury is a Labour peer and served as minister for science and innovation under Mr Brown and his prime ministerial predecessor, Tony Blair, between 1998 and 2006. He was appointed a life peer in 1997. Lord Sainsbury said there are new opportunities for employment and growth in sectors such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence and biotechnology. "There are economists that will argue that it is investment that is the engine of economic growth, but we have to realise today that capital flows easily around the world, and it flows as it has always done, to where the best investment opportunities are created by innovation," Lord Sainsbury said. "You can sit in London today and you can invest in Silicon Valley, you can invest in practically any country - until recently you could even invest in Chinese venture capital - because that is what modern communication enables you to do. That is why investment is not the real driver of the economy, it's innovation." Among the other speakers was Michael Spence, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for his work in the analysis of markets with information imbalances. Read more: "There are two things that [people] associate with Adam Smith correctly," Mr Spence said. "One the 'invisible hand', which is the market system is a reasonably efficient tool for decentralising and allocating resources. "That actually is not the most important thing that Adam Smith said, but it's the one that neo-conservatives remember because they elevate market systems to the status of a religion, rather than a way of accomplishing economic and social goals. The most important one for our purposes is specialisation. "Adam Smith meant specialisation within an economy, when of course everything that David Sainsbury talked about in the global economy is just the Adam Smith insight writ large, and of course it is the ultimate source of growth. "Without specialisation you don't get scale of spread your activity over too much territory, and you don't get innovation. You get nothing if everybody has to do everything. "The fundamental message I want to deliver today is that's still true, and that growth is fundamentally about specialisation and structural change."


Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Fears newly-discovered coronavirus is 'one step away' from infecting humans
A team of researchers from Washington State University fear the newly-discovered HKU5-CoV-2 coronavirus found in China could mutate enough to cause a pandemic Scientists have warned that a newly-discovered coronavirus could lead to another pandemic. Researchers from Washington State University believe the HKU5-CoV-2 virus, found in China, is only one "small" step away from mutating. This in turn could allow it to infect humans and cause a widespread outbreak. Experts are on guard due to the pathogen's close relation to MERS, a life-threatening virus that kills around a third of people infected. Adding to the fear is that HKU5 was first recorded in bats by scientists from the Chinese lab where some say Covid originally came from in 2019, resulting in millions of deaths. The latest study was published in Nature Communications and looked at a lesser-known group of coronaviruses known as merbecoviruses, which includes HKU5 and MERS-CoV. In it, a team from the US looked at how the new pathogen interacts with human cells. Professor Michael Letko, a virologist at Washington State who co-led the study, said: "HKU5 viruses in particular really hadn't been looked at much, but our study shows how these viruses infect cells. What we also found is HKU5 viruses may be only a small step away from being able to spill over into humans." It was found that a small change in the virus' spike protein could mean that it attaches to human ACE2 cells, which are located in people's throats, mouths and noses. At the moment, the pathogen is only spreading in bats. However, scientists are concerned that unregulated wildlife trade in China increases the possibility of it eventually being transmitted to other species. 'Pseudoviruses' were created in the lab that include the HKU5 spike protein but are ultimately harmless and cannot replicate. These were then introduced to different types of cells, with some carrying bat ACE2 and others carrying human ACE2. In the experiments, the virus glowed green when it had entered and replicated inside a cell. The bat cells lit up brightly, meaning that HKU5 can easily infect them. However, human cells showed hardly any response unless the virus had certain mutations. The fear now is that if HKU5 jumps to an intermediate animal, for example a mink or civet, it could mutate enough before eventually reaching humans. One theory over the origins of the pandemic is that it was caused by a leak from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This gained traction after the Director of the FBI Christopher Wray said the bureau believes Covid-19 "most likely" originated in a "Chinese government-controlled lab". However, last year scientists who were part of a major international study rejected this popular belief. They instead claimed that it broke out from a wet market in Wuhan, China. Genetic samples of animals that were sold at the market stalls in 2019 found traces of the Covid virus in some species. Author of the study, Kristian Andersen from Scripps Research, said in the document: "This adds another layer to the accumulating evidence that all points to the same scenario: that infected animals were introduced into the market in mid to late November 2019, which sparked the pandemic."


Economist
4 days ago
- Economist
Chinese students want an American education less than they used to
It has been a difficult week for Chinese students in America. On May 28th the State Department announced a campaign to start 'aggressively' revoking their visas. One of the targets will be Chinese students in 'critical fields', the science and engineering programmes that are deemed to be of strategic interest to China. Another will be those who have unspecified 'connections' to the Communist Party. It is unclear exactly how wide the net will be cast and how many students will be forced to leave. But for young people in China thinking about where to study, America now looks a dicey proposition.