X-Message-Number: 19900
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 04:16:57 -0700 (PDT)
From: Driven FromThePack <>
Subject: Amorphous Ice

Here are some quotes from the URL posted by Bryan Hall
(amusing how the scientists steer clear of possible
uses for cryonics, despite how the reporter wants to
connect it to cryonics):

 Canadians discover new forms of ice
May advance cryonics
  
Margaret Munro  
National Post 


Friday, August 23, 2002
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
  
In a finding that could breathe new life into
cryopreservation, a Canada-U.S. team has discovered
several new forms of ice.

The accidental discovery, detailed in the journal
Science today, amazed the physicists, who were
studying a known type of ice when it began to undergo
a transition into ice structures never seen before.
....


The 76-year-old physicist and his colleagues have
since confirmed the discovery of at least three new
forms of non-crystalline ice.

They do not expect the findings to help revive frozen
bodies anytime soon because the ices form only under
high pressure. But they say the discovery may one day
improve methods of preserving organs, embryos and
other life forms because the new forms of ice do not
contain crystals that can tear cells apart.

....

Tomberli and Egelstaff, working with colleagues at the
National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, and the
Oak Ridge National and Argonne National laboratories
in the United States, made the discovery while running
an experiment on a high-density form of "amorphous,"
or non-crystalline, ice. It is one of the more than 12
different forms of ice that have been known to
scientists for years.

This high-density ice, which on Earth, exists only in
research labs, is made by putting regular ice into a
metal press and squeezing it at 13,000 times the
atmospheric pressure and then cooling it to -196C. The
researchers were studying the properties of this
super-squished ice two years ago when, to their
amazement, the water molecules inside began to shift.

...

The physicists, specialists in the field of condensed
matter, have since verified the new characteristics --
and flexibility -- of the ice. In their report, they
describe three new forms of non-crystalline ice and
say "many more forms may be possible."

All of which shows the frozen state is more fluid than
expected. "The molecules can obviously move about a
bit inside," Egelstaff says.

Or, as physicist Alan Soper of Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory in the United Kingdom writes in a
commentary in Science: "The apparent simplicity of the
water molecule belies the enormous complexity of its
interactions with other molecules, including other
water molecules."

Amorphous ices do not naturally form on Earth because
they exist only below -150C. They do, however, exist
in comets and other frigid parts of outer space.

The new findings might eventually enhance
cryopreservation techniques, which some people dream
of using to preserve and revive the dead. (There are
rumours Walt Disney is in a freezer in the United
States, awaiting rebirth, although his family says he
was cremated.)

Tomberli says the high-pressure techniques now used to
create the non-crystalline ice precludes their use in
a cryonics lab anytime soon. "The pressure would
squish most organs into uselessness."

....


Here is a URL for a more detailed article:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/mediarel/archives/001772.html

 
 

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