Reply #49: Cryogenic effects is an area that fascinates me [View All]

[Spearman87]

I agree with you. I do think we can find intact sperm. Definitely. And maybe I’m drawing a distinction at the wrong place: I think they will be intact, but unviable/unrevivable. The fine cellular structures ought to have signicantly deteriorated at temperatures as “warm” as you find with things frozen in the permafrost. Degradation and chemical processes are slowed way down at such temperatures, no doubt, but even if it is by a factor of 1,000, that’s still the equivalent of them going on for 27 years. By comparison, if you cool sperm or embryos down to liquid nitrogen temperature, processes are slowed down by such a huge factor that you might expect full viability for thousands of years. I could freeze an embryo or sperm and send them along to be revived by my relatives in the 9,000 AD. But it wouldn’t work, I didn’t think, if the temperature was only say 50 degrees below zero. I might need to bow to the opinion of the Japanese scientist quoted since he is a doctor and I’m far from it. He says they might be alive. I sure would like to know how though….I want to hear more about this, and hear it confirmed by other scientists.

PS—I just pulled up a table that shows the relative rates of chemical reactions compared to the rate at room temperature, as you lower the temperature. The time it will take to equal one second of chemical reaction as you go down in temperature (degrees Celsius) is as follows:


37 degrees---1 second

0 degrees---5.2 seconds (A factor of 5)

-60 degrees----3.3 minutes (A factor of close to 200)

-80 degrees (dry ice temperature---17.2 minutes (A factor of 1,032)

-196 degrees ---24.6 million years (liquid nitrogen temperature…..A factor that I will not even ATTEMPT to calculate!)


That is not the entire picture, BTW. Certain processes occur at the quantum level that add a degree of deterioration that low temperature can not prevent. But in any case, even when things are frozen, certain chemical reactions proceed and effect things on the cellular and molecular levels, which is one reason frozen meat is only edible for a limited period of time.