New Antifreeze Molecule Isolated In Alaskan Beetle 108
Arvisp writes with the news of a recently discovered antifreeze molecule in an Alaskan beetle that departs from most commonly identified natural antifreeze. "'The most exciting part of this discovery is that this molecule is a whole new kind of antifreeze that may work in a different location of the cell and in a different way,' said zoophysiologist Brian Barnes, director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology and one of five scientists who participated in the Alaska Upis ceramboides beetle project. Just as ice crystals form over ice cream left too long in a freezer, ice crystals in an insect or other organism can draw so much water out of the organism's cells that those cells die. Antifreeze molecules function to keep small ice crystals small or to prevent ice crystals from forming at all. They may help freeze-tolerant organisms survive by preventing freezing from penetrating into cells, a lethal condition. Other insects use these molecules to resist freezing by supercooling when they lower their body temperature below the freezing point without becoming solid."
Cryogenics? (Score:5, Interesting)
Could this discovery be developed to make cryogenically preserving people work? As it is right now, the cells rupture during the freezing process -- if the cells remained intact, reviving them would become possible.
Re:wait... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately the summery took this bit drectly from TFA and it is as you'd suspect, technically incorrect. Ice breaks open the cells (lysing them) which causes the cell contents to spill out of the cell into whatever medium they are in. This quite predictably, kills the cells. However, ice that forms extremely rapidly forms a glass-like phase of ice that does less harm to the cells. The interesting things about this new antifreeze molecule are that 1) it's not a protein; it's a fairly simple molecule and 2) it's lipophillic (tends to hang around fatty things like cell membranes) which makes it a very useful discovery in terms of biological antifreeze molecules.
Re:YES! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cryogenics? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is an interesting supposition, but there's no evidence that anything other than a quick revival would result in life being restored. We know that thermodynamically, the body is a veritable panic of high energy formations that are just dying to degrade (literally). We know that cryogenic freezing would suspend many of these processes...but all of the critical ones?
We've not yet begun to imagine what those processes even are, much less say with any certainty that cold temperature will suffice to prevent them over a sufficiently long period of time.
And then there's a whole segment of the population that will argue once the soul flies away, there's no getting it back. :-)
Re:Cryogenics? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cryogenics? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is an interesting supposition, but there's no evidence that anything other than a quick revival would result in life being restored. We know that thermodynamically, the body is a veritable panic of high energy formations that are just dying to degrade (literally). We know that cryogenic freezing would suspend many of these processes...but all of the critical ones?
We've not yet begun to imagine what those processes even are, much less say with any certainty that cold temperature will suffice to prevent them over a sufficiently long period of time.
Quite the opposite, actually. There is evidence [newsweek.com] that in cases of cardiac arrest (where the body is generally healthy aside from the fact that the heart has stopped), slow revival can allow for a higher success rate after longer periods without oxygen, because the cells themselves only die hours after cessation of blood flow. If you read to page 2 of that link, you see that induced hypothermia is sometimes used precisely because it does help slow the process of cell death which follows clinical death. Granted, as far as I'm aware, we don't know that cryogenic freezing would suspend all of such processes, but the state of research in this area is much farther along than you seem to think.
Re:Cryogenics? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, nothing is known about the human immune response to this just-discovered compound (which hasn't even beeen fully characterized), so it's wild speculation on my part that your immune system might mistake it for a bacterial endotoxin. But if that did turn out to be the case, ironically it wouldn't be the cold that would kill you- it would be a fever.