On Sun, Feb 21, 2021 at 5:14 AM Joe Dart wrote: Don Larson

hi my name is Joe Dart and I am retired from teaching at UAF (math/cs) but am now teaching short classes at Osher. At Osher I've gone back to my undergraduate interest in genetics and teach genetic engineering (for non scientists).

This semester the class is titled Engineering Immortality. I am covering all the latest research in telomeres and CpG methylation and Senolytics, etc.

But I also want to touch on science that may have future promise in extending life.

To make a long story short, I came across an article about Wood Frogs in the L.A. Times from a few years ago. Amazingly you are from Fairbanks.

So here's what I am hoping you can tell me. Wood frogs are quite different from humans, but in your opinion, can you envision humans being artificially frozen (alive) using some variant of the strategy that is used by the wood frog. ie is our biology close enough that a similar freezing could be used on people.

A second question is have you ever tried to determine the maximum time a wood frog can stay frozen continuously? I assume they are using some amount of trickle energy during their hibernation. Just wonder if that could be replenished artificially during their nap.

This may sound like science fiction, but I am trying to find every potential way of extending human life, possible or probable to present in class.

By the way, there's a story about some kids in Denmark whose boat turned over at sea. They were all 'dead, frozen' when they were brought to the hospital but amazingly they all recovered. Here's a link. There are news stories that confirm this documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYFtkg_ZlcM

Thanks for anything you can tell me.

joe dart

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His reply to me:

Hi Joe

I cannot envision humans being frozen like frogs. Maybe tissues or even organs but freezing a whole human is a difficult task. Wood frogs use high concentrations of glucose and urea, both would be lethal to humans.

I think you're on to the more realistic way of extending life through hibernation as cold-water near drowning is very similar to hibernation. Lowering our metabolic rate is much more likely than freezing ourselves

I have not tested endurance of freeze tolerance. Our experiments when we froze wood frogs at UAF resulted in 100% survival over ~7 months. I would expect they could survive weeks longer. The danger during long term freezing is not a lack of energy or a build up of free-radicals and wastes, but on recrystallization of ice in the body leading to death

Don