Cryo-preservation: Russian firm offers 'never-ending' life for modest fee

What happens after we die? Is there life after death? Can a dead body be brought back to life?

Religion has a set of standard answers to these questions.
But scientifically what is the truth?

A company in Russia is offering services to deep freeze the bodies of dead people, in the hope that one day, science would be able to revive them to live.

When Alexei Voronenko's 70-year-old mother passed away, he decided not to cremate or bury her.

Instead, he called up a Russian firm Kriorus, which offers a rather a curious service.

Alexei wants to keep his 70-year-old dead mother's brain frozen!

So that on some far off day in the future, when science has made enough advancement, she could be brought back to life!

This means that the brain of Alexei's mother has been kept in deep freeze with a temperature of minus 196-degree celsius.

The brain is floating in liquid nitrogen so that it suffers minimal deterioration.

"I reached out to 'Kriorus' to carry out the necessary procedures to cryo-preserve my mother, even though she did not express such a desire in any way. I did it at my own risk. I did this because we were very close and I think it is the only chance to meet in the future," said Alexei Voronenkov.

But is this even remotely possible? Can a dead person's brain be revived? Will a brain kept in deep freeze retain its memories?

Science has little to say about the existence of souls.

It is largely understood that individuals are a sum of their experienced memories.

So can cryo-preserving bodies aid in bringing people back to life in the distant future?

Valeriya Udalova is Kriorus's director, she talked about how technology is advancing with time, she said "It is what the whole of medicine is heading towards. Today we can resuscitate a drowned person. We were not able to do it before, we did not even try. We can reanimate people. I think that cryonics is some sort of reanimation of the future,".

Kriorus offers its services at a very steep price.

They ask for $36,000 to keep the entire body under liquid nitrogen and $15,000 just to have the brain preserved. Kriorus claims hundreds have signed up for its service so far 71 cadavers have been kept in deep freeze.

But experts have rubbished this as pseudo-science.

So far, there is no demonstrable evidence that when an individual dies, and her brain stops working, there is a way to revive it.

So why should people do it?

"What can we do for our dying relatives or the ones that we love? A nice funeral ceremony, a photo album. They (cryonics enthusiasts) cross this line, they go further, proving their love even more. They try to give (people) hope," added Valeriya Udalova.

The desire to live forever is as old as time.

The Egyptian pharaohs built the magnificent pyramids and had their mummified bodies preserved inside in the hope that their souls would one day return to find their bodies.

Similar such embalmed bodies have been found across continents.

So is cryo-preservation of our bodies just another of human endeavours to live after death?

Or is it just a pseudo-science employed to make a quick buck?