If you’re like us, your first introduction to the concept of cryogenics was probably the cartoon Futurama. In it, lead character Fry accidentally falls into a freezing container, and wakes up a thousand years in the future.
Now, there are people who genuinely believe that if they freeze their bodies now, they’ll be able to be revived in the future, perhaps when we have more sophisticated medicines or techniques that could help them live longer.
In fact, last year, a corporate dispute between a former husband and wife in Russia descended into the absurd when the aggrieved former wife seized the frozen bodies and brains from the pair’s cryogenics facility.
That’s right, people actually pay to have their bodies frozen right after death, and it costs them thousands of dollars. But could it actually work? In this episode of Huh? Science Explained, Cosmos Magazine’s Amalyah Hart finds out if you can actually freeze a human body and bring that person back to life.