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  • Imagine setting your alarm one night and waking up  light years away on another planet. It sounds like  

  • science fiction, but scientists are hard at work  trying to unlock the secrets of human hibernation.  

  • And if they succeed, it could be  a game changer for everything from  

  • curing diseases to deep space travel. Hibernation is just scientifically weird.  

  • It’s more than bears crawling  in a cave and hitting snooze

  • When animals go into hibernation, they  exhibit symptoms similar to those of  

  • diabetes and Alzheimer's. Bears, for examplebecome resistant to insulin, and their brains  

  • tiptoe the line of neurodegeneration. But when  they wake up, theyrecured.” If scientists can  

  • figure out what's so special about hibernatorsthey may be able to use this knowledge  

  • to treat diseases that afflict us humans. So, what would it take for humans to actually  

  • hibernate? To answer this, we first need to know  why some animals hibernate in the first place.  

  • For warm-blooded animals, it can take a lot of  energy to maintain a constant body temperature.  

  • That can be a really big challenge when  their source of energy, food, is scarce.  

  • Hibernation is a survival mechanism that conserves  energy by lowering the body’s core temperature,  

  • slowing the heart rate, and shifting into  a lower metabolic state, known as torpor

  • For example, when arctic ground  squirrels enter hibernation  

  • their temperature plummets from 37°C to -3°C  and their metabolic rate drops by about 99%. 

  • Humans, by comparison, are stuck with a relatively  fixed body temperature of 37°C. Aside from minute  

  • variations, like when we sleep, our temperature  only changes as a way to signal danger. Like  

  • when were sick, we get a fever. Justfew degrees off either way can mean death

  • But this isn’t a hard and fast rule. In 1999, a  woman fell while skiing, crashing head first into  

  • a frozen stream. When medics arrived 80 minutes  later, her body temperature had dropped to 13.7°C,  

  • rendering her clinically dead. But she  miraculously survived! The extreme cold lowered  

  • her metabolism so her brain wasn’t oxygen-starved. Lack of oxygen can lead to permanent brain damage  

  • in a matter of minutesusually not enough  time to make it to the operating table.  

  • An ongoing trial led by researchers at  the University of Maryland is testing this  

  • idea of suspended animationotherwise called  emergency preservation and resuscitation, or EPR.  

  • The idea is that it can help patients whose  hearts have stopped due to excessive blood loss

  • By replacing their blood with ice-cold  saline, it lowers their body temperature  

  • to 10°C.

  • This decreases the body’s need for oxygenbuying the operating team more time

  • After surgery is complete, the body is warmed up  and the heart is restarted. The trial is expected  

  • to wrap in December of 2022, and theyve already  used the technique on a handful of patients

  • And NASA is working to take suspended animation  to the next level. In 2014, the agency  

  • funded research on extended human hibernation  and found that it would cut down on the amount  

  • of food, water, and supplies needed, making deep  space travel more practical. Because in theory,  

  • if we lowered your temperature enough, eventually  your metabolism would come to a standstill

  • According to Spaceworks, the company contracted  by NASA to do the study, astronauts could safely  

  • be kept in a hibernation-like state for 14 days  with current medical capabilities. A four-person  

  • crew could work in shifts with three in  cryogenic pods, while one runs the ship

  • Expanded human trials are  expected in 2024.

  • So, we may not be able to slow a person’s  metabolism for so long that they can actually  

  • hibernateyet. But given time, we all  might be hibernating sometime soon

  • Another thing scientists are looking at for  deep space travel is artificial gravity.  

  • If you want to learn more, watch Julian’s  video here. If you had the option to hibernate,  

  • would you? Let us know down in the commentsMake sure to subscribe and thanks for watching.

Imagine setting your alarm one night and waking up  light years away on another planet. It sounds like  

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What Would It Actually Take For Humans to Hibernate?

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    Summer 發佈於 2021 年 12 月 03 日
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