Professor Tony Ryan
So as the freezing process progresses through the veins, two thirds of the water in the frogs' bodies turn to ice.
[Sequence with rotating footage of frog in suspended animation.]
But there's hardly any damage done to its cells, because they're all locked up.
The ice makes the frog go into suspended animation, just like the frog that came out that was frozen.
And the miraculous thing is that the cells suddenly change the way they work.

You see, cells in bodies like ours, coordinate their actions, working together.
But when the frog freezes, its cells, they stop collaborating.
They don't work together any more, they just keep themselves alive.

[Film footage of frog emerging from suspended animation.]
But when spring comes, they know exactly how to reconnect. They know how to make a fully functional frog again.

It's as if we disconnected every telephone in the country and then we rewired the exchange and everyone's phone worked first time.
That would be amazing, wouldn't it!
And this gives hope to the followers of cryonics.

You see we could replicate this freezing process in human bodies, freezing them, let's say, in liquid nitrogen, then bringing them back to life again, we could fulfil that dream.
You could freeze your granny before you lost her to some currently incurable disease and then defrost her when a cure is discovered, so that you can make her better again.
Well let's say that we could preserve a human heart.
You see, outside the body, the shelf life of a human heart is only four hours.

Transplants have all sorts of problems. You see we can't preserve organs.
We can do cells, we can do thin sections.
But if you're going to preserve an organ you have to freeze it all very quickly before it starts to die.

You see, the technology to freeze thin sections of cells has been around for many, many years and we've been freezing blood vessels, skin, intestines, blood, but organs are very different.
You see, this heart, don't worry, it's not a human heart.

This is a pig's heart and it's rather complex.
It's a layer of many, many kinds of tissues.
[Close-up shot of the heart being dipped into liquid nitrogen container.]
So if I try and freeze it quickly by dunking it into liquid nitrogen, it really does freeze quickly. This stuff's at minus a hundred and ninety six degrees centigrade.
So you can see it's frozen, right.

[Tony chops heart open with meat cleaver.]
But when I lift it out, I can - chop it open and it's still rather rare inside. [Laughter.]

You see, we've not sucked the heat out fast enough.
Whilst the cells on the outside had frozen, the cells on the inside could be dying.
[Close-up shot of Tony pulling out heart from liquid nitrogen container.]
But what about when the, even if we could freeze the whole heart, this is a whole heart now.
Look what's happened already.
It's already split.

[Shot of heart shattering.]
I only have to give this the gentlest of taps and it absolutely shatters - and even if we didn't have this problem, when we defrost one, look how it's turned a rather unpleasant shade of grey.
[Shot of defrosted heart in dish.]
Right, it's gone all mushy on the outside, just like the lettuce went mushy on the inside.

So, we need to find a way of regulating these ice forms and you can appreciate why I want to wash my hands, can't you.

You see if we could control that freezing process, preserving cells, we could start to save lives.
Now, if you could freeze a heart and then transplant it, there wouldn't be that little four hour gap.
We could help lots and lots more people and maybe we could use the anti-freeze proteins that are in frogs, to help us.
We would be able to coordinate the freezing process and get them to defrost altogether, but I really think that we might be studying the wood frog for quite some time.

It may be a while before we can freeze organs, but the scientists are looking to use these antifreeze proteins in a totally different and more accessible way.
We could make the ultimate ice cream free from large gritty crystals, right?

And save all that money in transport costs, by transporting things at room temperature rather than being refrigerated.

Now all these things are a while away, but one thing we can do here and now, is we can make ice cream in seconds.
So I'm going to make an attempt at the world ice cream making record, to make the fastest ice cream in the world.

[Demonstration/ice cream making sequence.]
And Sarah Buckley, who's an ice cream scientist is going to help me out.
Professor Mike Hanslow, who you saw operating the microscope earlier, is going to be an independent timer - and just to ensure we have made ice cream, we even have a fully qualified chef, OK.

So, the rules are quite precise.
All the ingredients have to be at room temperature, with the exception of the liquid nitrogen, because that has to be at minus a hundred and ninety six.

So, you need to count me in. Five [four, three, two, one - go!]

[Clock on right-hand side of screen records ice cream making process.]

Oh, ice cream [yeah] done.

[Applause.]

The last record I held was for the hundred metres at high school.
The previous record was fifty-four [fifty-four point five seconds].
Right, and we did it in thirty-six point o five!

[Applause.]

So now, all I have to do - do you want to get some out for me, Sarah?
Is I want the front row to come down, one by one.
First up is Maria Ryan, my daughter, have a go, Maria, how's that?
[Maria tries ice cream.]
Is it cold?
Is it nice? No? [Laughter.]

I'm going to have to have a word with her grand-dad, he told her to say that!
Come on, the rest of you come down.
Come on Daniel, down you come, Rachel, Emily.
Come back Maria, come on, have a taste, it's all there, let's have a go, come on, come on here.

You see, what I wanted you to see from this series of lectures is that everything around us isn't as simple as it first seems.

So next time you're in the supermarket, don't just look at the brands.
Marvel the molecules inside.
And when you're in the garden, remember that the spider knows more about designing materials than we ever will.

And on the motorway, think about the tyres in contact with the road, the tyres that'll keep you safe.

Just take a moment to review the world around us, explore the materials and how they got there.

You see, you are surrounded by smart stuff.

[Applause/music/credits roll.]