Mortality
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This hour of Radiolab: is death a disease that can be cured?
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-You're listening to Radio Lab from New York Public Radio, Public Radio WNYC. -NPR. -I'm Jada Boomerad. -And I'm Robert Krollich. -And this is Radio Lab. -You ever wondered why it is that all living things die? -I do wonder about that, actually. -Which keeps me up at night. -Which always leads me to the next question, do we have to? -Do I have to? -The topic of our show, as a matter of fact. And the natural place to begin to look for an answer is in a garage. -So, here we are in your garage. -Here we are in my garage. -The owner of this particular garage is one Leonard Haeflic. He is a biologist. -He takes me to the corner, where he's got this-- -Well, describe what we're looking at here. -Well, what we're looking at is a barrel-shaped device. -It's metal canister that is shaped kind of like a thermos, except big. -So I'm opening the lid. -He twists off the top, and whoosh. -Wow, look at that. -Out comes all of this smoke. Dry ice from Halloween is what it looks like. -Well, this liquor nitrogen is used in a lot of movies. -He reaches his hand into the liquid nitrogen fog, right into the bowels of this canister, and pulls out. And this is what I'd come to see. -What? -Some test tubes. -Whoops, in which these answers are kept. -Immediately, they're not much to look at, but if you know what's in there, it's almost holy. Each tube has millions of frozen human cells in there. And these cells have completely changed how we think about mortality. -Any mortality? And you keep it in your garage? -Yes. -Why? I mean, I think it's pretty cool, but why? -Because nobody else think of looking here. -Oh, okay. Well, I certainly won't divulge or address or anything. -No, please don't tell anybody. -No, of course I wouldn't, but it's in California, as I'll all say. -Well, where else would you want me to put it in my bedroom? -No, I don't know. I mean, it's, uh... -I imagine something like this you would find it in the middle.
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This hour of Radiolab: is death a disease that can be cured?