Freezing tolerance in an adult insect

The adult carabid beetle Pterostichus brevicornis tolerates freezing under natural conditions. Laboratory tests confirm that winter beetles tolerate temperatures below -35 degrees C, whereas summer beetles die if frozen at -6.6 degrees C. Winter beetles can be cooled to about -10 degrees C before freezing, and they thaw near -3.5 degrees C. Summer beetles thaw at -0.7 degrees C. To avoid freezing damage even in winter beetles, cooling rates must be near 20 degrees C per hour or less.     

Ultraviolet damage to bacteria and bacteriophage at low temperatures

The survival of Escherichia coli B/r WP2 (tryptophan-requiring) from ultraviolet irradiation when suspended in 0.067M phosphate buffer (pH 7) has been studied over the temperature range 22 degrees to -269 degrees C. In unfrozen suspensions there was no appreciable change in sensitivity between 22 degrees and -10 degrees C. The sensitivity in the presence of ice progressively increased by a factor of 7 when the temperature was lowered to -79 degrees C. Between -79 degrees and -196 degrees C the sensitivity decreased to less than four times the sensitivity at 22 degrees C and was not appreciably different at -269 degrees C. Evidence from experiments with bacteriophage T1 and E. coli WP2 HCR(-) (a strain unable to excise thymine dimers) indicates that a new, qualitatively different lesion, less amenable to repair, may replace the thymine dimer in E. coli irradiated at -79 degrees C.     

Temperature regulation of bacterial activity during the spring bloom in newfoundland coastal waters

While the spring phytoplankton bloom in Newfoundland coastal waters is in progress during April and May, at water temperatures between -1 degrees and +2 degrees C, bacterial growth and respiratory rates remain low. Microbial community respiration is not measurable at -0.2 degrees C. Particulate materials that would be utilized by microorganisms in 2 to 3 days at 20 degrees to 25 degrees C require 11 days at 4 degrees C and 18 days at -0.2 degrees C. Thus, photosynthesis is active but microbial utilization of the products is suppressed. High secondary production in cold water may result from the low rate of microbial decomposition, enabling herbivores to utilize much of the primary production.     

Bulk isolation in nonaqueous media of nuclei from lyophilized cells

Intact lyophilized nuclei are obtainable from a variety of tissues, either in situ or in culture, by freezing at -156 degrees C, drying at -25 degrees C, and mechanical disassociation in glycerol at 2 degrees C. Centrifugal separation of nuclei is accomplished in an 85 : 15 by volume mixture of glycerol and 3-chloro-1,2 propanediol at 2 degrees C. The method gives homogeneous nuclear preparations in high yield with preservation of labile and water-soluble constituents.     

Survival of mouse embryos frozen to -196 degrees and -269 degrees C

Mouse embryos survived freezing to -196 degrees C. Survival required slow cooling (0.3 degrees to 2 degrees C per minute) and slow warming (4 degrees to 25 degrees C per minute). Depending on the specific rates used, 50 to 70 percent of more than 2500 frozen and thawed early embryos developed into blastocysts in culture after storage at -196 degrees C for up to 8 days. When approximately 1000 of the survivors, including some frozen to -269 degrees C (4 degrees K), were transferred into foster mothers, 65 percent of the recipients became pregnant. More than 40 percent of the embryos in these pregnant mice gave rise to normal, living full-term fetuses or newborn mice.     

Freezing resistance in polar fishes

Arctic and antarctic fishes, living in contact with sea ice at -1.9 degrees C, have plasma equilibrium freezing points near -1.2 degrees C which are dependent on salt concentrations. These supercooled fishes have plasma protein concentrations much higher than other polar animals have, and the proteins impede ice propagation at temperatures down to -2 degrees C. Plasma protein concentration increases as environmental water temperature decreases.     

Freeze avoidance in a mammal: body temperatures below 0 degree C in an Arctic hibernator

Hibernating arctic ground squirrels, Spermophilus parryii, were able to adopt and spontaneously arouse from core body temperatures as low as -2.9 degrees C without freezing. Abdominal body temperatures of ground squirrels hibernating in outdoor burrows were recorded with temperature-sensitive radiotransmitter implants. Body temperatures and soil temperatures at hibernaculum depth reached average minima during February of -1.9 degrees and -6 degrees C, respectively. Laboratory-housed ground squirrels hibernating in ambient temperatures of -4.3 degrees C maintained above 0 degree C thoracic temperatures but decreased colonic temperatures to as low as -1.3 degrees C. Plasma sampled from animals with below 0 degree C body temperatures had normal solute concentrations and showed no evidence of containing antifreeze molecules.     

Forebrain temperature activates behavioral thermoregulatory response in arctic sculpins

Arctic sculpins of the genus Myoxocephalus adapted to water at 5 degrees C escaped from warm water at 20 degrees , 16 degrees , and 12 degrees C when their deep-body temperatures increased from an initial 5 degrees C to about 8 degrees C. Heating parts of the forebrain with water at 25 degrees C circulating through a pair of thermodes astraddle rostral parts of the forebrain shortened the time spent in the warm water and lessened the incease in deep-body temperature before exit from the warm water. Cooling the forebrain to about -1 degrees C caused a large increase in the body temperature and sometimes suppressed the escape from the warm water.     

Weakening of dunite by serpentine dehydration

A shear press has been used to determine the mechanical behavior of serpentinized dunite and forsterite at normal pressures to 50 kilobars, temperatures to 900 degrees C; and strain rates from 10(-1) to 10(-4) per second. The shear strength of dunite, containing less than 5 percent by volume of serpentine, is reduced by at least 30 percent as the temperature is raised from 300 degrees to 520 degrees C. Abundant kink bands develop at normal pressures above 35 kilobars at 27 degrees C and at lower pressures as the temperature is increased.     

Indium Antimonide: the Metallic Form at Atmospheric Pressure

The crystal structure of metallic indium antimonide at atmospheric pressure and -197 degrees C is essentially identical with that of white tin at 26 degrees C.     

Hemoglobin Kinetics of the Galapagos Rift Vent Tube Worm Riftia pachyptila Jones (Pogonophora; Vestimentifera)

Kinetics of the reactions of Riftia pachyptila hemoglobin with oxygen were followed spectrophotometrically by stopped-flow and laser flash photolysis techniques. The rate of oxygen dissociation increases eightfold over the range of 5 degrees to 20 degrees C (k = 2.2 sec(-1)at 10 degrees C). Oxygen recombination after flash photolysis was biphasic. The rates of both slow and fast phases of the reaction were independent of temperature from 0 degrees to 20 degrees C(k'fast = 7 x 10(6); k'slow = 1 x 16(6) liter mole (-1) sec(-1)). As the oxygen affinity is relatively temperature independent, analysis in terms of the two-state model of cooperativity requires that the conformational equilibrium constant L decrease by about 50-fold between 3 degrees and 15 degrees C.     

Heat production and temperature regulation in eastern skunk cabbage

The spadix of Symplocarpus foetidus L. maintains an internal temperature 15 degrees to 35 degrees C above ambient air temperatures of -15 degrees to +15 degrees C. For at least 14 days it consumes oxygen at a rate comparable to that of homeothermic animals of equivalent size. Temperature regulation is accomplished by variations in respiratory rate.     

Liquid water in frozen tissue: study by nuclear magnetic resonance

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to examine the behavior and extent of liquid water in postrigor-frozen tissue of cod at temperatures below 0 degrees C. A liquid-water phase persists in the tissue down to about -70 degrees C; the extent of the phase decreases rapidly between 0 degrees and -10 degrees C and slowly at lower temperatures. That the NMR absorption peak of the liquid water increases in width, with decreasing temperature, suggests loss of mobility or structuring of the phase. A technique for introducing geometrically uniform cores of muscle into the probe of the high-resolution spectrometer permits quantitative determinations of liquid water.     

Supercooling of Water to -92{degrees}C Under Pressure

The temperature at which "clean" supercooled water freezes has been determined as a function of pressure up to 3 kilobars, using a differential thermal analysis technique on subdivided water samples. The supercooling limit of such samples, -38 degrees C at normal pressure, is lowered by initial increase of pressure, reaching a minimum value of -92 degrees C at 2.00 kilobars.     

The silica-alumina system: stable and metastable equilibria at 1.0 atmosphere

Diffusion couples, consisting of sapphire and fused silica, which were annealed in the temperature range from 1678 degrees to 2003 degrees C and analyzed by electron beam microprobe, have provided data on the stable phase equilibrium of the silica-alumina system. Under stable equilibrium conditions, the intermediate compound of this system, mullite (3Al(2)O(3) . 2SiO(2)), melts incongruently at 1828 degrees +/- 10 degrees C and its solid solution field extends from 70.5 to 74.0 percent (by weight) alumina. The stable phase diagram is a composite of the two binary eutectic diagrams: silica-mullite in the absence of alumina and silica-alumina in the absence of mullite. Under metastable conditions, mullite melts congruently at approximately 1890 degrees +/- 10 degrees C and its solid solution field extends to approximately 83.2 percent (by weight) alumina.     

Synthesis of lipid during photosynthesis by phytoplankton of the southern ocean

Assimilation of carbon-14 labeled bicarbonate into photosynthetic products was measured at four stations in the Southern Ocean. Phytoplankton populations incorporated as much as 80 percent of the fixed carbon into lipid under conditions of low temperatures (-0.2 degrees to -1.8 degrees C) and low light intensities. At higher temperatures (+0.3 degrees to +0.8 degrees C) and higher light intensities, incorporation into lipid accounted for less than 20 percent of the fixed carbon, synthesis of polysaccharide and protein being more prominent.     

High-Conductivity Solid Electrolytes: MAg4I5

The solid electrolytes MAg(4)I(5), where M may be potassium, rubidium, or ammonium, have an ionic conductivity of 0.2 (ohm cm)(-1) at 20 degrees C. Although pure CsAg(4)I(5) does not form, partial substitution of cesium into the M position was obtained. The high-conducting phases of KAg(4)I(5) and RbAg(4)I(5) may be quenched to low temperatures, where they transform to resistive phases at -136 degrees and -155 degrees C, respectively.     

Field measurement of slow metamorphic reaction rates at temperatures of 500 degrees to 600 degrees C

High-temperature metamorphic reaction rates were measured using strontium isotopic ratios of garnet and whole rock from a field site near Simplon Pass, Switzerland. For metamorphic conditions of cooling from 612 degrees +/- 17 degrees C to 505 degrees +/- 15 degrees C at pressures up to 9.1 kilobars, the inferred bulk fluid-rock exchange rate is 1.3(-0.4)(+1.1) x 10(-7) grams of solid reacted per gram of solid per year, several orders of magnitude lower than laboratory-based estimates. The inferred reaction rate suggests that mineral chemistry may lag the evolving conditions in Earth's crust during mountain building.     

LACTATE DEHYDROGENASE ISOZYMES: LABILITY AT LOW TEMPERATURE

A change in the lactate dehydrogenase isozyme pattern can arise when human tissue homogenates are kept at -20 degrees C. This change is most pronounced in a homogenate with a pH of about 7.9 in barbital buffer and is not seen when nicotinamide adeninedinucleotide is added to the homogenates before freezing, nor when the homogenates are kept at room temperature, nor when the tissue alone is kept at -20 degrees C.     

Kinetics of the fe2+-mg, order-disorder reaction in anthophyllites: quantitative cooling rates

The kinetics of the Fe(2+)-Mg, order-disorder phenomenon in a highly ordered natural anthophyllite have been determined over the temperature range from 400 degrees to 720 degrees C at a pressure of 2 kilobars. At temperatures of 600 degrees C and above, equilibrium is attained by disordering as well as ordering reactions. The intracrystalline exchange is defined by a standard Gibbs free energy of 4247 +/- 54 calories per formula unit. Rate studies at 550 degrees and 500 degrees C show that equilibrium is attained by ordering but not by disordering within the same time scale and that the exchange reaction is characterized by an activation energy of approximately 55 kilocalories per formula unit. An equilibration temperature for the natural anthophyllite of 270 degrees C is determined from the termination of the ordering process owing to excessively slow reaction kinetics after approximately 10(7) years. From the rate constants of the exchange process, for different crystallization temperatures, the apparent equilibration temperature of 270 degrees C defines a maximum linear cooling rate for the rock of 1 x 10(4) degrees C per year.