I love reading DCist's collections of overheard quotes. This week they have a great indicator of poor science literacy among the DC public:
On the Corner of 13th and F last week:
Guy 1: "You know who's frozen?"
Guy 2: "Who's that?"
Guy 1: "Walt Disney. As soon as he died, they froze him using generics."
Guy 2: "You mean genetics?"
Guy 1: "Yeah, genetics. Whatever."
Both dudes clearly meant cryogenics, not genetics (at least they knew "generics" wasn't quite right.) But cryogenics is wrong too - cryonics is the correct term for freezing people with the intent to revive them later. Also, Walt Disney was actually cremated. Whatever.
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Thanks, Jessica, for making the distinction between cryonics and cryogenics. It seems a lot of people confuse the two. Cryogenics--the art and science of achieving extremely low temperatures--has many applications: cooling magnets in particle accelerators, cryotreatment of metals, food freezing, telecommunications, cryosurgery, and many more. More information can be found on our website: www.cryogenicsociety.org.
Theresa Boehl
Cryogenic Society of America