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| When an 87-year-old Californian man was wheeled into an operating room just outside Phoenix last year, the pandemic was at its height and medical protocols were being upended across the country. | 去年，一名87岁的加州男子被推进凤凰城郊外的手术室时，正是新冠病毒大流行进入高峰、美国各地的医疗方案都被打乱的时候。 |
| A case like his would normally have required 14 or more bags of fluids to be pumped into him, but now that posed a problem. | 像他这样的情况，以前需要注入14袋或更多的液体，但那对当时来说是个问题。 |
| Had he been infected with the coronavirus, tiny aerosol droplets could have escaped and infected staff, so the operating team had adopted new procedures that reduced the effectiveness of the treatment but used fewer liquids. | 如果他已被新冠病毒感染，空气中可能会有逃逸的微小气溶胶，导致工作人员感染，所以手术团队采用了新方案，虽然减弱了治疗效果，但减少了需要的液体。 |
| It was an elaborate workaround, especially considering the patient had been declared legally dead more than a day earlier. | 这是一个精心设计的应变方案，尤其是考虑到这位接受处置者在一天多前就已被宣布法定死亡。 |
| He had arrived in the operating room of Alcor Life Extension Foundation — located in an industrial park near the airport in Scottsdale, Ariz. — packed in dry ice and ready to be “cryopreserved,” or stored at deep-freeze temperatures, in the hope that one day, perhaps decades or centuries from now, he could be brought back to life. | 他进的是位于亚利桑那州斯科茨代尔机场附近一个工业园区的阿尔科生命延续基金(Alcor Life Extension Foundation)的手术室。他是被装在干冰里送来的，已为“冷藏保存”做好了准备。他希望能在也许几十年、或几个世纪后的某天起死回生。 |
| As it turns out, the pandemic that has affected billions of lives around the world has also had an impact on the nonliving. | 看来，这场影响了全球数十亿生命的新冠病毒大流行，对不再活着的人也产生了影响。 |
| From Moscow to Phoenix and from China to rural Australia, the major players in the business of preserving bodies at extremely low temperatures say the pandemic has brought new stresses to an industry that has long faced skepticism or outright hostility from medical and legal establishments that have dismissed it as quack science or fraud. | 从莫斯科到凤凰城、从中国到澳大利亚农村，那些从事用极低温度保存尸体业务的主要机构说，新冠病毒大流行给这个行业带来了新的压力，该行业一直面临着来自医学和法律机构的怀疑或直接敌意，被认为是冒牌科学或欺诈。 |
| In some cases, Covid-19 precautions have limited the parts of the body that can be pumped full of protective chemicals to curb the damage caused by freezing. | 在某些情况下，预防新冠病毒的措施限制了身体的哪些部位可以注入保护剂，减少冷冻造成的损伤。 |
| Alcor, which has been in business since 1972, adopted new rules in its operating room last year that restricted the application of its medical-grade antifreeze solution to only the patient’s brain, leaving everything below the neck unprotected. | 1972年开始经营的阿尔科(Alcor)，去年在其手术室采用了新的规定，只将医学级防冻剂的应用限于死者的大脑，不再用于保护颈部以下的所有部位。 |
| In the case of the Californian man, things were even worse because he had died without completing the normal legal and financial arrangements with Alcor, so no standby team had been on hand for his death. By the time he arrived at Alcor’s facility, too much time had elapsed for the team to be able to successfully circulate the protective chemicals, even to the brain. | 就这个加州人而言，情况更糟，因为他还没有完成阿尔科正常情况下需要的法律和财务安排就去世了，所以没有为他的死亡做准备的后备团队。他被送进阿尔科的设施时，已经过去了太长的时间，团队已无法成功地让化学保护剂在他的体内、甚至在大脑中循环起来。 |
| That meant that when the patient was eventually sealed into a sleeping bag and stored in a large thermos-like aluminum vat filled with liquid nitrogen that cooled it to minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 196 Celsius), ice crystals formed between the cells of his body, poking countless holes in cell membranes. | 这意味着当尸体最终被密封进一个睡袋，存入一个类似保温瓶、充满了零下196摄氏度液氮的大型冷却装置后，冰晶会在他身体的细胞之间形成，在细胞膜上扎出无数的小孔。 |
| Max More, the 57-year-old former president of Alcor, said that the damage caused by this patient’s “straight freeze” could probably still be repaired by future scientists, especially if there was only limited damage to the brain, which is often removed and stored alone in what is known in the trade as a “neuro” preservation. | 现年57岁的马克斯·莫尔(Max More)是阿尔科的前总裁，他说，未来的科学家可能仍能修复“直接冷冻”给这名死者造成的损伤，尤其是如果大脑受到的损伤有限的话。死者的大脑通常是取出来单独保存的，用行话说是“神经”保存。 |
| “I have always been signed up for a neuro myself,” Mr. More said. “I don’t really understand why people want to take their broken-down old body with them. In the future it’ll probably be easier to start from scratch and just regenerate the body anyway.” | “我本人一直只选择神经保存，”莫尔说。“我不太明白为什么人们想把他们状况很糟的身体一起保留。将来从零开始可能很容易，只需要将身体的其他部分再生出来。” |
| “The important stuff is up here as far as I am concerned,” he said, pointing to his sandy-blond crop of hair in a Zoom call. “That is where my personality lives and my memories are … all the rest is replaceable.” | “在我看来，重要的东西在上边，”他边说，边在这次Zoom通话中指着自己长着淡黄色头发的头。“这是我的个性和记忆所在……其他的部分都可以替换。” |
| Cryopreserving in a Pandemic | 大流行中的冷冻保存 |
| Supporters of cryonics insist that death is a process of deterioration rather than simply the moment when the heart stops, and that rapid intervention can act as a “freeze frame” on life, allowing super-chilled preservation to serve as an ambulance to the future. | 人体冷冻技术的支持者坚持认为，死亡是一个腐化的过程，而不仅仅是心脏停止跳动的那一刻，快速干预可以作为生命的“冻结定格”，让超低温保存成为未来的急救车。 |
| They usually concede there is no guarantee that future science will ever be able to repair and reanimate the body but even a long shot, they argue, is better than the odds of revival — zero — if the body is turned to dust or ashes. If you are starting out dead, they say, you have nothing to lose. | 他们通常承认，不能保证未来的科学能够修复和焕活身体，但他们认为，就算希望不大，那也要比火化后毫无复生几率要好。他们说，如果你是从死亡状态开始，那你也没什么可损失的。 |
| During the pandemic, a heightened awareness of mortality seems to have led to more interest in signing up for cryopreservation procedures that can cost north of $200,000. | 在大流行期间，人们对死亡的意识加深了，这似乎使人们对选择可能花费20万美元以上的冷冻保存程序产生了更大的兴趣。 |
| “Perhaps the coronavirus made them realize their life is the most important thing they have and made them want to invest in their own future,” said Valeriya Udalova, 61, the chief executive of KrioRus, which has been operating in Moscow since 2006. Both KrioRus and Alcor said they had received a record number of inquiries in recent months. | KrioRus自2006年以来一直在莫斯科开展业务，61岁的首席执行官瓦莱里亚·乌达洛娃(Valeriya Udalova)说：“也许新冠病毒让他们意识到自己的生命是他们拥有的最重要的东西，并让他们想要为自己的未来投资。”KrioRus和阿尔科均表示，最近几个月他们收到的咨询数量创下纪录。 |
| Jim Yount, who has been a member of the American Cryonics Society for 49 years, said he has often seen health crises or the death of a loved one bring cryonics to the front of people’s minds. | 在美国人体冷冻学会(American Cryonics Society)已有49年会员历史的吉姆·扬特(Jim Yount)说，他经常看到人们遭遇健康危机或亲人去世时会想起人体冷冻技术。 |
| “Something like Covid brings home the fact that they are not immortal,” said Mr. Yount, 78, during a recent stint working in the organization’s office in Silicon Valley. | 78岁的扬特最近在该组织位于硅谷的办公室工作时说：“像新冠病毒之类的东西让人们更加意识到他们终有一死。” |
| The American Cryonics Society has been offering support services since 1969 but stores its 30 cryopreserved members at another organization, the Cryonics Institute, near Detroit. | 美国人体冷冻学会自1969年以来一直提供支持服务，但将其30名冷冻保存的成员存放在底特律附近的另一个组织人体冷冻研究所。 |
| Alcor, the most expensive and best-known cryonics company in the United States, said the pandemic forced it to cancel public tours of its Scottsdale operation. It has also been harder to reach clients quickly, both because of travel restrictions and limitations on hospital access. | 美国最昂贵、最知名的人体冷冻公司阿尔科表示，大流行迫使其取消了斯科茨代尔业务的公开参观活动。由于旅行限制和医院准入限制，迅速接触客户也变得更加困难。 |
| After averaging about one cryopreservation a month in the 18 months before the pandemic, Alcor has dealt with just six since January 2020, perhaps through a combination of luck and clients heeding the company’s plea to avoid risky activities during the pandemic. | 在大流行前的18个月中，平均每个月会进行一次冷冻保存，而自2020年1月以来，阿尔科仅进行了六次，这可能是运气和客户听取了公司在大流行期间避免冒险活动的请求的共同作用。 |
| KrioRus, the only operator with cryostorage facilities in Europe, was busier than ever and performed nine cryopreservations during the pandemic, according to Ms. Udalova, with some of the deaths caused indirectly by Covid. | KrioRus是欧洲唯一一家拥有冷冻设施的运营商，据乌达洛娃说，它比以往任何时候都更忙，在大流行期间进行了九次冷冻保存，其中一些死亡是由新冠病毒间接造成的。 |
| Visa and quarantine rules threatened delays of up to four weeks to reach their bodies, and the company often had to rely on small local associates to deal with its clients, who died in South Korea, France, Ukraine and Russia. | 签证和隔离规定使他们接触尸体的时间有可能延迟长达四个星期，而且该公司经常不得不依靠当地较小规模的同行来处理在韩国、法国、乌克兰和俄罗斯去世的客户。 |
| Different problems have emerged in Australia, which has had some of the world’s most restrictive Covid border controls. | 澳大利亚出现的问题则不同。澳大利亚拥有一些世界上最严格的新冠病毒边境管制。 |
| Southern Cryonics, a start-up, was unable to fly in foreign experts to train its staff, forcing it to delay by a year the planned opening of a facility capable of storing 40 bodies. | 初创公司Southern Cryonics无法聘请外国专家来培训员工，这迫使其将能够存放40具尸体的设施的启用计划推迟一年。 |
| In China, the newest major player in cryonics, the Yinfeng Life Science Research Institute had to stop public visits to its facility in Jinan, the capital of Shandong province, which has made it difficult to recruit clients. | 在中国，银丰生命科学研究院——人体冷冻技术的最新主要参与者——不得不停止其位于山东省省会济南的设施的公开参观，这使得招募客户变得困难。 |
| The Cost of Maybe, Possibly Living a Bit Longer | 可能可以活久一点的代价 |
| More than 50 years after the first cryopreservations, there are now about 500 people stored in vats around the world, the great majority of them in the United States. | 在进行第一次冷冻保存50多年后，现在全世界大约有500人被储存在冷冻舱中，其中绝大多数在美国。 |
| The Cryonics Institute, for instance, holds 206 bodies while Alcor has 182 bodies or neuros of people aged 2 to 101. KrioRus has 80, and there are a handful of others held by smaller operations. | 例如，人体冷冻研究所有206具尸体，而阿尔科有182具2至101岁不等的尸体或神经系统。KrioRus有80具，还有少数由小型机构持有。 |
| The Chinese performed their first cryopreservation in 2017, and Yinfeng’s storage vats hold only a dozen clients. But Aaron Drake, the clinical director of the company, who moved to China after seven years as head of Alcor’s medical response team, noted that it took Alcor more than three times as long to reach that number of preserved bodies. | 中国人在2017年进行了第一次冷冻保存。银丰的冷冻舱只有十几个客户。该公司的临床总监亚伦·德雷克(Aaron Drake)在担任阿尔科医疗响应团队负责人七年后移居中国，他指出，阿尔科花了三倍多的时间才达到这样的冷冻尸体的数量。 |
| Yinfeng has priced itself at the top of the market alongside Alcor, which charges $200,000 to handle a whole body and $80,000 for a neuro. | 银丰的定价处于市场顶端，与阿尔科并驾齐驱，阿尔科处理整个身体的费用为20万美元，神经系统的费用为八万美元。 |
| The strongest reason for believing China will come to dominate the field is not just its population of 1.4 billion people but its domestic attitude toward cryopreservation. Far from being confined to the scientific fringe, Yinfeng is the only cryonics group that is supported by government and embraced by mainstream researchers. | 相信中国将在该领域占据主导地位的最有力理由不仅在于其14亿人口，还在于国内对冷冻保存的态度。银丰不但没有处于科学边缘，而是唯一得到政府支持和主流研究人员拥护的人体冷冻组织。 |
| “Our little business unit is owned by a private biotech firm that has about 8,000 employees and partners with the government on a lot of projects,” Mr. Drake said. He added that it is “well integrated into the hospital systems and cooperates with research institutes and universities.” | “我们小小的业务部门归一家私营生物技术公司所有，该公司拥有约8000名员工，并在许多项目上与政府合作，”德雷克说。他补充说，它“很好地融入了医院系统，并与研究机构和大学合作”。 |
| Peter Tsolakides, 71, a former marketing executive for Exxon Mobil and a founder of the Australian start-up Southern Cryonics, said he is grateful that people in the country “tend to have an open mind about new things.” | 71岁的彼得·索拉基德斯(Peter Tsolakides)曾是埃克森美孚(Exxon Mobil)的营销主管，也是澳大利亚初创公司Southern Cryonics的创始人，他说，他很感激该国人民“倾向于对新事物持开放态度”。 |
| “I don’t think any public resistance will crop up here, and the state department of health has been really positive and helpful,” he said. | 他说：“我认为这里不会出现任何公众抵制，而且国家卫生部门一直非常积极和愿意提供帮助。” |
| An important difference between Yinfeng and most other operators is the Chinese firm’s greater willingness to preserve people who die without having expressed any interest in being put on ice. | 银丰与大多数其他运营商之间的一个重要区别是，这家中国公司愿意保存未曾表示想要被冷冻的逝者。 |
| This is seen as an important ethical question in the West, given that it could come as quite a shock for somebody to die, perhaps after coming to peace with their fate, only to wake up blinking at the ceiling lights of a laboratory a few decades or centuries later. | 这在西方被视为一个重要的伦理问题，因为对于一个人来说，也许在死亡时已经与命运和解，但却在几十年或几百年后醒来看到实验室天花板上的灯光，这会令人感到非常震惊。 |
| “We don’t like to take third-party cases,” Mr. More said. “If someone phones up and says, ‘Uncle Fred is dying, I want to get him cryopreserved,’ we need to ask a bunch of questions before we even consider accepting that case.” | “我们不喜欢接受第三方案例，”莫尔说。“如果有人打电话说，‘弗雷德叔叔快死了，我想将他冷冻保存’，甚至在考虑这个案例之前我们就需要问一大堆问题。” |
| “Is there any evidence that Uncle Fred actually was interested in being cryopreserved? Because if not, we don’t want to do it. Are there any family members who are really opposed to it? Because we don’t want to have to go into a legal battle.” | “有没有证据表明弗雷德叔叔真的对冷冻保存感兴趣？因为如果没有，我们不想接。有家人强烈反对吗？因为我们不想被迫打官司。” |
| The litigious bent in the United States make its cryonics firms especially twitchy. There have been many lawsuits by relatives of the deceased trying to stop the expensive cryonics procedure. | 美国的诉讼倾向使该国人体冷冻公司特别紧张。曾有过多次死者的亲属提起的诉讼，试图阻止昂贵的人体冷冻手术。 |
| “You have relatives who think, ‘Now you’re dead, I can overrule your wishes and just take your money,’” Mr. More said. “It’s amazing how often people try to do that.” | “你的亲戚认为，‘现在你死了，我可以否决你的意愿，再拿走你的钱’，”莫尔说。“令人惊讶的是，人们经常尝试这样做。” |
| Men outnumber women by almost three to one among Alcor’s clients, and the imbalance is even greater among people registered with the Australian start-up. But there is an almost even gender balance among KrioRus’s 80 patients. | 在阿尔科的客户中，男性与女性的比例几乎是三比一，在那家澳大利亚初创公司的登记者中，这种不平衡更加严重。但在KrioRus的80名客户中，性别几乎是平衡的。 |
| “That is because of a cultural situation here in Russia,” Ms. Udalova said from her office in northern Moscow. | “这是出于俄罗斯的文化环境，”乌达洛娃在她位于莫斯科北部的办公室里说。 |
| “Our clients are mostly men, but they often cryopreserve their mothers first, because Russian men are brought up only by their mothers.” | “我们的客户大多是男性，但他们通常会先将母亲冷冻保存，因为俄罗斯男人是由母亲单独抚养长大的。” |
| When those male clients eventually join their mothers in the firm’s metal vats, the gender balance will likely tip toward more men, she said. | 她说，当这些男性客户最终和他们的母亲一起进入公司的金属冷冻舱时，性别平衡可能会更多地倒向男性。 |
| The Chinese, like the Russian men who want to embark on any new life with their mothers by their side, are also baffled by the tendency of American men to plan a solo journey into the future. | 中国人和俄罗斯男人一样，想要在母亲的陪伴下开始新的一生，并对于美国男人计划独自在未来开始人生的倾向表示困惑。 |
| “In the States you get some family members signing up together, but you get a lot more individuals signing themselves up and the Chinese don’t really get that,” Mr. Drake said. | “在美国，有些家庭一起登记，但更多的人是为自己登记，而中国人不太理解这一点，”德雷克说。 |
| “I think in almost all the cases in China so far, you’ve had a family member signing up their loved one who is near death.” | “我认为，到目前为止，在中国几乎所有的案例中，都是家庭成员为他们濒临死亡的亲人登记。” |
| If waking up alone in the future does not appeal, there is a growing trend in the United States of people paying tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to cryopreserve their pets, with the cost based largely on the animal’s size. | 如果不喜欢在未来独自苏醒，在美国，越来越多的人们支付数万甚至数十万美元来冷冻宠物，其费用主要取决于动物的大小。 |
| “If you want us to do your horse it is going to be different from your cat’s brain,” Mr. More said. “We seem to be having more pets than humans at the moment, and that’s fine with dogs but it’s kind of tricky for cats and anything smaller because of their tiny blood vessels.” | “如果你想让我们冷冻你的马，这和冷冻你的猫的大脑不一样，”莫尔说。“目前我们似乎冷冻的宠物比冷冻的人要多，这对狗来说问题不大，但对于猫和任何体型较小的动物来说，这有点棘手，因为它们的血管很细。” |
| “If you want to store a whole big dog, that’s going to cost about as much as a human because of its size. My wife and I had our dog Oscar cryopreserved. He was a large golden doodle, but we basically just had his brain stored to make it more affordable because I’m in neuro anyway.” | “如果你想冷冻保存一整只大狗，由于它的体型，它的成本将与冷冻保存一个人差不多。我和我的妻子把我们的狗奥斯卡冷冻保存了起来。他是一个巨大的金毛贵宾犬，但我们基本上只是把他的大脑保存起来，这样更便宜，而且反正我也选择保存神经系统。” |
| In Russia, KrioRus’s preserved cats and dogs have been joined by five hamsters, two rabbits and a chinchilla. | 在俄罗斯，KrioRus保存了猫和狗，以及五只仓鼠、两只兔子和一只花栗鼠。 |
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