X-Message-Number: 21903 From: Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 07:56:23 EDT Subject: copal --part1_f4.2d437270.2c132ce7_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Copal is a dried form of some tropical conifer sap. I have ground some samples and disolved them in some organic products. The best result seems to be with acetone (sp?). Depending on the concentration, the final product is a brown liquid or a sticky paste. After drying there is a gumy product, with more time it would, no doubt revert to the original hard yellow solid. Because acetone seems to go throughout the skin fairly fast and readily it seems it could be a good solution for chemical conservation. The fossil form of copal, amber, is known to keep biological structures fairly well for extended time periods, up to tens of millions of years. It seems that protection goes down to molecular level or nearly so. The best conserved mummies, from China, was soaked in a similar liquid. But now we have a superior disolving agent with fast biological penetration. Copal contains some strong heat shock-like proteins (chaperones), they could be useful in some prion illness and suggar induced injuries. Yvan Bozzonetti. --part1_f4.2d437270.2c132ce7_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21903