Chapter 69 The upcoming cleanup
Du Jin could not say anything to comfort Li Mengyan's sentimentality. After all, he had not experienced real military life, and he did not know how to pretend to understand and talk about the friendship between comrades. I am afraid it would be counterproductive. Compared to Li Mengyan's focus, Du Jin is extremely interested in the frozen dormancy of this world.
In this world, cryo-sleep technology already has a certain foundation, but it is only a foundation, and the experiments are limited to small mammals such as mice. As for humans, there is still a long way to go to reach this technical level. As far as reality is concerned In terms of level, the current development of cryobiology is still difficult to achieve the preservation of complete individuals like in science fiction movies. It is more at the single cell level, such as embryos, stem cells, mammalian cells, antibodies, tissue sections and rodents. Organs etc.
As tissue cools, water from the cells moves into the space outside the cells, so the cooling cells actually shrink rather than explode. Second, ice is only 9% larger in volume than water, and cells are more elastic, so they can safely withstand increases or decreases in volume, as well as the presence of a certain amount of ice within the cell. Third, cryobiology has learned to saturate cells, tissues, or the entire body with cryoprotectants, substances that minimize the formation of ice crystals during freezing. Coupled with the optimal controlled cooling scheme, this allowed scientists decades ago to successfully master the technology of freezing (vitrification, to be precise) and thawing embryos and entire organs, but for the entire human body, this The instant fatality rate of the technology is almost 99.9%.
From a technological perspective, cryonics is a method of suspending an organism—entering a state of suspended animation—in order to bring it back to life in the future. To achieve this "pause," cryotechniques require cooling the organism to very low temperatures. Note that freezing is not the only possible method, just one of them. Perhaps in the future science will discover a way to induce long-term suspended animation without cooling the body, but right now there is not, and cryogenic technology is currently the only viable commercial method.
Why do we need to freeze? The answer is simple. Because our body has an unpleasant characteristic. They're dead and no one likes it, but most people prefer to hide their displeasure with all kinds of excuses as to why they need to accept it. However, some brave souls refused to do so. Instead, they acknowledge the problem and try to use science and technology to eradicate it, or at least mitigate it. Cryonics is one of the tools these brave men invented for the good of humanity. Other tools you may be more familiar with are - defibrillators, heart-lung machines, pacemakers, organ transplants, vaccines and antibiotics. They all stem from the same motive - to increase everyone's chances of survival.
Of course, at the current level of scientific and technological development, there is no guarantee that anyone cryopreserved today will be able to be restored to life (or, in cryonics parlance, resurrected) in the future. It would be intellectually dishonest to claim that cryotechnology guarantees anything. But, unlike any other technology, cryonics does offer a chance of recovery, it may be small, but a non-zero chance is still better than zero, especially when applied to an infinitely valuable asset - a human being When it comes to life, by the way, cryonics can be seen not only as life insurance, but also as the “ambulance of the future.” This characteristic may not matter to most of us because we are still healthy, but for some the question of life and death is more pressing - those who have only weeks or months to live. They already know that modern medical technology will not be able to save them, so their only hope for survival is medicine in the distant future, and cryonics is their only chance to benefit from it.
There are currently two mainstream low-temperature sleep reference technologies:
Slow cooling preservation usually uses a "two-step method", that is, in the first step, the biological sample is cooled to -80°C at a slower cooling rate and maintained for a period of time, and then in the second step, it is already at -80°C. State biological samples are directly put into liquid nitrogen tanks (-196°C) for long-term storage at deep low temperatures. The essence of the slow cooling method is to use a slower cooling rate, so that the water in the cells gradually breaks away from the cells during the cooling process, so as to reduce the probability of ice crystal formation in the cells and thereby improve the survival rate of the cells. Its advantage is that the concentration of cryoprotectant used is low, only about 3%-20%, but it can easily cause cold damage and osmotic pressure imbalance.
Rapid cooling and preservation, that is, the vitrification method, is a process in which a high-concentration freezing diluent is used to cool down the solution at an extremely fast rate, so that the solution directly transforms into a formless glass-like solid without enough time to form ice crystal nuclei. The advantage of this method is that it does not require a program-controlled cooling device, is easy and fast to operate, and reduces damage. However, since a large amount of cryoprotectant needs to be added during the cooling process, up to 40-60% v/v, these cryoprotectants often have certain Toxicity will kill internal cells. At the same time, in order to ensure rapid cooling of the entire biological sample both inside and outside during the vitrification process, it is necessary to reduce the size of the sample and increase the contact area with the external ultra-low temperature environment (such as liquid nitrogen). Therefore, this method is only suitable for the storage of small-sized and small-quantity biological samples for the time being, and is only available in ul units.
However, judging from the current experimental progress, the former will inevitably cause cells to die before they go into dormancy, while the latter will cause cells to "euthanasia" quickly. In short, the gap between it and mature dormancy technology that can be used on a large scale is not ordinary. It is a gap that may not be crossed for several generations. Of course, this is only talking about large-scale utilization. Country M, Polar Bear, Country Xia and other countries have technological foundations that are very important to this kind of technology that can send a very small number of people to the future. You can already touch the threshold.
At this moment, Du Jin noticed a vague halo of light suddenly appearing from the observation window in the cabin, which was particularly conspicuous in the mostly black space. Li Mengyan followed Du Jin's line of sight and also noticed the halo. There was a halo, and she naturally recognized what it was:
"Subspace jump? Is it the federal emergency response force? But in such a short time..."
Li Mengyan thought for a moment and guessed the identity of this unknown ship:
"This is the recovery unit of the Unity Church. Damn it, let Ren Chao drive out of this area immediately."
After saying that, Li Mengyan ran towards the bridge. Du Jin didn't react at first. Fortunately, Li Mengyan had tried to reduce unnecessary attention, otherwise she would not be able to withstand the investigation, so she removed her body in advance. The exoskeleton armor of Du Jin does not have so many worries. Of course, this has a lot to do with his lack of awareness in this regard. In short, although Du Jin's armor is damaged a lot, it is still difficult to catch up with Li Mengyan. It was more than enough. After running to her side, Du Jincai asked:
"Mengyan, did you notice something wrong just now? Why did you suddenly start running?"
Li Mengyan did not stop, but replied with a slight breath:
"At that time, the Unity Church's clean-up force was specialized in recovering blood seals and eliminating insiders. The warship we were on was the closest to the "Eden". They "killed hundreds of people by mistake" According to the principle of "leave one person alone", we will inevitably be attacked, so we must make this ship leave its attack range as soon as possible!"
"But? We are so close to the Ganymede colony. How dare they attack us directly? Are they not afraid of causing diplomatic trouble?"
Du Jin asked incredulously. At this time, the two happened to bump into Xiang Yuan, who had just come off the bridge. He looked at the panting Li Mengyan, quickly stepped forward to help her, and asked by the way:
"Young Master...Captain Li, what's wrong with you?"
Li Mengyan gently blocked Xiang Yuan's hand and said to him:
"Quick! Take me to the bridge! I have something I must say!"
Hearing the anxious tone of his commander, Xiang Yuan ignored the surprised expressions of the surrounding crew members and immediately led Li Mengyan and Du Jin to the elevator that led directly to the bridge. He used his authority to lead them in and entered. After the elevator, Li Mengyan answered Du Jin's question:
"These lackeys of the church are disguised as federal investigation forces. Trouble is also a headache for federal officers and soldiers, and it will not affect them. Even if they are discovered, Du Jin, do you think the governor of Ganymede Colony will risk fighting with the federation?" , and the risk of tens of thousands of believers within themselves breaking up, to avenge a small warship?"
Only then did Du Jin realize that he had underestimated the extent of the United Church's penetration into the Federation and his weak understanding of politics. According to Li Mengyan's explanation, he truly realized the scale of the enemy he had to face. This understanding made him He had a profound impact on various future actions, but of course, these are things for a later time.
At the same time, Xiang Yuan also realized what Li Mengyan was referring to. He was very aware of the cruelty and boldness of these cleanup troops. They used the Pioneer warship where they were originally located. After being infected by the blood seal, these church members After his subordinate Deng Ralph evacuated, he almost destroyed them in front of the Border Corps outpost. Although the warship that destroyed them was destroyed by the counter-cannon fodder of the outpost in the next second, for these people who dared to do whatever they wanted Xiang Yuan suddenly shuddered at the lunatic believers in the meeting.
The elevator quickly arrived at the bridge. After receiving the news from Xiang Yuan in advance, Ren Chao rushed here, but there was a strange young woman following behind him, and Xiang Yuan on the side naturally knew , that woman is the inspector sent by the Ganymede Colony Command.
