Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I had been searching the web for a few days, and I had came across a site about a boy who had won his Elementary science fair with an experiment of cryogenically freezing a feeder cricket, then bringing it back to life. After searching from top to bottom of the internet, I still cannot find any resources that could help me.. any guides, manuals, or step-by-steps. I was wondering if anyone could help me find a website, or if they know anything about it.

Thank you!!

Ineresting. I think the reason that you can't find annything is that it probably did not happen. Cryogenics is still in its experimental stages. Even to freeze unicellular organisms requires the addition of freezing agents for protection. And, the majority of these do not survive well!

Hi folks -

This is a subject about which I know very little, and I hope you'll forgive me stepping in with a few additional thoughts.

As I understand it, there are a small number of species which are naturally able to undergo temperatures well below the freezing point of water and survive. I've no idea whether feeder crickets are among them, although I did find some cricket suppliers online who warn that they do not ship crickets during freezing weather.

My guess is that jwibbenmeyer's analysis is correct. Trying to freeze an animal that doesn't naturally survive freezing sounds like a difficult task. (Cooling a feeder cricket to low temperatures which are still above freezing is another matter, however, and one from which you could conceivably make an interesting science fair project.)

If you want to freeze something for the science fair, your best bet might be to use animals that have been reliably shown to survive freezing. If you look for early papers on the subject, you may find pretty detailed recipes. Failing that, you'll at least end up with the names of researchers in the field who might be willing to offer some advice.

The most famous freezable animal is a frog which goes by the name Rana Sylvatica (or Wood Frog). They're native to the US, and you might well be able to buy some on the cheap from a bio supplier (or a pet store?). A couple google searches turned up some other frogs - including something called a Spring Peeper - which are said to have the same ability, as well as a number of insects, and even a couple fish and snakes.

There's an anecdotal story I've heard a few times that one can drop a frog of unspecified type into liquid nitrogen, let it freeze solid, then fish it out and drop it into water and it will survive. I've certainly never tried it, and dipping an object into LN is such a violent method of cooling that it's pretty hard to believe the frog would get away without at least some serious tissue damage. My guess is you'd probably want to do something like sit the frog on a big metal plate on the bottom of a container and stick it in a freezer so that the frog cools down very slowly.

Make sure you talk to the people in charge of the science fair about any restrictions on using live animals first.

Good luck,
Erik