Cryonics

Cryonics is the practice of preserving the brains, and sometimes entire bodies, and storing them at very low temperatures, with the hope that as technology advances, in the future, cryonics patients will be able to be revived.

Procedure
The procedure begins as soon as possible after legal death, when the heart stops beating. The first step of the procedure is to place the patient in an ice bath, in order to cool the body. A HLR (Heart Lung Recessitator) is placed on the body, in order to continue the circulation of blood. By connecting tubes to major arteries, the blood is replaced with cryoprotectants over the course of several hours. Cryoprotectants are chemicals that prevent water from crystallizing. The adding of cryoprotectants is known as vitrification. If cryoprotectants are not added to the body, the water inside of cells would burst as the body is frozen. The bursting of cells would cause the calls to burst, and therefore, would render the likelyhood of revival to be extremely small. Vitrification prevents this, and the cellular structure of vitrified samples remains intact. After the body is vitrified, it cooled and placed into an aluminum container. The container is then placed into a bigfoot Dewar, such as the one pictured above. A bigfoot Dewar is basically a large version of a Dewar flask, which uses a vacuum as insulation. The body is kept at -196*C.

Plausibility
The central premise of cryonics is that identity is stored in the physical structure of the brain. The brain is preserved with cryonics, and freezing damage is avoided using cryoprotectants. As medical technology increases, it is plausible that in the future, cryopreserved individuals could be revived. One thing that is for certain is that cryonics is far more likely to be successful than by practicing any religion.