X-Message-Number: 12932
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: about 0 C and tubulin: in a sense, the experiment's already done
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 01:14:22 +1100 (EST)

Hi!

If you want to work out the effects of low temperature on tubulin, and
what it means, you might look at the early work of Audrey Smith, who froze
rats and other animals (hardly to the temperature we need, but to 0 C or
below) and got them back, WITH THEIR MEMORIES. Smith did her work in the
early 50's, and it did achieve one major result: it provided convincing
evidence that electrical activity was not involved in the storage of
our memories. There have been other papers doing similar things, but
this work fell off, I believe, partly because the cryobiologists doing
it were scared that they would be tarred with the brush of cryonics,
and partly because they could not take the temperature lower than only
a few degrees below 0 C.

They did not look at tubulin at all, in any form. However we may conclude
from this work that if tubulin becomes disrupted, it returns to its form
after warming (or that it play no role in the working of our nerve cells,
an unlikely conclusion).

Smith did write a book you might look for: BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF FREEZING
AND SUPERCOOLING, 1960.

And don't ignore work because it was done some time ago. You'll have a
hard time understanding thermodynamics, electromagnetism, or even gravity
if you do so... not to mention cryobiology.

			Best and long long life,

				Thomas Donaldson

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