Now I have a confession to make. I’m a bit of a sun worshipper. Okay, you got me there. I lied.

I’m a
big sun worshipper. I just love it. Everything just feels better when the sun’s out. People smile more.
And in the summer it feels like you’re in one big holiday. Even when you’re at the office or your
home. But when winter approaches and the days begin to get darker and the temperature starts to
drop, I’ve got to admit I’m not at my best. Whilst this is no doubt since of snow covering field and
mountains are all very beautiful. I used to hate those early winter mornings when I had to scrape the
frost of the wind screen of my mom’s car. I’d much prefer to stay within my comfort zone. A
pleasant 24 degree Celsius with the cocktail in hand of course. And this is probably all the more
reason why I have the utmost admiration for the plants and animals out there that are able to live at
the temperatures that would freeze human blood.

Hi, I’m Patrick Aryee, and welcome once more to 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter, an original
podcast from The BBC World Service. It’s the series all about animals and also about us, humans all
around the globe. It’s about what we’ve learned from those animals and what they have taught us.
How they had made us smarter. I’d also love to hear from you too. Let me know what you think
about the series so far. Rate and review us and help others to find the podcast. And be sure to tag
your social posts with the hashtag 30 Animals.

In this, number 10. Cod and Antifreeze. We’ll be hearing how animals like cod and snow fleas which
are able to survive teeth chattering sub zero temperatures without freezing our inspiring new
technologies that could make enjoying ice cream even better and extend the time that we can
preserve transplant organs so that we can fly them even further and that could make all the
difference when it comes to saving someone’s life.

So, what’s the big deal when it comes to plants and animals getting super cold. All the problem isn’t
necessary the cold itself. But what happens to the water inside their bodies as a result of the cold. As
a temperature falls below freezing, small ice crystals begin to form inside the cells of plants and
animals. As these ice crystals grow, they draw water out of the surrounding cells which destroys
their structure and kills the cells. If you’ve ever left a bottle of juice in the freezer for too long, you
know all too well what happens when the water expands as it freezes. You open the freezer door
looking for a really cold drink, but what you’ll face with is the remains of a bottle and a horrible cold
sticky mess to clean up. This is also the same reason why food like berries turn to mush after being
left to for out. It’s because their cells are burst when they are frozen. However, many organisms
have now been found to contain in a group of unique molecules that scientists called antifreeze
proteins or AFP for short which have the ability to stop this damage. This AFPs are capable of
lowering the freezing point of resolution which keeps to ice crystals very small or prevents their
formation all together. Fish that live in the North or South poles are fantastic examples of this. They
live in the temperatures of around minus two degree Celsius all of their lives. And it’s their AFP in
their blood that means the water in their bodies has a lower freezing point than surrounding sea
water which enables them to survive icy temperatures that would kill most fish.

So let’s just step back a moment and think about what normally happens when water freezes. When
water gets colder, it becomes denser until it reaches above 4 degree Celsius. When water eventually
turns into ice, it gets lighter and less dense. This is why ice floats on top of water. It also, as we
mentioned before, expands and it’s this expansion which can cause materials to crack in a rupture. If
you’ve ever suffered from a burst pipe in the winter, you’ll know all about this. It can be damaging to
plant and animal cells too. The expansion of the water as it freezes can cause them to burst. But
species that have anti freeze proteins can avoid this through mechanism called adsorption-
inhibition.
Now what we think happens in very simple terms is that when this anti freeze molecules bind to an
ice crystal, they divide the growth phases of the ice crystals into region with curve phases. The water
molecules can’t easily bond to others and so they remain as a liquid rather than being converted into
solid ice. So the only way to get the water molecules to stay in this curve region is to lower the
temperature which is the same as lowering the freezing point.

It’s just not polar fish that possess the sub zero superpower. A whole host of plants and animals have
also developed strategies to survive freezing conditions. But lets stick with our fishy friend for now.
Take the Atlantic and Arctic cod species as well as the Antarctic, Notothenoid. Sorry, a bit awful
there. They live in seas that are really cold and really salty. And it’s this combination of cold and salt
that makes these seas quite a difficult place to live to say the least. But there’s something even
weirder here. We have freezing cold sea water that isn’t frozen. You see one salt is the salt in water
its lowest its freezing point. For sea water, it’s freezing point drops to -1.9 degree Celsius. So you’d
think that this very cold sea water which is a liquid should instantly freeze the less salty water inside
the fish’s body, but it doesn’t. So how do the fish get around this? Well, it was a physiologist called
Arthur DeVries who revealed that it was the action of sugary proteins called glycoproteins attaching
themselves to ice crystals in the blood of Antarctic fish that was preventing the crystals from
growing. This combine with the naturally occurring body salt maintain Notothenoid fish he was
studying were able to maintain a blood temperature of minus 2.5 degree Celsius without freezing.

Since the discovery of AFP in the 1960s, there has been a lot of interests in their economic potential.
One fascinating discovery is at the same antifreeze proteins that keep organisms from freezing in
cold environments can, on the flip side, prevent ice from melting at warmer temperatures. A
consumer goods companies called Unilever caught onto discovery and now uses ice structuring
protein or ISPs in some of their ice cream products. These ISPs work in a similar way to the AFPs
found in our Antarctic fish, but rather than using fish stocks, they can be produced using genetically
modified baker’s yeast. The yeast contains a gene from a fish called ocean pout which is found in the
Northwest Atlantic ocean and has antifreeze proteins in its blood. The result is an ice cream which
maintains its shape for longer and melts much slower than normal as temperatures increase. If this
seems like a rather misuse. It’s worth noting by 2024, the global ice cream market is projected to be
worth than estimated. Drum roll, please. $74 billion. But it’s not just ice cream that anti freeze
protein can be use for. For many airlines keeping their aircrafts frost-free in cold condition is a major
challenge. Any delay due to ice on either passenger or freight planes incurs a cost as well as the risk
of potential damage to the planes. The longer the delay, the more expensive it becomes.

In Germany, the Fraunhofer institute from manufacturing technology and advanced materials is
currently working on a variety of strategies for minimizing ice formation including an anti icing
coating based on anti freeze proteins. These proteins would protect the surface of the plane from
icing over and keep the planes moving which is got to be good news for passengers and the airlines.
And then, there are power lines, not only can the weight of ice bring the cables down, but it can also
act as an insulator. The ice causes the wires to heat up which means energy transmission become
less efficient. Treating electric power lines and pylons with air pit coating could potentially save
utility companies millions of dollars in maintenance and repair costs alone as well as improving
energy efficiency.

But perhaps the most exciting technology that’s being developed is within the health sector, where
AFPs could have critical role in preserving organ and tissues destined for transplant. With more than
six thousand people waiting for a transplant in the UK alone. The possibility of transporting organ
further revealed or even storing organs for longer period of time would be hugely beneficial. And
one of the reasons why this might be possible is because scientists are now able to produce
synthetic AFPs. And it all thanks to snow fleas. You see, as I mentioned it’s not just some fish which
have AFPs, so do snow fleas. Snow fleas aren’t fleas at all, but in fact belong to a primitive group of
organism called spring tails. Closely related to insects, they are wingless, have six legs, and move
about by walking or jumping. Instead of using their legs to jump, they catapult themselves into the
air by releasing a spring like mechanism called a furcula, a sort of flat that folds under the abdomen
until it’s needed. When the furcula is released, the snow flea’s launched several centimeters into the
air which is mighty impressive especially when you consider that snow flea is less than two
milimeters in length. That’s equivalent of a human jumping over the leaning tower of pizza. Not bad,
right? Snow fleas live among the soil and leaf litter and feet on the decaying vegetation and other
organic matter as their name suggest they can survive in sub zero temperatures. Professor Lori
Graham from Queen University in Canada first noticed them whilst cross-country skiing and
collected several to take back to her lab. It turns out that snow flea is protected from freezing by
antifreeze proteins that are reached in amino acid, a building block of protein called glycine. Just like
the cod we heard about earlier this binds to ice crystals and prevents them from growing larger, so
the snow fleas cells don’t freeze. By isolating the protein, the scientists were able to study its
structure more closely and developed artificially synthesize AFPs. So, how could this synthetic snow
flea antifreeze proteins be helpful in organ transplant? Well, one of the challenges with organ
transplant is that you want to keep the organ really cold, but not frozen. AFPs would allow the
organs to restore at lower temperatures without freezing them. And this extends the organ self life
between removal and transplant. In a race against time, this could make all the difference when it
comes to saving a person’s life. And that is just the first benefit because then this AFPs which loses
their structure at higher temperatures would degrade naturally when they reach body temperature
and quickly be cleared from the patient’s system reducing the possibility of any side effects. They
might think our story ends there, but I’d like to lead you with the final thought. The research into
antifreeze proteins is in its infancy. They would appear to be a wide range of potential application.
You can only really advance and develop synthetic or chemically produced AFPs, if we have
organisms living and thriving in what are often to us, remote, hostile, and very cold areas.

What we don’t know is how climate change might affect many of these species that benefit from
AFPs and how environmental change may affect our development of this important technology. It’s
occasionally warning that whilst we may want to explore the biodiversity of our planet, we also need
to protect these natural resources.

In number eleven, Spider and Mars Robot of 30 Animals That Made Us Smarter, an original podcast
from the BBC World Service. We’ll be heading to warmer climes to hear how a cart wheeling desert
spider could lead the way when it comes to the next generation of robot on mars. Thanks for
listening and don’t forget you can find all the sources of information for this episode on our website
bbcworldservice.com/30Animals and spread the word. Its hashtag #30animals.