Unfortunately, inserting complex novel gene sequences into every cell of an organism in a way that doesn't just cause massive, global cancer is very hard problem. Making those sequences do what you want them to do, and not, say, kill the target organism is even harder. Especially since human anatomy isn't well suited to the task, and would need to be modified. By the time we have the technology to do something like that, death is probably already a solved problem.
That said, I've used the premise in a science fiction book before. The main characters were members of Homo Sapiens Durabilis, and had genomes modified with tardigrade genetics. They could be pumped full of hydrogen sulfide, and reversibly dehydrated to death for long-term space travel, or during a medical emergency.
I didn't find any amphibians which survived complete dehydration, but I found an insect.
The useful word is anhydrobiosis-- but no amphibians are mentioned.
If you don't believe in an afterlife, then it seems you currently have two choices...
Believing in afterlife doesn't grant you one more option. This is a statement about ways of mitigating or avoiding death, and beliefs are not part of that subject matter. An improved version of the statement would say, "If there is no afterlife, then...". In this form, it's easier to notice that since it's known with great certainty that there is no afterlife, the hypothetical isn't worth mentioning.
The main problem with dehydration as I understand it is similar to that of cryopreservation, but worse: dehydration causes cells to shrink which damages organs. It also concentrates cellular components (salts, proteins, etc.) to the point where they start interacting with each other harmfully.
That said, it's an interesting starting point. Mike Darwin has proposed replacing cellular water with some kind of solvent carrying monomers that form a hard polymer under controlled conditions, possibly similar to Amber. Once it polymerizes and forms a glass, the cel...
Chemical fixation (sometimes called "plastination", although this conflates the practice with an unrelated procedure) is an in-progress technology to preserve brains at room temperature, and is being evaluated alongside cryonics by the Brain Preservation Foundation: http://www.brainpreservation.org/
It would probably be cheaper than cryonics, and would require much less long-term support - you can throw the brain in a shoebox instead of constantly maintaining it in liquid nitrogen. It still lacks a revival mechanism though - the current hope seems to be preserving enough information to get it back via slicing and scanning later.
Alcor's magazine Cryonics just published my article titled "Cryonics and the Singularity." It's on page 21 of this:
http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/Cryonics2012-4.pdf
The article argues that if you believe in the likelihood of a coming singularity you should sign up for cryonics.
Upvoted for clear setting of a line of reasoning
Pros for Down: Vague logic jump based on surface phenomena, organising rather than executing work
Pros for Up: Acknowledging ignorance, clear explicitation and individualization of stance
Why this proposal is a bad one :
Cryonics is based upon a working technology, cryogenic freezing of living tissues.
The latest cryonics techiques use M22, an ice crystal growth inhibitor that has been used to preserve small organs and successfully thaw them. More than likely, if you were to rewarm some of the tissues from a cryonics patient frozen today, some of the original cells would still be alive and viable. I don't know if this particular experiment has been performed, however : there is a reason why cryonics has a bad reputation for pseudoscience....
If you don't believe in an afterlife,
An afterlife doesn't really solve the problems people want it to solve. For one thing, ghost hunters with cable reality series might bother you with inane requests like pushing buttons on flashlights. ; )
But more to the point, why do people assume that an "afterlife," if it exists, has to last forever, or that you have to have one to give this life "meaning"? This shows uncritical, self-centered teleological thinking about human existence.
cryonics or permanent death
False dichotomy: Cryonics may fail (actually, will probably fail) to revive you. Or it may succed, and then you die anyway.
Robin Hanson uses an estimate of 5% here
It seems a quite optimistic estimate. Successful revival depends conjunctively on a large number of events, many of which are highly speculative (no damage from preservation, super duper nanotech) or outright implausible (cryo orgs not succumbing to organizational failure).
The best option is to embrace permanent death. The success of cryogenics or other life preserving technologies would be disastrous for humanity. Already population estimates for the near future cause panic about resources and sustainability, without further population increase due to a decrease in death rate. It would only be feasible if the birth rate was cut severely by imposing policies such as that in China. As procreation and cultivation of family life are seen as integral parts of the human experience these policies would probably be unsuccessful. Even if they were successful would this really be desirable? We should accept the transient, cyclical nature of life on this planet.
If you don't believe in an afterlife, then it seems you currently have two choices: cryonics or permanent death. Now, I don't believe that cryonics is pseudoscience, but it's still pretty poor odds (Robin Hanson uses an estimate of 5% here). Unfortunately, the alternative offers a chance of zero. I see five main concerns with current cryonic technology:
So I wonder if we can do better.
I recall reading of juvenile forms of amphibians in desert environments that could survive for decades of drought in a dormant form, reviving when water returned. One specimen had sat on a shelf in a research office for over a century (in Arizona, if I recall correctly) and was successfully revived. Note: no particular efforts were made to maintain this specimen: the dry local climate was sufficient. It was suggested at the time that this could make an alternative method of preserving organs. Now the advantages of this approach (which I refer to flippantly as "dryonics") is:
There is one big disadvantage of this approach, of course: no one knows how to do it (it's not entirely clear how the juvenile amphibians do it) or even if it would be possible in larger, more complex organisms. And, so far as I know, no one is working on it. But it would seem to offer a much better prospect than our current options, so I would suggest it worth investigating.
I am not a biologist, and I'm not sure where one would start developing such a technology. I frankly admit that I am sharing this in the hope that someone who does have an idea will run with it. If anyone knows of any work on these lines, or has an idea how to proceed, please send a comment or email. Or even if you have another alternative. Because right now, I don't consider our prospects good.
[Note: I am going on memory in this post; I really wish I could provide references, but there does not seem much activity along these lines that I can find. I'm not even sure what to call it: mummification? Probably too scary. Dehydration? Anyway feel free to add suggestions or link references.]