Some enthusiasts are optimistic, using the law of accelerating returns to justify predictions that within the next 30 to 40 years we could develop medical technologies capable of enhancing biological systems, preventing disease and even reverse-engineering aging. Much of a cryogenically preserved personвЂ™s experience in coming back would depend on the time scale involved. Answering these questions is a matter of pure speculation, but experts have spent time turning them over вЂ“ not the least so some can better prepare for their own potential return. How that would play out depends on a host of factors, including how long they were gone, what kind of society they returned to, whether they know anyone when they are brought back and in what form they return. Instead, they would immediately face the challenge of rebuilding their lives as strangers in a strange land. Once you get your head around that, itвЂ™s much less scary.вЂќД«ut assuming cryonics does wind up working, for the newly reborn citizens of the past there would be more to their stories than simply opening their eyes and declaring a happy ending. вЂњItвЂ™s just medicine вЂ“ another form of healthcare that helps people who are seriously sick. вЂњThis is really not so earth-shattering or philosophically weird as you might think,вЂќ says Aubrey de Grey, co-founder and chief science officer at the Sens Research Foundation in California, a non-profit organisation dedicated to changing the way we research and treat age-related ill health. While a thawed out rabbit brain does not a fully revitalised person make, some believe that cryogenic revival might someday be as commonplace as treating a case of the flu or mending a broken arm. The rabbit was still dead, though вЂ“ the researchers did not attempt to resuscitate the animal afterwards. Even after several weeks of storage, the synapses that are thought to be crucial for brain function were intact. Most recently, a team succeeded at thawing a previously vitrified rabbit brain.

But many researchers believe that it is a credible field of inquiry, and cryobiologists are slowly chipping away at the possibility of revival. To the uninitiated, cryonics might seem the stuff of вЂњVanilla Sky,вЂќ вЂњDemolition Man,вЂќ and other purely science fiction works.

Oblivion heart of the dead