11. Freeze Me When I Die

Curious Cases

BBC

Technology, Science

4.8 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When you die, would you want to be frozen so that one day you might be brought back to life? Listener Elspeth wants to know if that’s even possible. So Hannah and Dara embark on a quest to explore the chiling science of ‘cryobiology’: preserving living things at really low temperatures.

It turns out there are already thousands of people alive who were once suspended in antifreeze and stored in liquid nitrogen - when they were just a small clump of cells! There’s even a frog which can turn into a ‘frogsicle’ for months on end. But re-animating full size humans is a challenge no one has solved…yet. Will some miraculous nanotechnology of a distant future solve the problem?

Contributors:

Professor João Pedro de Magalhães: University of Birmingham Hayley Campbell: Author and broadcaster Professor Joyce Harper: UCL Dr Hanane Hadj-Moussa: The Babraham Institute, Cambridge Garrett Smyth: Cryonics UK

Producer: Ilan Goodman Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem A BBC Studios Audio Production

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Nicola Cocklin.
0:02.8	Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them.
0:06.6	My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right.
0:10.6	In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people
0:16.0	who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world.
0:19.8	Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela,
0:22.5	Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey, history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.4	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. I'm Hannah Frye. And I'm Dara O'Brien. And this is Radio Podcasts.
0:39.9	I'm Hannah Frye.
0:41.0	And I'm Dara O'Brien.
0:42.6	And this is Curious Cases.
0:44.7	The show will we take your quirkiest questions?
0:46.2	Your crunchest conundrums.
0:47.1	And then we solve them.
0:48.6	With the power of science.
0:49.7	I mean, do we always solve them?
0:51.6	I mean, the hit rate's pretty low.
0:53.4	But it is with science. It is with science.
0:58.6	All right, Darren, what have we got this week?
1:00.4	Well, we have a chilling question sent in, as ever, to Curious Cases at BBC.co.com.
1:05.2	We welcome all your questions.
1:07.2	All about the science of freezing.
	...

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