MASSDEVICE ON CALL — Cryonics Institute founder Robert Ettinger was stored in a freezer alongside his mother and first and second wives after passing away over the weekend in hopes of being revived in the future.
Ettinger is considered by some to be the father of the cryonics movement, through which sick or dying humans and animals who can’t be sustained by contemporary medicine are preserved at low temperatures under the assumption that science will one day unlock the key to reanimating the lifeless body and curing what ailed it.
"At very low temperatures it is possible, right now, to preserve dead people with essentially no deterioration, indefinitely," Ettinger wrote in his 1962 novel, The Prospect of Immortality. "If civilization endures, medical science should eventually be able to repair almost any damage to the human body, including freezing damage and senile debility or other cause of death."
Ettinger popularized the cryonics movement during the 1960s and 1970s by publishing novels and making the rounds at a television talk shows, including an appearance on The Tonight Show. He founded the Cryonics Institute in 1976, a non-profit organization that has over 900 members worldwide as well as 106 patients in storage, according to a press release.
Ettinger was 92 years old when he was frozen.
Colder temperatures may mean more strokes
Colder temperatures and decreased humidity were connected to an increased rate of ischemic stroke in a recent study presented at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery’s 8th annual meeting in Colorado Spring, Colo.
In a study of 297 ischemic stroke events, study authors found that lower minimum and maximum temperatures and a lower dew point were related to a heightened incidence of ischemic stroke, or strokes caused by blockages.
"A proven correlation between environmental factors such as weather and increased stroke incidence could result in new ways of considering how we approach stroke treatment in terms of hospital preparedness, as well as steps we could take to enhance public education and stroke prevention initiatives," Dr. Charles Prestigiacomo, principal author and director of cerebrovascular and endovascular surgery at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey said in a press release.
Are titanium implants prone to leakage?
Blood titanium levels were found to be significantly higher for patients with titanium implants than those without in a recent study published in the journal Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.
Researchers used new isotope dilution analysis and mass spectrometry methods of detecting titanium in the blood to determine base levels of titanium in the blood of 40 patients without implants and then collected samples from 37 patients with titanium implants in their legs.
The study found that the control patients had very low levels of titanium while those with implants had significantly higher concentrations in their blood.
India considers portable ultrasound ban to stem sex-selective abortions
Indian officials are considering banning the sale of portable ultrasounds in efforts to crack down on illegal sex-selective abortions, DOTmed reported.
A 2011 census in the state of Maharashtra found that there were about 883 girls to every 1,000 boys, compared to a national average of 914 girls to 1,000 boys.
Maharashtra’s health minister alleges that selective abortions of female fetuses are often carried out after illegal sex-determination tests using portable ultrasound scanners.
FDA unveils research agenda
The FDA outlined their agenda for the kind of science and research it will conduct and the plan is open for public comment at the Federal Register for 60 days, Healthwatch reported.
The outline considers seven goals for the agency:
- Improve access to post-market data sources and explore feasibility of their use in different types of analyses.
- Improve risk assessment and management strategies to reinforce the safe use of drugs.
- Evaluate the effectiveness and impact of different types of regulatory communications to the public and other stakeholders.
- Evaluate the link among product quality attributes, manufacturing processes and product performance.
- Develop and improve predictive models of safety and efficacy in humans.
- Improve clinical trial design, analysis and conduct.
- Enhance individualization of patient treatment.