The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, most often referred to as Alcor, is a Scottsdale, Arizona, USA-based nonprofit company that researches, advocates for and performs cryonics, the preservation of humans in liquid nitrogen after legal death, with hopes of restoring them to full health when new technology is developed in the future.
As of September 30, 2012, Alcor had 975 members, and 112 patients in cryopreservation, many as neuropatients (76 of Alcor patients were neuropatients or brain preservation patients as of July 2012). Alcor will cryopreserve the pets of members. As of November 15, 2007, there were 33 pets in suspension.
Alcor accepts anatomical donations (cryonics cases) under the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act and Arizona Anatomical Gift Act for research purposes, reinforced by a court case in its favor that affirmed a constitutional right to engage in cryopreservation and donate one's body for the purpose. A form of the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act has been passed in all 50 states.
Read more about Alcor Life Extension Foundation: History, Research, Policies and Procedures, Membership
Famous quotes containing the words life, extension and/or foundation:
“I would like you to understand completely, also emotionally, that I’m a political detainee and will be a political prisoner, that I have nothing now or in the future to be ashamed of in this situation. That, at bottom, I myself have in a certain sense asked for this detention and this sentence, because I’ve always refused to change my opinion, for which I would be willing to give my life and not just remain in prison. That therefore I can only be tranquil and content with myself.”
—Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937)
“Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid- twentieth century.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. Our very intellect shall be macadamized, as it were,—its foundation broken into fragments for the wheels of travel to roll over.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)