I enjoyed following this thread. Because English is not my first language, I was hoping to learn the official definitions of these terms.
In my opinion, all the variations proposed so far are fine - I don't see problems with using them.
For me, when I see "flash frozen in liquid nitrogen" or "flash frozen in nitrogen stream" I get unambiguous mental images of how the crystals were prepared. When I hear a policeman yelling "freeze" while pointing a gun (no personal experience here), there is no ambiguity that I should stop moving (and won't get confused with cooling myself such that the water in my body would form hexagonal ice). When I hear that a person is frozen by Parkinson's disease, there is no ambiguity that his/her muscle had become rigid.
I think that I will continue to use "flash frozen in liquid nitrogen" or "flash frozen in nitrogen stream" and I hope that I would not need to explain to reviewers what that means.
Quyen
On Nov 16, 2012, at 10:48 AM, Ganesh Natrajan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Maybe we could just state the obvious, ie, that the crystals were 'Cryo-preserved' in liquid N2.
>
>
> Cheers
>
> Ganesh
>
> Le 16/11/12 16:27, Enrico Stura a écrit :
>> As a referee I also dislike the word "freezing" but only if improperly used:
>> "The crystals were frozen in LN2" is not acceptable because it is the outside
>> liquor that is rapidly cooled to cryogenic temperatures.
>>
>> But the use of "freezing" used as the opposite of "melting" is fine and does not
>> imply a crystalline state. Ice is not always crystalline either:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphous_ice
>>
>>
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