Cool Trick

We squirrels share the woods with many animals and some of them know some real neat party tricks. Remember David Blaine's Frozen in Time act where he encased himself between two blocks of ice with only a 2 inch gap between him and the ice. He stayed entombed in that icy prison for 61 hours and 40 minutes. At the end of the act, he had to be rushed to hospital.

Well, forget David Blaine and say hello to my friend the North American Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica) or as we like to call him, "Lazarus". Lazarus' party trick is literally way cooler than David's act. Lazarus doesn't get entombed in blocks of ice, he becomes a block of ice.

Lazarus and his kin actually gets through the winters of Northern U.S.A. and Canada by freezing solid and then thawing out again in Spring. When he is frozen, more than 60% of his body water will have turned to ice and he will have no heart beat or any respiration. He may be considered clinically dead but give Lazarus some warmth and presto, he thaws from the inside out and starts living again. Back from the dead just like his namesake from the Bible.

Somehow, Lazarus is able to use glucose like an anti-freeze and protect his cells. Somehow the brain survives without oxygen using an anaerobic metabolic pathway. While science may at least understand a little bit about the process when Lazarus freezes, it remains baffled at how Lazarus revives. There is no known explanation for thawing from the inside out and science has yet to figure out how the heart restarts after months of being frozen.

The early European Explorers in Canada described this frog's amazing ability as early as the 1700's and today, Science and Medicine is very interested in Lazarus' natural ability because it may point the way for extending the lifespan of organs harvested for transplant operations and perhaps one day lead to the perfection of human cryogenics. I think with Climate Change occurring, it is also a neat trick to learn in case we face the onset of a new Ice Age.