🚀 go-pugleaf

	
...Text Elided

 >>Re irradiation, I'm virtually certain that it would cause a lot
 >>more damage than freezing--irradiated foods appear less changed because
 >>the damage is at the molecular level and the gross structure is 
 >>unchanged.  (That does not mean, of course, that irradiated foods are 
 >>dangerous to eat--neither radiation or freezing is in the same league
 >>as cooking when it comes to rearranging molecules...)  In fact, my
 >>semi-educated guess is that future nanotech could restore frozen
 >>organisms but could not restore irradiated ones.
 >>--JoSH]

I did a little research on radiation injury to human tissues.
"In humans, sensitivity of tissues to radiation decreases in the following
order:
(1) lymphoid tissue and bone marrow 
(2) epithelial tissue, ie testes and ovaries
(3) salivary gland
(4) skin
(5) mucous membranes
(6) endothelial cells of blood vessels and peritoneum
(7) connective tissue
(8) muscle, bone, and nerve tissue"

That nerve tissue is at the end of this list is promising, don't
you think? Since it is primarily those 10**11 nerve cells, the
brain, that we most want to preserve?

Why would you rule out repairing radiation damaged tissues? Isn't
this implicit in the cancer cures we expect from nanotechnology?

If nanotechnology is really going to give us *complete* control
of molecular structures, all molecular damage of any type, will
be repairable, provide we have a map of, or can deduce, the original 
structures. I would really expect the smaller scale damage caused
by irradiation to be more easily repaired by molecular scale
assemblers, than the larger scale damage caused by freezing.  By 
(risky) analogy, ants can more easily move many leaf bits around than 
they could move an uprooted tree. (Although with *enough* ants, 
anything is possible. Rocket nozzles for instance, ala KED.)

[ Asbestos suit on. Halon primed and ready. ]

I think the real reason no one has looked into irradiation as
a (viable? :-) alternative, is that the general public has been
conditioned into knee-jerk fear of the (gasp) "r-word". Just
because radiation is a deadly threat now doesn't mean it will
always be.  Especially if nanotechnology lives up to its promise.

Ed

[Your comments on radiation are refreshingly non-phobic.  I'm just
 assuming that the levels of (ionizing) radiation used for food
 sterilization do significant damage because they are after all
 intended to kill any microorganisms present.  That's troublesome
 because the thing you need to retrieve is "strengths" associated
 with the synapses, which are basically chemical concentrations
 in and around the nerve cell endings.  Given that even non-ionizing
 radiation (sunlight) causes dye decomposition (fading) I would
 guess that a 200 year bath in hard gammas would leave you somewhat
 absent-minded.
 --JoSH]