The Daily

Hospitals are warming to the idea of cryonics, the controversial practice of freezing corpses in the hope that scientists will be able to revive them in the future. 

“We used to receive incredible resistance from hospitals,” said Max More, CEO of Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Ariz. “Now the medical staff generally seem to be fascinated and enthusiastic and offer their help wherever they can…”

What does the cryonic process look like? It’s creepy, to say the least. When the patient is declared dead, the body is immediately submerged in freezing water and attached to a blood circulation pump to prevent tissue damage. The blood is replaced with a chemical cocktail that works as a sort of biological anti-freeze. After it is stabilized, the body is flown to a storage facility, zipped into a thermal sleeping bag, put in a vertical vat with other bodies, and brought down to -320° Fahrenheit.

Then it’s just a matter of waiting for science to figure out how to bring them back to life.

Perhaps because of how strange it sounds, only 250 people and 100 pets have undergone the procedure. And, of course, it’s not cheap: Deep-freezing your head costs a minimum of $50,000, while a full-body preservation will run $200,000 or more.