IT'S the competition to die for.

International science and technology journal New Scientist is offering readers the chance to win possible life after death.

The winner of the competition will be cryonically frozen when they die and stored in liquid nitrogen at the Cryonics Institute in Michigan.

Suspension at the institute costs about $55,000.

"The promotion is a way of making science interesting to everyone, not just scientists, " said New Scientist editor-in-chief Alun Anderson.

When the winner is pronounced legally dead, he or she will be frozen.

The winner has an option. The alternative is a week in Hawaii.

(C) 2002 Herald and Weekly Times Limited.

Sources: HERALD SUN 20/09/2002 P9