http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/rej.2014.1636
This is a paper published in 2014 by Natasha Vita-More and Daniel Barranco, both associated with the Alcor Research Center (ARC).
The abstract:
Can memory be retained after cryopreservation? Our research has attempted to answer this long-standing question by using the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a well-known model organism for biological research that has generated revolutionary findings but has not been tested for memory retention after cryopreservation. Our study’s goal was to test C. elegans’ memory recall after vitrification and reviving. Using a method of sensory imprinting in the young C. elegans we establish that learning acquired through olfactory cues shapes the animal’s behavior and the learning is retained at the adult stage after vitrification. Our research method included olfactory imprinting with the chemical benzaldehyde (C₆H₅CHO) for phase-sense olfactory imprinting at the L1 stage, the fast cooling SafeSpeed method for vitrification at the L2 stage, reviving, and a chemotaxis assay for testing memory retention of learning at the adult stage. Our results in testing memory retention after cryopreservation show that the mechanisms that regulate the odorant imprinting (a form of long-term memory) in C. elegans have not been modified by the process of vitrification or by slow freezing.
Give me a break. When a professional society has declared something to be so beyond the pale that it will formally censure and expel any members who goes near it or says anything positive about it, there is going to be a chilling effect for anyone doing closely related research, and people have said as much privately.
Yes, it is. So? P-hacking is a gross breach of scientific ethics. Falsifying or tweaking data is a gross breach of scientific ethics. I hate to break it to you, but as a factual matter, these sorts of things happen all the time. Scientists will admit to them in anonymous surveys at high rates, and of course the more statistical sins appear in bright neon lights in any sort of meta-analysis of these topics like publication bias (hoo boy, is that a breach of medical ethics! but happens all the time anyway). Did you read the recent paper by Jussim et al on discrimination in psychology and how practicing psychologists are totally willing to, and admit to, discriminate against conservative research? (Or are you now going to argue that all conservative-connected theories must be pseudoscience put forth by cranks which this discrimination is totally fair against...?) What makes you think any cryobiologists would be fairer? Peer review fails all the time. You keep ignoring my comments on this matter - discriminating against unpopular or niche ideas is routine and common, cryonics would just be yet another instance. You keep trying to put the burden of proof on my side and implying that I'm saying something shocking, but really, I'm not; the idealized picture of scientists you have in your mind is very far from the gritty reality of academic politics, tribes (sorry, I mean, 'labs' or 'schools' or 'departments') of researchers, anonymous peer review. It's unfortunate that peer review has been rather misleadingly promoted to the public as why science works (as opposed to testing falsifiable predictions or replication), but it's not true; peer review is not necessary and not very good.
It is about using cryonics-oriented techniques to verify a claim of extreme interest to cryonicists, and of minimal interest to cryobiology in general (which does not care much about whole organisms or their neurological integrity, but about narrower more applied topics like gametes or organ transplants where neurons either don't exist or are largely irrelevant). The title alone screams cryonics to any peer reviewer competent enough to be reviewing it. Seeing the authors and their affiliation is merely the final straw.
Not really, any more than people elsewhere have to be 'extremely prejudiced' to yield considerably disparate impacts. Someone discriminating against blacks does not have to be constantly talking about how niggers are responsible for everything wrong in America.
And how would they prove that, exactly, about the anonymous peer reviewer? If the reviewer pans the paper and trumps up some ultimately minor concerns, how does one prove the reviewer was biased? How does one prove that given the extreme randomness and inconsistency of the peer review process where the same paper can be judged diametrically opposite? Has this ever been done? It's difficult enough to merely publish a letter to the editor criticizing some published research, or get a retraction of papers published about completely bogus data, there's no way one is going to convince the editor that the peer reviewer has it in for one.
Taking money for a service not delivered is quite different from faking research.
Bullshit! OK, I'm done. I've argued in good faith with you. The problems with peer review are well known. There are countless studies in Google Scholar demonstrating problems in the peer review process from gender bias to country bias to publication bias to novel findings etc etc, on top of all the ones in the Wikipedia link I gave you; your blind veneration of peer review is not based on the empirical reality. Further, the war of cryobiologists on cryonics is well known and well documented, and there is zero reason to believe that cryonics-related papers would be given a fair reception. You keep making ridiculous claims like pointing out problems with peer review is the sign of a crackpot or arguing that a professional society banning a topic will somehow have no effect on research and does not indicate any biases in reviewing research on the topic, demanding proof of impossible things, and then completely ignoring when I point to available supporting evidence. This is not a debate, this is you digging your head into the sand and going 'La la la reviewers are totally fair, there is no opposition to cryonics, peer review is the best thing since sliced bread, and you can't force me to believe otherwise!' Indeed, I can't. So I will stop here.
I suppose that I were a neurobiologist I would find the topic of the paper very interesting. I mean, it's about cryopreservation of plastic nervous structures!
If the paper was good science and ... (read more)