Becca Ziegler is only 24, but she already has her death planned out: her corpse will be deep-frozen to minus 200 degrees Celsius (minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit) with liquid nitrogen. Ziegler, a US tech firm worker based in Berlin, has signed up with Tomorrow Biostasis, a startup in the German capital that offers to cryogenically freeze a person's body after they die. When the time comes, a team of medics will pump her full of a chemical solution to stop ice crystals from forming in her body and then transport her mortal remains to a storage facility in Switzerland.
The hope is that one day, medical technology might be advanced enough to bring her back to life. Many experts dismiss this gamble on the future as far-fetched, but Ziegler has decided to give it a shot. "I'm kind of curious to see what the future would be like and, in general, I like life," said the Californian, who works in educational technology.
"So if I could buy myself more time, that sounds really appealing." Once a fringe pursuit reserved for eccentric billionaires, cryogenic freezing -- also known as cryonics -- has become more accessible in recent years. Several companies offering cryopreservation have sprung up in the United States and elsewhere, with around 500 people worldwide thought to have been frozen so far.
A persistent myth has it that Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse, is one of them, but this has been debunked, with BBC reporting in 2019 there is "zero evidence" for this. Tomorrow Biostasi.