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ESA To Study Human Hibernation
colonist writes "The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to study human hibernation for long-duration space voyages (a la 'Alien', '2001'). Although 'practical hibernation mechanisms are at least a decade away', ESA researchers will make initial inquiries into DADLE (D-Ala,D-Leu-enkephalin), an opium-like drug that triggers hibernation in ground squirrels and human cells. Other subjects of interest include dobutamine, a drug that maintains muscle, and the Madagascan fat-tailed dwarf lemur, the only primate known to hibernate."
SIGN. ME. UP.
Hell ya, I'd go hibernate, and very likely get paid for it. Can you say, "Test subject"?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
This type of research is the future of human space exploration, at least for the forseeable future. Sorry, but light speed, or anything near light speed, just isn't going to happen anytime soon.
The only downside to this is that the space traveler may seem like the trip only lasted a short time period, when it in fact took 10 years. By the time he gets back home his family will have aged 20 years. It actually may be the closest we get to time travel as well (want to see the future? just hybernate for 100 years).
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I wonder if tumors stop growing during hibernation. If they do, then everybody with (expected-) fatal cancer can just hibernate until there's a cure.
Likewise aging...
Interesting but I think they're going to need to work out how to prevent bone loss if you're going to hibernate for a significant portion of the time in space. Anyway I hope there going for a basic science approach to the subject because if dobutamine maintains muscle mass during hibernation then it might also help with coma/bed-ridden patients.
Having someone sleep indefinately is only a matter of controlled sedatives. I imagine their biggest problem is going to be organ atrophy.
If they solve that, then they'll have an extremely valuable spinoff technology that will help everyone from the temporarily wheelchair-bound to the hospitalized.
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I wondered the same thing - and going ahead with this, would it be easier to operate on somebody in hibernation?
Would hibernation be part of a safer anesthetic protocol for surgury? Put the patient into hibernation with local pain killers rather than forcing them into unconsciousness?
This could be a very useful spin-off of this technology and maybe be more important to humanity than facilitating very long duration space-flight.
myke
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"A lot of old age problems are basicly a result of your DNA being to old/damaged to be properly copied anymore."
Actually, most of what I've read of aging research in the last few years says that's not true, except to the extent that DNA is stripped off the end of the chain every time it's duplicated (as part of an anti-cancer mechanism to kill cells that begin to duplicate endlessly). 'Old age' seems to be more of a triggered event than an accumulation of genetic damage.
Which makes sense when you consider that most people's mothers are 40 or less when they have kids, so there's little evolutionary pressure to eliminate genes which kill you when you're past 40 (particularly if those same genes have survival benefits when younger).
Gosh. You mean there's nothing to do along the way? No science to be done? Since when did the destination become the entire journey. I think solving the problem of getting more food into the ship would be easier to solve than getting an astronaut to sleep for 6 months or more.
Besides, if I'm an astronaut and you're sending me on one of the most incredible journeys of my life (perhaps taking up most of my life). And you want me to sleep though it? F**k that!
Read any good sonnets lately?
Some humans gain weight and lower activity when the days get shorter. Is it possible that we have a vestigial hibernation response already?
1. Radiation shielding on long term voyages seems to be a real bear of a problem for manned spaceflight to the planets. It might be feasable to put a bunch of shielding around a small compartment with a hybernaut where it wouldn't be feasable to shield all the working and sleeping areas for an awake astronaut.
2. By extension, a 2001-like approach becomes workable - Put part of the crew into hybernation, rotate them in and out as needed. In 2001, this was supposed to be because the planetside geologists and such had little to do until Discovery was close to Jupiter, and then the security/paranoia factor kicked in. In the real case, a ship might rotate crew to even out radiation exposure, or put a crewman who was loosing bone mass faster than others into hybernation to protect his health.
Who is John Cabal?
By the time this is working, all the children (potential astronauts) will be immunized against opiates, and unable to hibernate.
Looks good for your age..
You're implying that it's a biological imperative that men go to sleep. In general, all mammals are more or less polygamous -including humans. I would assert that the animal/biological instinct would rather be to have sex with as many women as possible in order to preserve the species.
If you want to argue a psychological imperative, however, you may be on more solid ground. In Freudian terms we can think of the polygamous desire as being something that needs to be repressed and the repression manifests itself in going to sleep right after sex in order to avoid impregnating anyone else. An interesting parallel subtopic would be whether it's more likely for a man to go to sleep if birth control has been used or not.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
IT seems easier to emulate A.I. in a radiation hardened computer controlled probe,
than to modify humans for long term space flight.
Though if they combine the new hibernation drugs / gene boosters with the IGF-1 Boosted muscular genes it might work.
( European Molecular Biology Laboratory )
The extra copy of an IGF-1 gene in mice makes them little body builder mice. The enhanced mice don't grow any weaker as they grow older.
So, indeed, future space explorers will be genetically engineered superhumans! KAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!
Setting huge plans in motion while sleeping away, they end up with an entire section of the populace that tries to "live" as long as they possibly can. It is really an interesting take on how things like this could kind of get out of hand.
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Good point; perhaps another view might be that it's a sedative to prevent any 'mishaps'.
Both would of course require nature to be deterministic so they're utterly wrong. As always, nuances are very important when speaking of evolution so to reiterate for the doubters:
The correct explanation is that men who were sedate -and possibly in this way also more likely to stick around- were better capable of passing on their genes (and ensuring the passees stay alive and reproduce) which in turn in their children manifested in similar behaviour which in the course of millennia has become the prevalent trait.
Marxist evolution is just N generations away!
That's cool that bears can maintain a moderate body temp for months without eating. Having a huge layer of fat is usefull. That could be a new diet. You take two weeks off of work, go into hibernation in some lab, and have your body consume your fat gut while you sleep.
-B
Yes, you can. Just take it inside and warm it up a bit. You can also get reaction out of a hibernating rabit if you poke at it for a while. Its sluggish, and takes a good while to react, but they will react. Bears don't react rapidly, either. You can drag one out of its den by the legs, take blood samples, and weigh its cubs before they're awake enough to maul you.