Weird World: two founders of cryonics unfreeze and have to be cremated

Two founders of the cryonics movement - whose members are frozen after death - have been cremated after a freezer mishap. The bodies of Raymond Martinot and his wife Monique were stored in a freezer in the hope modern science could one day revive them. But, 22 years after his mother's body was put into cold storage, their son discovered the freezer unit had broken down, reports the Guardian. Rémy Martinot said he had no choice but to cremate his parents' bodies after the technical fault had seen their temperatures rise above the constant level required of -65C. "I don't feel any more bereaved today than I did when my parents died, I had already done my grieving," he said. "But I feel bitter that I could not respect my father's last wishes. Maybe the future would have shown that my father was right and that he was a pioneer."

Raymond Martinot spent decades preparing for his demise in the belief that if he was frozen, scientists would be able to bring him back to life by 2050. But his wife, Monique Leroy, died first, in 1984, and was the first to enter the freezer unit in their Loire Valley chateau. In 2002 Dr Martinot died of a stroke, aged 84, and his son followed his orders to inject him with the same anti-coagulants and store him alongside.