Theory 01/Cryobiology
Vitrification Needs a Sugar Ratio
The claim
Tardigrade survival of desiccation is set by the ratio of trehalose concentration to cooling rate, so slow drying protects an animal that fast drying kills at the same sugar level.
01Mechanism
Protection requires the cytoplasm to vitrify rather than crystallise; vitrification needs the sugar to concentrate faster than ice nuclei can grow.
02Predictions
- P1Survival should track the ratio across drying rates.
- P2Sugar concentration alone should mispredict.
03Refutation
Survival tracking water content would remove the vitrification criterion.
04Why it resists the grid
It is simultaneously a molecular, cellular and organismal claim, and the protective state exists only while the animal is neither alive in the ordinary sense nor dead.