X-Message-Number: 4306 From: (Brian Wowk) Newsgroups: sci.cryonics Subject: Re: Escapism--wrong? Date: 26 Apr 1995 17:33:09 GMT Message-ID: <3nm04l$> References: <3nkplo$> In <3nkplo$> (Chris421) writes: >hi...anyone ever try using a very high magnetic field to polarize water >molecules at moment of vitrification to prevent destructive >random/opposing oriented ice crystal seeds...sounds like cryo-protective I don't know if water molecules have much of a magnetic dipole moment, but they sure do have a huge *electric* dipole moment. What you really want to do is freeze water between the plates of a large capacitor (i.e. in a large electric field). I don't know what effect this would have, but it is a very interesting speculation. By the way, it is not obvious whether the effect would be better or worse for cryopreservation. Vitrification is a highly disordered state of molecular orientation, while freezing is a highly ordered one. It is possible that lining up the molecules in an electric field could produce larger, more damaging ice crystals rather than smaller ones. ---Brian Wowk Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4306