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regular_modern_girl t1_is2rpvn wrote

The only vertebrates I know of that can survive freezing completely solid are ectotherms, and I’ve also never heard of any bird or mammal species being able to withstand it, so it might just be that organisms that have evolved to operate with a constant core temperature aren’t able to survive the extreme cold leading up to freezing, even besides the problem of ice crystals damaging cells? But I don’t know, that’s mostly just a guess and it may just be coincidental that no endotherms have evolved this ability.

Interestingly, there has been some evidence to suggest that critically-injured trauma patients can sometimes be kept just barely alive long enough to be saved by being cooled down to very low temperatures in a controlled setting, as I guess this basically slows down a lot of physiological processes in such a way that essentially buys doctors time to do what they need to. The procedure is called EPR, or Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation, and is still experimental, and it’s obviously still a far cry from complete freezing, but it is something.

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