On the day Ted Williams died, he was airlifted from Florida to Scottsdale, Arizona and moved by ambulance to a small room filled with 30 people wielding cameras and surgical tools.
His body, kept on ice, was quickly moved to a table and technicians rushed to remove and replace his blood.
Four hours later, the surgeon put down his bone saw after making his final cut.
Ted had been dead for about sixteen hours.
Shortly before his death, he apparently scribbled a note, making his final request a call to remove his head from his body and store both at -321 degrees.
To this day, his body parts are still stored in two steel tanks by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation about a mile from the Scottsdale airport.
This nonprofit has been freezing people since 1972. The patients — if you will — opt to have either their head, whole body, or both but separated, frozen in the hope that medical technology will one day advance to the point where they can be revived and cured.
Cryogenics and suspended animation have long been the subjects of science fiction. In my opinion, both still rightfully need to stay there.
I don’t think we’ll ever see the best batter of all time rise like Lazarus, but history is full of instances of science fiction becoming fact.
When it comes to suspended animation, doctors at the University of Pittsburgh are planning on essentially bringing people back from the dead.
From Weird Tales to Clinical Trials
At the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, doctors are starting a two year trial to do something fundamentally similar to what happened to Ted Williams.
Emergency preservation and resuscitation is a procedure that replaces the blood of patients who have experienced traumatic cardiac arrest — for this trial it will have been caused by stabs or gunshot wounds — with a cold saline solution. This cools the body and suspends metabolic activity.
The point is to create a suspended state as doctors try to quickly repair the wound and attempt resuscitation.
The bodies will not technically be frozen, but the process does stop all blood flow and activity to squeeze in extra minutes or hours needed to save a life.
The patients will show no signs of being alive — including blood flow — while doctors race to repair damage that is causing fatal bleeding while in a normal state.
It may be in the early stages, but the core concept of cryogenics and suspended animation is moving from pulp magazines like Weird Tales, first published over 90 years ago, to reality.
This is hardly an isolated example. The core discoveries of science always outpace the application and full realization of what is possible, often for many decades or centuries.
Sound Science to Astounding Tech
A great example of this transition from the obscure academic works of scientists to an everyday tool we take for granted is reflected in one of the most prominent stocks in the world today.
Apple hit it big with the iPhone, but it simply wouldn’t have been possible without seemingly unprofitable work done over centuries past.
In 1905, Albert Einstein published four obscure papers that created the basis for quantum physics. It doesn’t seem like his work affected our lives, but it has in a profound way.
Virtually everything we use today is based on his theories. Your house, car, job, and phone (amongst countless other examples), have completely changed because of his work.
Yet these things seem common, and even boring. We have the luxury of taking it all for granted even though it would have seemed wildly exotic not too long ago.
The GPS system is probably the most amazing part. Put in an address and your little computer will tell you when to turn in a somewhat creepy voice.
There is a catch, though; Einstein showed that gravity and speed affect time. GPS satellites move fast enough and far enough away from Earth that each second is off by about .01%.
While you’re just looking at a dot on a screen and trying not to get lost, this tiny difference is stacking up every second. In the background, a computer system is compensating for it. Your location would be off by an extra 10 kilometers per day otherwise.
Pocket computers and communicators were sci-fi tropes for decades, until it was feasible to make them.
None of this was new when Apple hit it big, but it wasn’t easy to use, or particularly useful for the masses. So the company buried it behind the scenes with an easy-to-use device and made billions.
Tech and Health Converge
I know these seem like two very different examples of science getting ahead of practical business, but we’re on the cusp of something fantastic as the rapid advances in medicine and physics converge.
Exotic elements discovered over the last 150 years were shelved because they had no use (I’m looking at you rare earth elements).
Now they are the bases for the massive permanent magnets in high-end diagnostic tools like MRI scanners sold for millions by companies like General Electric.
Research is being done on cures for cancer. Robots are burning corneas with lasers and people are walking away with perfect eyesight.
Scientists are growing noses, ears, blood vessels, tear ducts, and windpipes out of their patients’ own cells for transplants with no risk of rejection.
In 2012, a lady who lost all limb movement due to a degenerative spinal condition picked up a chocolate bar and raised it to her mouth because researchers mapped her brain and connected it to a mechanical arm.
These technologies will become commonplace in our society, but were unimaginable decades ago, and the trend is far from over.
Biopsies, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy will seem as barbaric as chopping off someone’s head and freezing it as new therapies come online.
This is especially true as a small pioneering company combines physics, technology, and health sciences to detect cancer using a specialized form of light.
Sound crazy? Wait a couple years and we’ll see.
