Interesting Washington Post article about how the wood frog managed to survive being frozen solid. It even has a time lapse video showing a frozen frog as it thaws and becomes animated. Scientists hope to learn how to preserve organs separated for donation. Don't hold your breath waiting for them to be able to freeze and reanimate humans any time soon. Still, it's an recurring theme in science fiction. Who knows, it might happen someday.

This is the way a wood frog freezes:

First, as the temperature drops below 32 degrees, ice crystals start to form just beneath the frog's skin. The normally pliant and slimy amphibian becomes -- for lack of a better word -- slushy.

Then, if the mercury continues to fall, ice races inward through the frog's arteries and veins. Its heart and brain stop working, and its eyes freeze to a ghostly white.

"Imagine an ice cube. Paint it green," and you've got the wood frog in winter, said Ken Storey, a professor at Carleton University in Ontario. The frog is solid to the touch and makes a mini-thud when dropped.

But it is not dead. When a thaw comes, the frog is able to melt back into its normal state over a period of several hours, restart its heart and hop away, unscathed.

This amazing process of reanimation -- repeated every winter in the woods of Maryland, Virginia and the District -- is being examined by scientists hoping to learn the secrets of the frog and other animals that freeze solid.

The hope is that these apparent Lazarus routines can yield clues for improving human medicine, including better preservation of organs on their way to transplant patients.