Decapitate And Chill

The cryonics enthusiasts of Moscow-based KrioRus are freezing heads now, figuring out the whole immortality thing later

- Josh Dean

The only obvious sign this is the office of a cryonics company sits on the windowsill: a stainless-steel vacuum vessel about the size of a lobster pot. It’s meant to transport a human brain, and if used for its true purpose and not as a decoration, it would deliver that brain to a larger storage container filled with liquid nitrogen. The brain would be preserved there—the liquid nitrogen topped off once in a while—for however long the science and technology community takes to solve some vexing problems. First, how to repair the tissue damage caused by freezing. Second, and more important, how to gain access to the data inside—the neurons and connections and impulses that constitute a person’s memories, emotions, and personality— and bring it all back to life, either in another, healthier body or uploaded into a computer.

Otherwise, the office looks like a small apartment, and it is also that. It’s the pied-a-terre of Danila Medvedev and Valerija Pride, life partners and co-founders of Moscow-based KrioRus, as well as a crash pad for eager young transhumanists who need a place to stay while working on projects intended to expedite the quest for immortality.