cryo-, cry-, kryo-, kry-

The us of coldness toimmobilize the heart: Cryocardioplegia is the cessation of the contractions of the myocardium, the muscular substance of the heart, produced by cooling the heart during cardiac surgery.

In other words, cryocardioplegia produces paralysis of the heart as a result of hypothermia or cold.

Someone who applies the instrument that causes the destruction of tissue by freezing it (similar to "burning" it): Dr. Smith, the dermatologist, wa also a cryocauterist who was authorised to treat patients who wanted to get rid of their warts..

An application of a substance, such as liquid air or carbon dioxide snow, by the used of a low temperature instrument which causes destruction of tissue by freezing: By using extreme cold, cryocautery can cause the destruction of tissue as if by "burning" it.

A freeze-drying procedure: Cryochem involves conduction heat transfer to the frozen solid secured on a metallic surface.

A region of the Earth’s surface perpetually covered by snow: Cryochores are found in the polar areas of the Earth that are not only covered by snow, but also by ice.

The process or a phase change from a gas to a liquid: Cryocondensatio can take place when a gas contacts a surface having a temperature lower than the dew point of the gas and turns to a fluid or liquid.

1. A dark, finely textured dust powder carried by wind and deposited on a snow or ice surface: Depressions containing cryoconite absorb solar radiation, thus causing the melting of the neighboring glacier ice.
2. Organisms and wind-blown detritus that induce surface melt pits in glaciers: Cryoconite is a gray powder which settles on the surfaces of the inland ice in different places in Greenland.

Damage to tissues, sperm, ova, or other substances during freezing: Cryodamage causes harm to or destruction of the maintaining of viability of excised tissue, organs, embryos, sperm, ova, or other substances, such as for transplantation, by storing them at very low temperatures, usually with immersion in liquid nitrogen at -196.5°C.

An electron microscopic technique that involves freezing the biological sample in order to view the sample with the least possible distortion and the fewest possible artifacts. Abbreviated as cryo-EM.

In cryoelectron microscopy, the freezing of the sample is done in ethane slush to produce vitreous, or non-crystalline, ice. The frozen sample grid is then kept at liquid nitrogen temperature in the electron microscope and digital micrographs are collected with a camera.

The advantages of cryo-EM over traditional EM techniques include the preservation of the sample in a near-native hydrated state without the distortions from stains or fixatives needed for traditional EM. With image processing and averaging of multiple images, cyroelectron microscopy provides high resolution information (below 10 angstroms).

An angstrom is a metric unit of length equal to one ten billionth of a meter (or 0.0001 micron); used to specify wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.

A field of engineering that studies the design and functioning of electronics systems, circuits, and devices at temperatures approaching absolute zero (0 Kelvin or -270 degrees Celsius): Cryoelectronics is especially, applied to the phenomenon of superconductivity.

Removal of cataracts by the adhesion of a freezing probe to the lens; now rarely done: Cryoextraction is accomplished with an instrument (cryoprobe) whose extremely cold tip forms an adhesion (iceball) with the lens, thus permitting removal of the lens.

An surgical instrument (cryoprobe), artificially cooled, for extraction of the lens by freezing contact: Dr. Smith explained to his students that a cryoextractor used to be used in his clinic for removing the lens of a person's eye by the means of extreme coldness.

An abnormal type of fibrinogen (protein present in blood plasma which converts to fibrin when blood clots) very rarely found in human plasma: Cryofibrinogen is precipitated upon cooling, but redissolves when warmed to room temperature.

The securing in a position involving a process for microscopy that is carried out at low temperatures during surgery to improve the quality of holding body parts together: Cryofixation is often done at very low temperatures and fast coolings are used to prevent formation of ice crystals.

Cooling rates of 10,000 degrees per minute may be used in cryofixations and liquid nitrogen or even liquid helium temperatures are utilized and it is not necessary to include any chemical treatments.

A freezing substance used to produce very low temperatures: Cryogen is a freezing mixture that is a fluid which is used in refrigerators.