Want to live forever? You’re not alone. For as long as we humans have contemplated our own mortality, the dream of eternal life has not been far behind. We see it reflected in our mythologies, religions, and cultural traditions, whether through a fountain of youth or an immortal soul in heaven. But the dream of cheating death has recently made the jump from superstition to science. Welcome to the world of cryopreservation.

Cryonics is the preservation of a body at low temperatures following legal “death,” with the expectation that future technologies will allow the resuscitation of the individual. The technique has reached the popular imagination through a mix of Hollywood portrayals (e.g. Austin Powers) and urban legends (sorry, but Walt Disney was actually cremated). Singularity enthusiasts hope that death will be but a long nap, and dream they might awaken to a futuristic afterlife here on Earth. But how much of this is science, how much is hype, and how much is faith? To find out, we’ve surveyed the landscape of cryonics today.

The logic of cryopreservation goes something like this. The medical definition of “death” has changed throughout history as new technologies became available. A century ago, people were considered dead if their heart had stopped beating. Today, lives are routinely saved through the use of a defibrillator shortly after a heart attack, even after a few minutes of cardiac arrest. Cancer was once a death sentence, and now people survive it regularly.  How we define death is a function of the technology at our disposal.

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