Here comes another one of those urban legends, but this one
has a different ending - perhaps a very happy one, too.
Every so often, I receive a picture (see below) that
purports to be a frozen Alaskan Tree Frog, that has the ability to freeze in
the winter, lose heartbeat, breathing and circulation for months on end, and
then revive completely in the spring thaw.
Wow! That's
amazing! Only problem is, the above
picture is not of an Alaskan Tree Frog (there is no such animal) nor is it even
an Alaskan Wood Frog (Rana
sylvatica), which does exist and does all those miraculous heart-stopping-starting
things. The picture is probably a
garden ornament with frost on it, not a live (or dead) frog at all.
What is amazing about the Alaskan Wood Frog is that it has
been studied by scientists and biologists to determine what causes this
wonderful reaction to freezing temperatures.
What they found is that the wood frog has an unusually high amount of
cyroprotectants in its body that prevent the cells and tissue from losing
moisture as they freeze. These are
composed of blood sugars and urea, and they lower the freezing temperature to
prevent loss of vital fluids, or freeze drying. This enables the frog to
recover as though nothing at all happened once the 'melt' occurs.
What if scientists could produce artificial
cyroprotectants that could be injected into the donated organs of living or
deceased people? An organ must be
implanted within hours of harvesting to be usable now, but with the addition of
cyroprotectants it could be frozen and kept in an organ bank for weeks or
months while a matching patient could be found to receive it. People needing organ transplants would have
a better chance of getting the heart, liver, kidney or lungs they so
desperately need to survive.
It isn't yet a reality, but the research is already being
conducted to produce the cyroprotectants similar to those found in the little
Alaskan Wood Frog, and we might soon have another modern miracle of science
that will prolong thousands of lives.
