X-Message-Number: 6027
Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 21:28:10 -0800 (PST)
From: Doug Skrecky <>
Subject: brain freeze-drying as an economical alternative (erratum)

                     ******Appologies*****
 (I guess I was a little too excited when I originally posted this  
 message. It contained a rather glaring math error, which was due to my 
 mixing up freeze-dry data between brain slices with an intact brain. 
 The corrected message is below.)     

    Freeze-drying a brain should reduce storage costs quite significantly
 since liquid nitrogen cryostats would no longer be needed for storage. 
 How much would it cost to freeze-dry a brain? Probably not very much as
 the following information shows. 
   In his book "Freeze-Drying Biological Specimens: A Laboratory Manual" 
 Rolland O. Hower from the Smithsonian Institution details his experiences
 in freeze-drying a wide variety of biological specimens. Freeze-drying of
 a formalin fixed 1386 gram human brain took just 28 days at -30 C. 
 Weight loss was 1145 grams or 83%. Slicing the brain reduced drying time
 to 14 days. Increasing the storage temperature to -5 C reduced drying time
 of an intact brain to 7 days, though numerous cracks were evident.
   Considering its size the human brain seems to be remarkablely quick and
 easy to freeze-dry. A barred owl weighing 1369 grams took 130 days to
 freeze-dry at -20 C. A tortoise took 132 days, while an alligator took
 9 months at -20 C. The absence of either a thick epidermis or bone which
 can act as vapour barriers may be the reason why the human brain was so
 quick to dry. 


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