X-Message-Number: 2317
Date: 29 Jun 93 16:12:40 EDT
From: "A.J. Clifford" <>
Subject: CRYONET Tadpole Cryonaut

I want to throw an open question to the 'net.  Something that I have
thought about several times in recent years and yet remains quite
unresolved.

In 1977 my college science professor was demonstrating the properties
of liquid nitrogen - immersing flowers and rubber.   At one point he
took a happily swimming tadpole and dropped it into the LN2 for at
least 30 seconds, probably longer.   Then he recovered it and dropped
it back into the beaker of water.   Shortly it revived and began to
slowly swim around again.

From all the literature I have seen it appears that there is nothing
larger than an embryo (comprising animal tissue) that, so far, has been
revivable from an LN2 frozen state.  Provable regularly under
scientific conditions.   A tadpole is far more complex than an embryo
and would be a much more significant event.

Perhaps the tadpole did not freeze entirely through, or perhaps it
was 'flash-frozen' and vitrification occured saving its cells.

Can anyone shed light on this experiment?   Wouldn't it be interesting
to see if a tadpole could be revived after an hour or a week?  If so
a medium-long term experiment would prove the hypothesis that under 
LN2 biological decay is completely arrested.


Regards

AJC

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