Cancer is a prevalent disease among humans and animals, affecting millions of lives across the globe. It can be caused in a variety of ways and can affect virtually every part of our bodies, ranging from skin cancer caused by prolonged exposure to the sun’s harmful UV rays to lung cancer that results from carcinogenic substances smokers inhale. However, plants do not die of cancer despite sometimes being exposed to the sun for over a thousand years – and they do not use any sunscreens!

Humans and animals who live to a certain age are very likely to get cancer one day. We see this situation mostly in our pets which have been specially bred and protected from predators and diseases. Cancer has become part of our lives and remains a top world health priority. The probability of prostate cancer is roughly 80% in 80-year-olds, 90% in 90-year-olds, and 100% in 100-year-olds. However, these statistics yet again do not apply to trees.

What is cancer?

Cancer is a disease caused by the uncontrolled growth of cells that have become abnormal in a part of the body. These abnormal cells are not foreign invaders that have entered our bodies from outside but are instead our own cells. However, in time, various factors such as radiation, viruses, and chemical substances that they are exposed to cause the accumulation of errors, or mutations, in the genetic codes of cells. Some of them then acquire very different characteristics and become alien to their own body.

With old age, errors arise in the genetic code in an increased rate when our cells divide by copying their own DNA. External factors, such as “free radicals” and various radiations that affect our DNA, play a role in these errors. For young people, when there are too many errors in a cell’s genome, a process called “apoptosis” takes place after which faulty cells die before they can multiply in a potentially cancerous manner and forming a tumor. However, sometimes these accumulated errors cause the cell’s growth process to become stuck in the “on” position, and the cell begins to grow and divide continuously. Cells that emerge with out-of-control divisions ignore the commands coming from the healthy cells of the body, continue to grow and reproduce according to the erroneous commands from the cell’s disrupted genome. This situation lasts until death.

What is a tumor?

Cell growths that result from defective genome proliferation will eventually form a mass called a tumor. Some cells grow very slowly and stop at a certain size after a while and do not spread anymore and are called benign tumors. Masses formed by fast-growing, defective (cancerous) cells are known as malignant tumors. Cells that detach from malignant tumors and grow rapidly can attach to another organ where they will begin to grow again when they enter the bloodstream. The process by which cancerous cells start from a tumor and spread all over the body to different organs is known as metastasis.

Why does this process not happen in plants?

One of the most destructive features of cancer when it enters metastasis is the mobility of malignant cells to varying degrees according to their type. Blood vessels, i.e. the transportation pathways of the circulatory system, act like a highway for cancer cells. As the blood vessels surround the entire body, a single cancerous cell can travel to and settle almost anywhere in the body, from the toes to the head.

Plant cells have a vital feature that is different from human and animal cells. In plants, cells do not change their locations because their cells are surrounded by a very rigid, strong, and impenetrable wall outside of normal plasma membranes. Cell walls are made of cellulose, which constitutes the main substance of plants, and form the wooden structures that ensure the plants stand upright and harden while at the same time locking each cell in place and preventing it from migrating within the organism.

Another important difference that is unique to plants is that they do not have blood circulation in which cells are carried; they have a circulatory system in which only water and food are carried. This system is often used to pump water from the roots to the leaves and to transport organic products such as sugar, which is a product of photosynthesis, from the leaves down. Therefore, there are no blood cells or immune system cells in these carrier channels, which are known as wood and roe tubes (xylem and phloem), in plants.

In addition, animal cells are specifically employed in tissues and organs such as muscle, bone, liver, and skin during embryonic development. Thus, when they divide only new cells of the same type are created. Tumors that occur in animal tissues can metastasize into different tissues and disrupt different organs. We can think of animal and human biology as a very complex system in which each cell, tissue, and organ has a task and purpose. In such a system, all elements work in cooperation for the continuation of life. This system is of a kind of irreducible complexity. A human being cannot live without organs like brain, heart, or lungs, while plants, on the other hand, have fewer simpler internal structures which are not as vital. When plant cells divide, they retain their ability to form new cells of any type. This is called totipotency.

In plants, every necessary structure can be recreated from the few tissues they have. For this reason, a gardener can grow new plants from the roots, branches, or leaf parts of a plant.

Plants are equipped with very powerful antioxidants to protect them from the sun’s harmful rays and mutations that may be caused by radiation. Therefore, tumors can develop only due to bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, and insects. For example, in a situation that we can call “information confusion” that occurs when Agrobacterium Tumefaciens bacteria insert some of its DNA into the plant’s DNA, an anomaly occurs in the plant’s genome. Cells that go through a rapid growth process and form tumors are not normally classified as cancer, since they simply remain in that area and cannot be transported elsewhere. Since the tumors cannot spread to the whole plant, they may cause only minor distress at most in a specific area rather than a fatal disease such as cancer. Just as the plant continues to grow around a rock that it encounters, it grows around the tumor as well. The tumor can continue to grow for years, but does not spread to the rest of the plant, meaning there is no metastasis.

In summary, plants can also be cancerous, but a cancerous tumor is not a deadly threat to a plant, as its cells are immobile and do not have vital and complex organs like humans and animals. Thanks to the cellulose walls gifted to the them, plants continue their role in the ecosystem by continuing to grow with healthy cells around the tumor as if nothing had happened.

References

• Luis Villazon. “Can a plant die of cancer?” www.sciencefocus.com/nature/can-a-plant-die-of-cancer
• Sam Westreich. “Do Plants Get Cancer?” medium.com/@westwise/do-plants-get-cancer-60eb435c6d1a
• Stuart Thompson. “Plants couldn’t run away from Chernobyl—but that’s what saved them. Why plants don’t get cancer.” www.popsci.com/chernobyl-plants-radiation-cancer

It is possible to ask many more such questions. Astronomer Neil F. Comins, from Maine University, explained in his book, What If the Moon Didn’t Exist, the scenarios humankind would have faced if the Moon hadn’t existed. According to Comins, one of the millions of reasons why Earth is the only planet (known to us) to have life is the delicate balance between the Earth and the Moon. No occurrence in the universe is a coincidence, thus the Moon has been created as a balance factor. This balance is so sensitive that it is possible to say that there would be no life on Earth if it weren’t for the Moon.

The Moon, a sphere that has no atmosphere, and has a surface covered with craters, dust and rocks, is the Earth’s only satellite. The radius of the Moon is about one fourth of that of the Earth’s, its volume is about 1/50 of the Earth’s, and its mass is about 1/81 of the Earth’s. The Moon is around 240,000 miles from the Earth’s center and it takes 29.5 days to complete its orbit around the Earth. Even though we do not know for sure how the Moon came into being, the currently accepted theory asserts that a planet about 10 times lighter than the Earth, which astronomers call “Thiea,” crashed into Earth and a part of that planet broke apart and fell into space. This part (having lost its shape and most of its mass) crashed into Earth again after orbiting the Earth. In this second crash, the metal center of “Theia” fused into the center of the Earth while the outer shell’s light rocks scattered into space. In time, these little rocks fused to form the Moon. At first, the Moon orbited the Earth with a distance of only 14,000 miles, but in time this distance increased into an average of 240,000 miles.

The Moon’s largest effect on Earth is the tide. According to the law of universal gravitation, any two objects in the universe pull each other, and the force of this pull is in direct proportion to the objects’ masses and in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between the objects. The gravitational pull between the Earth and the Moon causes the seas and the oceans on Earth to either rise or subside. This effect is called the tide, which changes between high tide and low tide according to the Moon’s position. One third of all tide effects on Earth are caused by the Sun’s pull and the rest is caused by the Moon’s.

The Moon gets 1.57 inches farther from the Earth every year due to the tide. It is known that the time taken for the Earth to turn around its axis completely (1 day) increases by 0.02 milliseconds every year so that this distancing effect can be countered and the angular momentum of the Earth and the Moon can be sustained. It is also known that the time taken for the Earth to turn around its axis was 8 hours when the Moon was first created, and that it increased to 24 hours since then. If the Moon had not been created, there wouldn’t have been any tide and because of that, one day would still be 8 hours. That would mean that the Earth would be spinning around its axis about 3 times faster than its current speed. A greater spinning speed of a planet might mean stronger winds on its surface. For example, Jupiter and Saturn spin around their axes very fast and have about ten hours in a day. This causes winds with speeds up to 300 miles/hour at the east-west direction on their surfaces. The dust storms that occur in the atmospheres of these planets are caused by these winds and can be seen from the Earth with a telescope.

Without the Moon, the Earth would have spun faster, causing a faster heat exchange among the air, seas and land. This, in turn, would have caused hurricanes in the east-west direction on the face of the Earth with speeds up to 100 miles/hour. Such conditions would have been very inconvenient to all complex life forms including human beings. Even simple tasks like speaking or listening could have been very difficult or even impossible. Since a day would have been eight hours, this would have caused a mismatch between the biological clock of living things – including human beings – and the flow of the day, resulting in biological complications. Without the Moon, the high tide would have been very weak, again causing a very inconvenient environment for sea creatures.

The Moon also has a role in keeping the Earth’s axis at a 23.5 angle. It is known that the seasons result from this and allows the right amount of sunlight to the equator and the poles, creating a climate appropriate for life. Another known effect of the Moon on the Earth is that it reflects the Sun’s light and heats up the Earth by 32.36°F (0.2°C). The Moon also serves as a shield against space rocks, and if it had not been for the Moon many more rocks and meteors would have hit the Earth.

Most of the cosmic rays that come from space are neutralized by the Earth’s magnetic field. Few of these rays reach the Earth and causes chemical reactions. Without the Moon, the core of the Earth would have spun faster along with the Earth itself. With the core of the Earth spinning faster, the magnetic field would have been much stronger. This would have caused huge changes in the atmosphere. Besides, some bacteria and animals that use the magnetic field to find their way (such as sea turtles, salmon, eels, pigeons, and migratory birds) would have been negatively affected. Consequently, many ecosystems, as we know them today, would have been different.

Another significant service of the Moon to our lives is that, like the Sun, it has been used as a calendar throughout human history. Muslims today observe their Ramadan fast according to their hijri calendar which is based on lunar measurement of time.

The Moon is the largest satellite that we know, in proportion to the size of the planet it is attracted by (the Moon’s mass measures 1.23 % of the Earth’s mass). The size of the Moon plays a critical role in the sensitive balance of our ecosystem. When the relationship between the Earth and the Moon is examined carefully, one could easily conclude that the Moon has been created specially for the life on Earth by the One Who “has made the heavens high and set up the balance” with a gentle measure, a great cause and benefit, and was given to the service of humankind.

Notes

1. Neil Comins. What If the Moon Didn’t Exist? Voyages to Earths That Might Have Been, New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
2. “The Sun and the Moon are by an exact calculation” (Quran 55:5).
3. Marcus Chown. “The Planet That Stalked the Earth,” New Scientist, August 14, 2004, pp. 27–30.
4. Paul D. Spudis. “Moon,” World Book Online Reference Center, NASA, 2004.
5. Tony Phillips, “What Neil & Buzz Left on the Moon,” Science, NASA 2004.
6. Richard Ray, “Ocean Tides and the Earth’s Rotation,” IERS, 2001.
7. Comins 1993.
8. Paul J. Henney, www.astronomytoday.com
9. John Gribbin, “A Mysterious Monthly Temperature Cycle,” New Scientist, pp. 18, January 28, 1995.
10. “We have obscured the sign of the night, and We have made the sign of the day illuminating to see, that you may seek bounty from your Lord and that you may know the computation of (time) the years and reckoning…” (Isra 17:12). This verse has been interpreted as to refer to the moon and the sun. “… He has made the night for repose, and the sun and the moon a means for reckoning (the divisions of time)…” (An’am 6:96) also refers to this fact. See Ali Unal, The Qur’an with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English, Tughra Books, 2008, p. 294, 570–71.
11. Quran 55:7.

Zainab believed, according to her religion Islam, that Allah, the loving Creator, prohibited certain actions to Muslims because those actions had the potential for the most harm. Gambling was one of the most destructive among them. So Zainab could not reconcile her father’s beloved status with the abominable act he was committing.

But, it was life, and her father did what many people do: rationalize the wrong he was doing when, in fact, the wrong he committed affected everyone in his life. It caused Zainab’s family to be dysfunctional and had a disastrous effect on her mother. This unhappiness rained down from the mother onto her children. And though Zainab’s parents tried their best to hide their shame and to protect their children from this wrong, they fought constantly in the house.

Many a night Zainab would hide at the top of the stairs silently cowering and listening, as the battle raged below over the gambled money-whether won or lost. Her home was a scary place that she forever associated with emotional turmoil. In Zainab’s home, the rights that were given to the children by their religion were violated each time she and her siblings were exposed to the wrong and the undeniable harm it caused. Her one thought was to grow up and get away from that house, from the confusion, the humiliation, and the pain.

About six months before he died, her father quit gambling. At the time of his death, Zainab was 25, and she had already succeeded in getting as far away from home as possible. She came back for her father’s funeral, went through all the motions, but she didn’t shed a single tear. She could never understand why because she had loved her father so deeply.

Five years after Zainab’s father died, she finally dreamt of him. In her dream, there was a room full of people crowding around the bottom of a long staircase, anticipating her dad’s arrival. He was delayed upstairs for some reason. Earlier in the day, Zainab had agonized over what to wear-just as she always did in real life-but she finally borrowed the perfect dress from her friend for this special occasion of seeing her dad after so many years of being apart. With the arising of a loud hum of excitement, she looked up to see her father slowly descending the stairs. He was pale and sickly looking, but he never said a word as he made his way through the crowd. He came directly to Zainab and took her in strong arms, hugging tightly. The desperation of the greeting alarmed her.

The next thing she knew, her father had some sort of convulsion and he vomited all over the front of her dress. She tried to push him away, thinking foolishly only of the borrowed dress, but he held her and pulled her closer. Zainab straightened her arms, trying in vain to get out of the embrace. But then her dad had another convulsion. He seemed to be weakening and leaning on her for support. Responding, Zainab finally gave in. Ignoring the ruination of her dress, she held his weakened body, making sure he didn’t fall. When she awoke, she was squeezing her wet pillow and sobbing hard. For over thirty years to come, she wondered about the meaning of that dream.

Then one day she was reading how practicing Jews fasted on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and asked God to forgive them their sins of the past year. It was interesting to learn that they must also ask for forgiveness from anyone they might have harmed. Thinking of the harm she had suffered as a child, Zainab suddenly realized the meaning of her dream: her dad had come to ask for her forgiveness. This revelation was really a shock to her. For so many years, she had held anger and resentment rightfully against her dad. Yet now, forgiveness was being asked of her.

In fact, her own religion Islam placed a great emphasis on seeking forgiveness from other people for the harms one might have caused them. So putting herself in her father’s shoes, Zainab could easily understand why he needed to free himself of this burden.

Zainab began her journey toward forgiveness by realizing how important it is to ask for forgiveness from Allah. It comforted her to know that one of the 99 names of Allah is the Most Forgiving (Al-Ghafur). A hadith qudsi (those words of Allah on the tongue of his prophet that are not part of the revelation of the Quran) reads as follows: “Oh son of Adam, were your sins so great as to reach the clouds of the sky, and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you” (Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith). She dared to think that even she might be forgiven for her sins. Then she pondered: doesn’t everyone want their sins forgiven?

Still struggling to free herself from anger and resentment, Zainab sought the advice of a Christian friend who directed her to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, in which he encouraged his readers to understand that as God has forgiven us, so we must also forgive one another. Paul’s words, like the hadith qudsi, described forgiveness as a gift from God.

These words strengthened Zainab’s belief in the Most Forgiving (Al-Ghafur), but forgiving another had never been easy for Zainab and granting forgiveness felt so much heavier than asking for it. But in this case, she wanted reconciliation more than anything. She wanted to feel her heart whole (not divided) again, as she did as a child. She wanted to forgive her dad… if only she could.

Then, one night, as Zainab was making a supplication, she felt the warmth of God’s love gripping her heart, and she heard herself whisper effortlessly, “I forgive you, Dad.” In that overwhelming moment, Zainab experienced forgiveness as both an act of giving and a gift from Allah. For Zainab, the greatest favor she had sought from Allah was forgiveness, and it brought her the peace and reconciliation that she had desired.

Mary Lahaj has a master’s degree from the Hartford Seminary in Islamic Studies and Christian/Muslim Relations. She is currently the first Muslim woman chaplain at Simmons College in Boston, an all girls’ undergraduate Liberal Arts College.

The Earth’s shape is becoming rounder as a result of the construction of projects like the Three Gorges reservoir. The weight decrease due to the melting icecaps has played a major role in these changes.

From time immemorial, humanity has wondered about the shape of the Earth. Over the centuries countless studies exploring the Earth and its shape have been conducted, and they still continue today. With advancements in technology, the methods and measuring devices have constantly changed. In earlier periods the Earth was believed to be flat; nevertheless from around the fifth century bc there were varying opinions suggesting that the Earth was actually round and calculations were conducted to measure its radius. Particularly from the seventh century ce onwards, the number of studies regarding what the Earth really looked like have increased tremendously.¹

In later years, with the advent of Islam and its open encouragement of Muslims to explore the universe and make advances in science, Muslim scholars made huge progress in astronomical research. Historians who have studied these advancements in astronomical science agree that the era between the eighth and fourteenth centuries can aptly be designated as a period of Islamic astronomy. In the years following the sixteenth century, significant research was undertaken in relation to the shape of the Earth and measurements of its radius in both the Islamic world and the West.

In the eighteenth century astronomic research and the advancement of technology proved not only that the Earth was round, but that it had a distinctive shape. According to calculations, the Earth was bulging around the equator and flattened at the poles. The maps produced by satellite systems show that the Earth is not completely round or smooth, but rather it has protrusions, creating an uneven surface that resembles a face with spots.2

“Geoid” is the term scientists prefer to use when referring to the physical depiction of the Earth’s surface. The shape of the Earth is not a perfect ellipsoid, thus, scientists use this representative surface that is thought to be most approximate to sea level, in order to identify departures from the ellipsoid shape. Due to the events of nature and human-related factors the geoid constantly changes, and this is why a precise mathematical account of the geoid has not yet been possible.

The Earth is known to be a geologically active planet. Just as everything else in the universe, from atoms to galaxies, has not been left to their own fate, the Earth is also constantly being transformed, thus making our magnificent ecosystem possible. The continuous geological process of changes in the Earth’s crust is related to a variety of factors: the varying density of the rock layers which form the Earth’s crust, the activity of the tectonic plates, as well as the movement of the continents, shifts in the center of gravity, tidal activity, hydro-spherical and atmospheric phenomena, and human intervention in some regions.

Researching the variations in the gravity of the Earth with satellite systems is a relatively new method of recording the changes in geoid elevations. The distance between the center of the Earth and its surface is constant (the tallest mountains will rise or decrease 1-2cm per year at most); if we take into consideration that the Earth’s physical body does not vary much and disregard the other forces, then we can say that the main reason for these infinitesimal changes in gravity on the surface of the Earth is due to differences in mass. While there is a decrease in weight in specific regions from melting glaciers, in other areas there is an increase in weight due to melting water flowing into reservoirs; both these phenomena play a significant role in the variations of the Earth’s gravity.

Even a minor variation in mass can be detected by measuring gravity. The change of mass location on the Earth’s surface results in gravity variations in the same region; in brief, today the commonly used gravity measurements are the most important source for detecting and identifying variations in geoid elevations, as well as determining the actual reasons for these changes. Gravity measurements are conducted via satellite systems; these indicate changes in mass location by detecting an increase or decrease in weight. The most modern technological satellite systems that can detect gravity change and allow us to follow the variations in masses on the Earth’s surface are the satellite used by the European Space Agency, called GOCE, and NASA’s satellite, called GRACE. GOCE has been designed to perform accurate studies of the Earth’s gravity field as it progresses into orbit. As the satellite passes over the regions where gravity is intense or weak, it measures the variations in gravity with signals that have been conveyed by a device called a gradiometer. GRACE is a pair of identical satellites that are flying in the same orbit, 136 miles apart; they orbit the Earth at a distance of 300 miles. These satellites can measure distances with microwave signals, and can detect changes of less than 1% the thickness of human hair; thus the twin satellites are able to accurately measure the distance to the surface of the Earth. The measurements provided by this satellite system make it possible for changes in gravity to be calculated. The GRACE satellite data is 1,000 times more accurate than other gravity field detection systems.

The enormous waves that occurred on the sea surface as a result of the Sumatra Island earthquake, which measured 9 on the Richter scale, caused a level ridge, measuring about six meters in height, to form on the shore. According to data produced by GOCE, such changes in the mass of the Earth’s surface caused a variation of 18 mm to occur on the geoid; this is recognized as a relatively high degree of change.

Changes in the polar glaciers also cause variations in the geoid; data provided from satellite GRACE shows that the layers of ice in Greenland and the Antarctica are melting at a higher rate than previously expected. The melting icebergs are causing a rise in sea levels of up to 0.41 mm every year and the weight of water produced from the melting icecaps is causing changes to the shape of the Earth’s surface.3

One of the interesting facts attained by GRACE is the changes in the Earth’s gravity field that have been caused by Three Gorges in China, the largest reservoir ever built. The lake region of the reservoir that is being built measures around 372 miles long, 70 miles wide and approximately 574 feet deep; when the casing of the reservoir is completed it will house an amazing 39.3 billion m3 (9.4 cu mi) of water. The area that this reservoir will cover once the project is completed is so great that it will make an estimated 1.5 million people homeless. It has been observed that the enormous accumulation of water in the completed sections of the reservoir has increased the gravity level in that region, which in turn has caused changes in the geoid structure.4

Scientists have confirmed that the Earth’s shape is becoming rounder as a result of the construction of projects like the Three Gorges reservoir. It is also estimated that the weight decrease due to the melting icecaps has played a major role in these changes. In some regions of Scandinavia and Canada the ground is rising 1 cm every year due to the melting glaciers. The water produced from the melting glaciers is forcing the currents in the Atlantic Ocean towards the equator, while the decrease of mass at the poles and the increase of weight in the equator region have caused significant changes in the shape of the Earth.

Many scientists claim that changes in the Earth’s surface have been caused by changes in the climate. Unfortunately, according to a report published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), humans are responsible for 90% of global warming. As a result of these vast variations, the geoid shape of the Earth is becoming rounder and its radius is increasing annually by 0.4–0.8 mm. The reasons for these changes are being closely monitored by scientists. According to scientists, the variation of the geoid that has been caused by changes in mass location is having an effect on the Earth’s dynamics, with the transfer of mass demonstrated by the changes in gravity causing a reduction in the speed of the Earth’s rotation around its axis; this is expected to result in variations in the daily time-zone.

Abdullah Sancak is pursuing an academic career in engineering in Turkey.

Notes

1. For more information on this topic see James R. Smith, Introduction to Geodesy, The history and Concepts of Modern Geodesy, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1997.
2. There are interesting images that show how the earth looks in the following link: University of Texas Center for Space Research and NASA (7 Haziran 2005) http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/gallery/gravity/
3. G. Ramillien, A. Lombard, A. Cazenave, E. R. Ivins, M. Llubes, F. Remy, R. Biancale, Interannual variations of the mass balance of the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets from GRACE, Global and Platenary Change 53 (2006) 198-208.
4. San Shaoan, Institute of seismology, CEA, Wuhan, China, Gravity change before and after the first water impoundment in Three Gorges Project. http://www.sgg.whu.edu.cn/icct/html/icct_ppt/S1/sun.s.A___fourth.pdf

It is only with the thought of Paradise that children, who form a great deal of humanity, can endure all the deaths around them, which appear to them to be grievous and frightening, and strengthen the morale of their weak and delicate beings. . . . It is only through the life of the hereafter that the elderly, who form another considerable part of humanity, can endure the proximity of the grave, and be consoled at the thought that their lives, to which they are firmly attached, will soon be extinguished and their fine world will come to an end. . . . It is only the thought of Hell-fire that checks the turbulent emotions of youths, the most vigorous element in the life of society, and their violent excesses, restraining them from aggression, oppression, and destruction, and ensuring that the life of society continues tranquilly. (The Ninth Ray, First Point)

If a society is deprived from the above benefits of belief in the Hereafter, people will try to find other ways to satisfy this search for immortality, as in the example of ancient Egypt. The fear of death and the desire for immortality are symbolized by the ancient Egyptian practice of mummification. The word “mummification” is derived from the Latin word mumia, meaning black bitumen. Bituminous materials were used extensively in the preservation of the body from the twenty-sixth dynasty of the Pharaohs onwards.

The ancient Egyptians believed that the body of a person was to live in the afterlife, therefore, mummification was developed; the total process took seventy days. Due to the expense of the materials involved in mummification, the pharaohs of Egypt, members of the nobility, and officials were the only people to be mummified, and they were usually buried in elaborate tombs. For religious reasons, some animals, such as baboons, cats, birds, and crocodiles were also mummified.

Mummies were placed in tombs that were designed to help the deceased live in the afterworld. The tombs were filled with all the necessities of life, such as food, tools, and treasures to ensure that the soul would return to the body, enabling the mummy to live happily.

The mummification process was used by many societies in an effort to cheat death and to achieve immortality. Modern society is no different from these ancient societies with respect to the desire to reach immortality. The only difference is the modern technology that is used to achieve immortality. Cryonics, a modern mummification technique, is a term that stems from cryogenic, the more general term given to the branch of physics that deals with extremely low temperatures. Cryonics is the practice of freezing the body of a recently deceased person to preserve it for possible resuscitation in the future. The body, which is in a state of “cryonic suspension,” is cooled to the point where molecular physical decay completely ceases. When a cure for the disease that caused the death has been found, the person may be revived and restored to good health later on.

This is not a new idea. In early 1967, a California psychology professor named James H. Bedford decided to try it. When he died of cancer, he was frozen in liquid nitrogen at 321 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. After Bedford, over a period of a few years, several dozen people were frozen in liquid nitrogen. After a while, the relatives stopped the flow of money to the cemetery crypt in Chatsworth, California. By 1987, the frozen bodies, one of those being the body of Bedford, kept in liquid nitrogen had dropped to only three in the United States, due to financial reasons. By 1994, the number of frozen bodies once again had risen, climbing to about a dozen. Another two dozen had chosen the cheaper alternative of having only their heads frozen after death. They believed that future technology would be able to provide a new body by using their DNA. Cryonics organizations have been growing rapidly, with several hundred people now being legally signed up to be frozen after death.

The type of death is very important for cryonics. Real death and legal death are not the same things. When it is no longer feasible to restore the blood circulation (i.e. restart the heart), legal death occurs. Real death occurs after the cells have irreversibly deteriorated in the minutes and hours that follow. Due to the fact that so much cellular information is lost after real death, cryonics begins after legal death has been declared.

After legal death, the body is hooked to a heart-lung machine to supply oxygen to the still living tissues. At the same time the blood is drained and some chemicals are circulated to minimize the damage caused by freezing. To protect the body, all chemical reactions are stopped by hindering translational molecular motion. This motion is stopped at 130 degrees below zero Celsius, that is “glass transition” temperature. The human body is cooled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen, -196 degrees Celsius (-320 degree Fahrenheit). The bodies are then placed in a vacuum-insulated flask, head down, so that in the event of a problem it would be the feet that would thaw first. While to date no human being in cryonic suspension has been revived, it has been proven that the bones, the skin, some tissues, the red and white blood cells, the bone marrow, human embryos, and sperm survive under deep freezing and thawing.

Some special techniques are used to reduce the damage caused by freezing. Using a procedure called vitrification, a mixture of cryoprotectant (antifreeze) compounds replaces more than 60% of the water inside the cells to prevent the tissue from freezing during cooling; the tissue becomes rigid like glass, with no ice crystal damage. On the other hand, high concentrations of cryoprotectant are toxic to cell metabolism. It is hoped that this problem will be solved and reversed in the future by nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is the technology that has been developed in order to work with atoms and molecules in the future. By using this technology, the damage in the cells caused by freezing will be able to be repaired. In addition to nanotechnology, therapeutic cloning developments and stem cell research discoveries will be important in making cryonics successful. Taking into account the speed of the development of these technologies, some experts have estimated that it will take 20-100 years before humans can be successfully thawed out.

Such a process requires a great deal of money; it is not cheap to freeze oneself for future life. Prices range between a fee of $28,000 to $120,000 annually. By freezing merely the head, this price can be reduced by half.

Be it the ancient mummification methods, be it the latest expensive techniques, all these point to the unchanging human nature. Cryonics try to reach immortality in “this life”; however, this is an impossibility with today’s technology and is merely speculative with future technology. But there is a way that is possible now, and does not require great expenditure or mind-boggling technology. Bediuzzaman, in his book, The Rays, explains how we can achieve such immortality:

For example, human beings have an intense desire for immortality. Only One Who has disposal over the whole universe as though it was a palace can answer this wish; only One Who can close the door of this world and open that of the hereafter, like closing the door of one room and opening that of another can do so. Humans have thousands of desires, both negative and positive, which like the desire for immortality spread throughout the world and stretch to eternity. It is only the Single One, Who through the mystery of unity holds the whole universe in His grasp, Who, by answering these desires of human beings, can cure the two gaping wounds of impotence and want.

In other words, the ability to find immortality is something that has always been with us; it resides within us. The ancient Egyptians and modern science both spent large sums of money and much time trying to attain immortality; if only they were aware that every human has the same chance. All we need to do is to just look within ourselves

References

• Iskander, Zaky, An X-Ray Atlas of the Royal Mummies, University of Chicago Press, 1980.
• Harris, Steven B., “Many are cold but few are frozen.” Available online at http://www.cryonet.org
• Ettinger, Robert C.W., The Prospect of Immortality, Ria University Press, 2005.
• Nursi, Said (Bediuzzaman), The Rays, Sozler Publications, Istanbul: 2002.
• http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk
• www.levity.com/alchemy/islam25.html
• http://www.alcor.org/
• http://www.cryonics.org/