Cryogenics
by Ano Nymous
(Las Vegas, NV, USA)
The animals are coming out to play
Many years ago, way before animal rights activists were overly militant, a friend and I decided to try to preserve insects and fish by freezing them. Our goal was to see if any of them could be brought back to life upon thawing.
Our hypothesis was that some insects could survive freezing while vertebrates such as fish could not.
We set out to catch a few crickets, dig for earthworms and trap a few moths. We also picked up a $0.10 gold fish or 2 to test out the Fishy portion of the hypothesis.
We then placed these animals into the freezer section of our kitchen refrigerator. After checking on these critters numerous times, we decided to watch some reruns of Gilligan's Island and eat.
Several hours later, we checked on our experiment. None of the animals appered to be alive.
We
slowly thawed them out by putting them in the refrigerator and then setting them on the counter waiting for any signs of life.
Finally, we decided to add in a power transformer from a train set. By hooking up two wires to the crickets, we increased the voltage slowly. The legs twitched but the cricket didn't show any other signs of life. We repeated the shocking part on the fish, the earthwork -- which was very delicate after freezing, but alas not one animal came back to life.
Thus, our hypothesis was proven correct in the case of the fish - would not survive, but false for the other guys.
Barry's Response - Ahh, Ano, the things we do
in the name of science. Ethix has kinda taken the fun outta everything, hasn't it?
just kiddingSearch this site for more information now.