Corpsicles v. Frogsicles February 11th, 2011

           Humans and Frogs, have you ever thought about how they are realted?  Wheter you believe in Darwin’s theory or not, frogs and humans have very similar body structures.  Now you are probably wondering something like, “Why do I care if frogs and humans are realted? It’s not like I have a frog for a child.”  Yes I know you do not yet understand why anyone would even care about frogs and humans being related, hint: it has something to do with cryogenics.  Watch this video by clicking here to find out more! 

This is a frozen wood frog as seen on the forest floor.

            Now that you have seen the video you probably understand why I am writing this blog post, and you probably got from the narration at the end of the video that it has to do with cryogenics when he said, “immortality might be ours if we could manage to do the same.” If we can freeze frogs to the point where they are as close to death as you can be without being “dead” why cant we for humans? Humans do have very similar body structure to a frog, and they both have the same kinds of organs and systems and organs.  The anatomy of a frog is much simpler.  The frog's internal organs- the heart, lungs, and digest organs and held in a hollow space.  While our organs have protection and are much more complex.

            When frogs freeze they are commonly referred to as “frogsicles.”  According to Ken Storey, scientist in biochemistry lab, says that the body, “Basically, the body turns into a syrup mass.”  Then in the spring the Wood Frogs make a compete turn-aroound and come back to life.  But Ken and Janet Storey say, “But our focus is not how to apply these techniques to humans down the line. We want to figure out how the biological systems work. Other people can take it from there.”  The Wood Frogs know when they are about to freeze so their body knows to increase their blood sugar levels which acts as an anti-freeze for when they become frozen.  Many scientists say humans need something like that because the way we are cryogenically freezing people now is causing brain damage.  Cryogenics facilities freeze humans at colder than -300⁰ Fahrenheit (-184.4⁰ Celsius) which is much lower than what Wood Frogs freeze at on the forest floor. At the moment these extremely low temperatures dry out cells which cause harm to the human body.  “Still, while the Wood Frogs example is alluring, it's not cryonic preservation in the true sense. These frogs don't actually die. And in replicating this process, scientists have only been able to freeze and revive individual animal organs for a short period of time -- a far cry from reviving an entire organism.”

            Isn’t this amazing? Tell me what you think about the Wood Frogs freezing on the forest floor and then recovering with no problem in the comment box, I’d love to hear your opinions! Thanks for reading!