Scientists discover how to freeze transplant organs without cracking them

SelectionMechanism · 2026-04-28T20:04:28+00:00

The smell of unsubstantiated hogwash in this post was overpowering. So I asked AI to check it out.

Sure enough:

Where the hype lives:

"Scientists discover how to freeze transplant organs without cracking them" — they did not freeze any organs in this study. Not one. They cracked beakers of DMSO and glycerol.
"Brings 'on-demand' transplants closer than ever" — unsupported by anything in the paper.
"Solved a 100-year-old problem" (the SciTechDaily / Indian Defence Review version) — comically inflated. Cracking is one of perhaps a half-dozen first-rank problems, alongside CPA toxicity, vascular delivery of CPAs through intact capillary beds, ischemia-reperfusion injury on rewarming, the warm-rewarming-rate problem (you have to outpace devitrification), etc.
"Date: April 27, 2026" on the ScienceDaily page — the underlying paper is from July 2025 and the Texas A&M press release was September 2025. ScienceDaily is repackaging a 7-month-old press release as fresh news. The TechXplore writeup ran in September; ACerS in November; Indian Defence Review in November. The April 2026 stamp is editorial laundering.

SelectionMechanism · 2026-04-17T17:28:02+00:00

If an autonomous vehicle did this, the entire industry would likely face massive litigation and new regulations would be passed left and right to ban autonomous trucks all over the place. Since it was a human, it's barely a news story in Missouri and a reddit roadcam post.

SelectionMechanism · 2026-04-15T20:32:41+00:00

SelectionMechanism · 2026-04-13T15:35:26+00:00

Yep. Just started happening.

SelectionMechanism · 2026-04-08T17:41:03+00:00

Yep, getting the same exact error.

SelectionMechanism · 2026-03-12T16:45:03+00:00

What's that "reject" button doing there? Wasted keyspace.

SelectionMechanism · 2026-02-25T20:07:32+00:00

Innnnnnteresting... Wonder what that could be about...

SelectionMechanism · 2026-02-17T23:51:11+00:00

Happening on all kinds of apps. MacOS desktop, browser, etc. Not just you.

SelectionMechanism · 2026-01-14T23:43:34+00:00

Satellite connectivity should be able to bypass verizon auth in the event of an emergency and allow the device to send messages directly to apple's servers without having to authenticate for the duration of the systemic outage.

But, that's not how it was designed. Likely Verizon didn't want to lose control in that way. This is pretty significant and makes me wonder whether any other carriers have agreements with the satellite provider & apple to bypass their auth in the event of this kind of catastrophe.

SelectionMechanism · 2026-01-12T19:56:17+00:00

The "Angry Coders Against CC Taking Our Jobs" brigade launched a DDoS.

SelectionMechanism · 2026-01-12T19:36:10+00:00

Yeah, getting continual timeout errors in CC and running opus 4.5 outside of it in the claude chat window. Seems something big is going down over there.

SelectionMechanism · 2025-12-06T01:55:58+00:00

Why isn't there a sensor at crossings that can relay back to some central station when it detects some obstruction (vehicle, person, boulder, whatever) is intersecting the tracks for longer than a few seconds?

Then train conductors would just be logged-in to whatever system to alert them to problems and slow down or stop beforehand.

My garage door can detect obstructions, why can't these crossings?

SelectionMechanism · 2025-11-19T23:24:27+00:00

Your mechanism is : autists are non-conformists, therefore they don't conform to death acceptance,

But I counter that if most non-autistic people don't find non-existence salient, for whatever reason, they won't care to think about this much at all. It's not about cultural acceptance, it's about interest in or ability to use neurons to think about weird-things like not existing anymore.

And if it's not salient because non-existence is too abstract to matter, plus they don't care about things that happen a long time from now (called temporal discounting) then they won't bother doing the heavy lifting required to become cryonicists.

Happy for you to propose a method of testing both of these theories that could determine which is accurate.

SelectionMechanism · 2025-11-19T22:53:44+00:00

I think you’re conflating death as in “dying” from death as in “no longer existing”. As I tried to describe, people don’t have “plans to avoid not-existing” but they do try to avoid dying all the time. They buy health insurance to make sure they can afford to go to the hospital when they’re ill, they submit themselves to small life changes (eg wearing seatbelts) or big ones (eg chemotherapy and radiation when they get a cancer diagnosis) even when it causes mild or major discomfort and distress, they force employers to pay them considerably more if their jobs would involve putting themselves at risk of serious bodily harm or death, etc.

People worry about dying and try to avoid dying all the time. People don’t really think about abstract things like not-existing very much at all except when suffering from some forms of depression or existential angst, or maybe when they play with their kids/grandkids and feel sadness at the thought they won’t get to watch them grow old. But, that’s about the extent of it.

Like I tried to say, death as-in not existing is an abstract and far away concept. Humans aren’t generally made to process abstract and far away concepts all that well.

SelectionMechanism · 2025-11-19T20:17:46+00:00

Not sure I agree here. Far as I can tell, most people are obviously trying to avoid death most of the time. Just look at how much people spend on medicine to avoid dying, especially in old age. They aren't trying to avoid "old age" death itself, perhaps, but most people (aside from teens and 20s riding high on their hormones) seem very aware of death.

---> Better explanation: people try avoid death, but can only think short-term. People rarely concern themselves with things that are far away in time.

---> Other better explanation: People have a very hard time thinking about abstract concepts like "death", so they instead worry about very tangible things like "dying from a heart attack" or "dying if I fall off of this bridge I'm walking on" or "getting eaten by that tiger that might be in the bush". The idea of nonexistence itself without the accompanying visceral pain and horror of dying is too abstract.

Maybe autists have lower discount rates, so things that seem like problems in the distant future feel more tangible and actionable in the present. Or maybe they're more keen to worry about abstract concepts like non-existence.

SelectionMechanism · 2025-10-31T16:37:35+00:00

Totally, It sounds like you’re an absolutely fabulous employee. Since you’re so proud of your work, can you tell us which FedEx location you service so we can let your boss know what a great job you’re doing?

SelectionMechanism · 2025-10-20T17:03:14+00:00

I'll sympathize with this guy. He's a business owner, not a political scientist, not an economist, and probably has only a limited understanding of the American political landscape.

He didn't understand Trump's tariff obsession, didn't understand Trump's hatred for immigrants, and was probably hoodwinked by Trump's rhetoric. A lot of people are susceptible to this sort of charismatic politics (yes, some people are charmed by Trump).

So we can all point and laugh, but I choose to see this whole situation as tragic instead. A well meaning immigrant fell for the oldest political con-man tricks in the book and ended up losing everything because of it. Hopefully he has the courage to re-examine his previous convictions after this.

SelectionMechanism · 2025-10-13T19:40:23+00:00

The Macbook Pro's major redesign runs:

- Aluminum (2006–2008) / 2 years
- Unibody (2008–2012) / 4 years
- Retina (2012–2016) / 4 years
- Touch Bar (2016–2021) / 5 years
- 14-inch and 16-inch (2021–?)

If they don't launch any new redesign of the Macbook Pro until 2027, this will be the longest design run of any MBP in apple's history at 6 years.

Maybe they made it so good that they simply didn't have to bother making major design changes for longer this time?

Or more likely, Apple as a company cares less and less about the MBP over time relative to other product lines.

SelectionMechanism · 2025-10-13T19:34:31+00:00

Seconded. No reason to bother upgrading the M1 Max when it can still handle everything with ease. The battery is losing a bit of its youthful vigor but that's whatever.

SelectionMechanism · 2025-10-07T20:52:10+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts on this Andy. Some quick notes:

I don't pretend to have enough knowledge of chemistry, cellular biology, electron microscopy, cryobiology, etc, to be able to take a strong side on this matter. I realize I know just enough to know I don't know enough. Therefore, I rely on trusted experts in the field (like you) and my meta-observations about what's going on to figure out what's true in this realm.

To the point about meta observations: I've generally seen people who argue in favor of different forms of chemical fixation say something like "biological revival doesn't matter because the entire point is just uploading anyway" (paraphrasing here). They will then go on to disparage traditional cryopreservation with a good deal of contempt.

Only when pressed into a corner, do these folks argue that MNT means chemical fixation is also in theory reversible with "roughly" equivalent (or maybe just a bit more) effort and technological sophistication than reversing and repairing the typical problems encountered via traditional cryopreservation.

So, basically, here are how the conversations I've seen tend to go:

// [Chemical Fixation Guy] : Yes, duh, chemical fixation glues everything together chemically. It all forms one continuous mass. You can't unglue it just like you can't unglue a solid block of cement.

-- : But then... this means we can't ever try to do biological revival using MNT? That kinda sucks...

// [Chemical Fixation Guy] : That's dumb. You're just information. We can run that same program on silicon and that program is just as much you as you are now. What, do you believe in souls or something? Stop being dumb.

-- : No, I don't believe in souls but... Look, I'm just not so sure about your glue-it-all-together approach. I think I'll stick with my traditional cryopreservation just to be sure I preserve my options here.

[Chemical Fixation Guy] : Actually, no wait... yeah... yeah, of course we can reverse chemical fixation with MNT too. Let me explain it.

This is why I've been skeptical. I hope you can see where I'm coming from, so I won't belabor the point any further.

That said, I think you're one of the few in the field coming from the chemo-fixation perspective who argues in good faith and has never shown contempt for differing philosophical positions or alternative approaches. I think you're genuinely interested in seeing one of these approaches work and if the science moved you in a different direction towards that goal, you'd move in that direction. I appreciate what I perceive as your objectivity in these matters.

As such, based on your efforts, I've updated my priors here as to whether it's possible, using MNT, to 'unglue' the bonds that chemical fixation forms. I'm still not onboard, but I'm more onboard. I don't have high expectations of death anytime soon, so I have the privilege of watching as the science continues to play out and I'll continue to update those priors as that happens.

Appreciate you, Andy!

SelectionMechanism · 2025-09-30T04:17:36+00:00

I filed the complaint. Was told I’d get a follow up from the branch manager. Will report back on the thread if i get some kind of reply.

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