Word: glycerol
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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When autumn temperatures fall toward the freezing point, wise motorists put antifreeze in their radiators. Many wise insects do much the same thing, reports Biochemist Fred Smith of the University of Minnesota. What's more, their antifreeze is glycerol (glycerin), a chemical that closely resembles the ethylene glycol that is the basis for many antifreeze brands...
...Pratt and C. M. Stewart, Professor Smith was studying the hibernating larvae of woodboring beetles (Melandrya striata), trying to isolate the enzymes that digest the cellulose on which the insects live. But when he ground up the larvae and analyzed the juice, he was surprised to find a considerable glycerol content. Since the active summer larvae do not contain glycerol, he guessed that the larvae possessed a mechanism that reacted to cold by producing glycerol to keep their tissues from freezing in the Minnesota winters...
...check his theory. Professor Smith experimented on black carpenter ants, which are easy to collect in quantity. Hibernating adult ants proved to have as much as 10% glycerol in their bodies, but when the ants were gradually warmed up and became active, all of it disappeared. Chilling the ants for a few days at a temperature just above the freezing point restored the glycerol again. Ants of the same species found in warmer Maryland had no glycerol in them. But when taken to Minnesota, they did as Minnesota ants do, secreting their personal antifreeze against the cold...
With whole organs like the heart, however, it is impossible to use this method, since the organ cannot remain alive outside the body long enough to be treated completely with glycerol. Furthermore, though other methods have actually been able to freeze the heart, no heart chilled in these ways has ever beaten again...
...taking out approximately 30 to 40 percent of the water from the small dog's heart used and then allowing it to soak in glycerol, the doctors lowered its freezing point to below minus eight degrees Centigrade. They kept the heart at minus eight degrees for all hour, rehydrated and rewarmed it, and placed it in the neck of a large dog, where it revived within 15 minutes and beat for an extended period...