this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
79 points (95.4% liked)

Science Memes

11189 readers
3057 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Allero 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

As a microbiologist, I get to work with such freezers from time to time - they, too, get used for long-term storage. Technically, at around +4°C most organisms (but not all) put their activity to a halt, which is why your fridge is set at that, and at around -18°C just about everything stops any processes (thereby, freezer temperature), but the thing is, freezing at -18°C leads to the formation of relatively large ice crystals, which causes many cells to rip and die, which is perfectly fine if you want to preserve food (except cells in food also rip and unfrozen products are not quite like the original), but not optimal if you want to store cells themselves. If you freeze at -80°C and lower, smaller ice particles end up not damaging the organisms so much, and they can later be restored. However, such fridges are expensive and draw, like, A LOT of power, and storing much stuff under such conditions gets costly.

Nowhere near as costly as the offerings are, though.