B.C. by Mastroianni and Hart for November 23, 2016

Some ones sleeping on the couch tonight. Or maybe the park bench.

Somebody’s cruising for a bruising, as my mother used to say!

Most insects just go dormant when they freeze, and return to functioning when they awake. This is due to their lack of an internal cellular structure. It is the bursting of the cells during freezing, when ice crystals break cell walls, that causes death from freezing. I have seen ants in February because they have frozen while in the siding on their way into the house, and then been warmed by the Sun and revived and continued their journey by whatever odd trail they follow which takes them from outside to inside though seemingly solid and well-sealed walls.

On an entirely unrelated note, a fly can survive in a microwave until it runs out of water to cool it, again because their exoskeleton is permeable and they lack internal cellular structures.

Rats! ’Most insects just go dormant…" is interesting, but not the answer I was hoping for.

I think that Dad’s survival just got a bit iffier.

The winter of her dis-content.

Dad isn’t going to survive because of his big mouth!

Where’s my magnifying glass?

Awkward.

Embryos survive because they are quickly flash-frozen with super-cool temps, so that jagged and tissue-rupturing ice crystals cannot form. The same method is used to freeze ice cream and keep it soft, and explains why you cannot re-freeze melted ice cream in your not-cold-enough home freezer without producing ice.

Good one.