Reanimated Lobsters?

SYFer writes "Trufresh, a Connecticut-based frozen food company claims that lobsters frozen with its special freezing process sometimes come back to life when thawed. If these claims prove true, will the dubiously regarded field of "cryonics" finally get some respect?" If people were more like lobsters, maybe. The company's success rate at reviving lobsters after short-term freezing (at -40 degrees) is 12 out of 200.

Re:Selective breeding

[datababe72]

It also presumes that the survival of any single lobster is due to some positive genetic component, and not just random chance or subtle variations in the freezing technique/time frozen. The article doesn't really have enough detail to tell whether or not their techniques are rigorously standardized.

I don't know enough about lobsters to know whether there is a plausible genetic component. I do know that certain types of deep sea fish have proteins that bind to ice particles in their blood, thereby allowing them to live happily in very, very cold water. The proteins are called antifreeze proteins. A quick search on PubMed turned up no mention of whether or not they exist in lobsters, but they do seem to exist in bacteria and plants as well as the arctic fish I was originally thinking of.

Re:Flash Freezing...

[OneFix Away]

I understand that, but there's no REAL reason to belive that this will ever be possible...to fix damaged brain tissue without ever having access to the undamaged tissue...

To be honest, these people will probably end up being burried or cremated(sp?) like the rest of us in a few decades anyhow...there's no real reason the belive that these companies won't eventually enter bankruptcy like most every other company out there...

Don't be so certain

[cgenman]

I doubt public outcry will be so large. If there was a way to keep lobsters live before reaching the store by simply freezing them, I'd be surprised if we didn't see a bumper crop of cheap live lobster. The public doesn't have to see the reanimation process, so they would be nonethewiser.

As you said, we're cruel enough to the tasty critters already. What's one more freezing going to do?

Sure

[GCP]

And there's no REAL reason to believe we could fly in space. After all, everyone knows there's no air, so flapping your wings would have no effect.

Yep. It's pretty dumb to imagine they they'll be able to do things in the future that we don't know how to do already.