Cryobiology is a part of biology that studies life at low temperatures, temperatures that are too low to sustain it. This may sound a little strange, but in fact it's not, because life is too complex to be easily defined, so all its aspects must be studied, even when it ends, or 'expires'. You may say that at low temperatures the border between life and death can be reached, because water starts to freeze and turn to ice. Without water, life can't be sustained anymore, it begins to fade, to freeze, and time seems to stop. Cryobiology studies these phenomenons that occur when life freezes, and it has a lot of practical uses for us.
Technically, you could say that cryobiology represents the study of life at all temperatures that don't support it. It may be said that the science of cryobiology started in 1949 when sperm was cryopreserved for the first time. Nowadays cryopreservation has a lot of general uses, from which the most important is that due to it organs (hearts or kidneys for example) can be preserved and transported at low temperatures, and than transplanted to people in need. Many lives were saved this way. Cryobiology is also used at in-vitro fertilisations, eggs can be fertilized by sperm that was previously frozen, or the other way around.
Another really useful thing that is based on the science of cryobiology is cryosurgery. It's not too common but it has some advantages, like helping increase the duration of the operations, or maybe curing cancer in the future.
But cryobiology is quite a new science, so more results of the cryobiolgysts' work will be seen in the future. It is hoped that cryobiology will be used in slowing down the aging process, because the chemical reactions that lead to aging can be substantially slowed down at low temperatures.
Also, as you probably know from science - fiction movies, it is hoped that cryobiology will have an important use in long - distance space travels, because the astronauts could be frozen during the long trip, with their vital signs preserved, so they wouldn't age or consume too many resources.
So we can only hope that cryobiology will evolve and we will have new means of delaying old age or curing difficult diseases.
Cryogenics deals with the study of extremely low temperatures, and how products and materials behave at these temperatures. Cryogenics shouldn't be confused with cryobiology, which studies the behavior of organisms at low temperatures, or cryonics, which deals with the freezing of clinically dead patients until cures for their diseases are found.
The temperatures under which the studies begin are mostly those below -150° C, a temperatures which draws the line between the boiling points of gases and common refrigerants. The most common liquefied gases used in cryogenics are liquid helium and nitrogen, which have boiling points situated much under -150° C, and which are kept in special containers.
It may be said that the study cryogenics began a little before 1945, when Michael Faraday managed to reach the temperature of -110° C, by using a mixture of solid carbon dioxide mixed with ether. In 1894, the first liquid-air plant was founded, and then cryogenics quickly developed. Soon, the most difficult to liquify gases, hydrogen and helium, were liquefied.
The applications of cryogenics soon appeared. During the 2nd World War it was discovered that previously frozen metals had a higher resistance, and so the cryogenic hardening appeared, which can help increase the life of tools with up to 400% of their original lives. These technologies are still in research.
Another interesting fact is that the electric resistance of the metal conductors rapidly decreases at low temperatures, giving them the ability to 'hold' the electric current for several hours, becoming superconductors. These applications of cryogenics are studied under the name of cryoelectronics.
NASA is also using cryogenics to build cryogenic fuels - rocket fuels, for their shuttles.
However, we still have much to learn and study in this impredictable domain, where materials act in such strange ways when frozen (rubber becomes like glass), and only time will tell what the future will bring.
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