Slashdot Mirror
Human Hibernation on the Horizon?
Mincemeat.net writes "The BBC is reporting that scientists at University of Washington have successfully induced a state of extreme hibernation in mice. The mice suffered no ill effects. Naturally, testing in larger animals will ensue. Humans wouldn't necessarily appreciate the smell of hydrogen sulfide while being placed into suspended animation. However, the applications are numerous if the usage of similar techniques can be applied to us. Cancer treatment, delaying death from injuries, interplanetary expeditions top the lists of possibilities. While it's not a quick freeze, maybe Fry will be able to meet Bender after all."
Funny, Hydrogen Sulfide is a common enough contaminant in ground (well) water systems as well as a byproduct of oil refineries. It deprives the brain of oxygen and causes what IIRC is called "blowdown" or "knockdown" in oil refineries when people momentarily pass out.
6x9=42
MMMMMmmmmmm..... Human Popsicles! Just makes you want to get into one of those!
Foxed Design
Are you talking about the store that's the Disney World for geeks? If so, then yes hibernation would be a great thing to have when shopping there. When you get in line, you could hibernate then when you're ready to check-out, they could revive you. That would make checking-out there much more pleasant!
...an instant coast-to-coast flight.... "Fifth Element" is coming true. :)
-Palal
Wake me up when we get those flying cars.
Do they want human volunteers? I know that sounds kind of morbid, but to be honest, I'd consider it...
Hibernation has been taking place in people since geeks took to their parents' basements.
Now that they've got that done, they can work on getting people to function on less sleep. I want to be a microsleeper.
I'm up for a little hibernation for space travel, but for medical aid? Aren't we already saving too many people who should be dead and thereby contributing greatly to world problems like overcrowding and world hunger and fun stuff?
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
NAMBLA is starting a mail order business. Just thaw him out and you're ready to go!
Here
I don't want to read
Fry could just go look in New Mexico.
Wait, would they have gone back in time if Fry hadn't been frozen in the first place? What if Fry dug Bender up today and moved to Roswell (avoiding hibernation). [brain explodes].
So I'll be alive when Duke Nukem Forever is finally released. :)
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
why? oh why did it have to be THAT molecule?
Free electronics!
Wake me up when the Olson Twins are legal.
Wait, nevermind...
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
Injectable Hybernation. I'm sure this can't be abused in any way whatsoever.
"Finally, after being in a constant state of hibernation for the last fifty years, I am ready to greet the future!"
"Yeah...about that...we all kinda went in after you...so science and technology is about at the same point you left off."
"So I still have cancer?"
"Technically, yes. But hey, at least that asteroid never hit...right?"
One of the effects of hydrogen sulphide exposure is that is "paralyses" the sense of smell before a fatal dose is reached. This is normally very dangerous as people can think they have left the contaminated area while continuing in fact to breathe in more of the toxic gas.
So chances are you wouldn't have to put up with the smell too long, before you either stop smelling, die horribly or maybe just go into suspended animation.
wont somebody think of the children??
Using these in prisons?
Seems a bit better then the death penalty, would also actually make those 600 year jail sentences mean something =)
One day you go to jail, 5 years later you wake up anew.
Remind anyone of Demolition Man? Good because it should!
I wonder who will be the first to undergo this procedure sometime before they're about to die.
Maybe they'll pay somebody to put them into hibernation when they're 75 years old and tired of life, and have instructions to wake them up when we finally have flying cars.
Yeah, I bet the next thing you're gonna tell me is that the New York Times reports stuff that occured outside of NYC. Pshh, whatever.
Please can you bring me up when the IT offshore shift boom crashed.
It's funny that Futurama has the technological development of two distinct and competing technologies for longevity. Fry gets frozen in the chrogenics centre, wakes up in the future and, a few episodes later, discovers that celebrities live on as brains in jars. If we had the technology to keep a human brain alive and kicking I'd much prefer that to getting my head lopped off and frozen in the hope that a sufficiently advanced technology will one day be able to revive me. Even if it ment I had to spend the rest of my days as a body-less paraplegic in a wheelchair I think I'd rather that than to die from cancer.
Hybernation offers a third technology. Instead of lopping off my head at the first sign of cancer, you could put my body into hybernation and keep my brain active with regular stimulation. Hopefully you could do it by jacking me into a video game. I could handle living in MxO, as long as it was on a non-hostile server. Maybe I could even earn a living as a member of the Live Events team.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I can catch up on all my sleep!
Hey, I was frozen, I know what guy wants to hear first: the bathroom's that way.
</end of obligatory Futurama quote>
And what strikes me right off (because of my field) is, if a 'hibernation' state can be easily and mobily achieved, you could save a LOT of critical cases by slowing them down right at the point of injury or on the ambulance, maybe even before moving them. That would have a definite positive benefit for sure, though thinking about flying through space in slo-mo is a cool vision too, for sure. =)
-chitlenz
Imagination is the silver lining of Intelligence.
Out of it from November 'til May. Just what I've
always wanted.
I'm using some elements of this technology in my next novel (although a lot will get cut in current revisions).
Hibernation is going to come before any kind of cold sleep or freezing. Kind of silly for science fiction to skip it, even if it is easier on the writer.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
> Bender is an alcoholic robot.
...i am too.
Now I'm just waiting for someone to finally find a new energy source.
you were looking at an article over there.
Letter to my lawyer
Enclosed in this envelope is my account information. Please wake me up when I can afford a decent spaceship.
Thank you
PS. ZZZZZzzzzzzzz
I thought the person who survived Rabies went through some sort of similar hibernation; where they deliberatelly slowed down and cooled her body (or at least her brain) until she built up an imune system?
The article and research paper note that they placed the mice in the hibernation state for six hours, without any long-term effects. Unfortunately, I can't find in either the article or paper if they tried longer hibernation periods. If they haven't, I suppose that's the next logical thing to try. Looking at their figures, it seems that the 6 hour mark is about when the body temperature finally finishes asymptoting down to the ambient temperature.
Anyways, here's the research abstract from Science:
H2S Induces a Suspended Animation-Like State in Mice
Eric Blackstone, Mike Morrison, Mark B. Roth
Mammals normally maintain their core body temperature (CBT) despite changes in environmental temperature. Exceptions to this norm include suspended animation-like states such as hibernation, torpor, and estivation. These states are all characterized by marked decreases in metabolic rate, followed by a loss of homeothermic control in which the animal's CBT approaches that of the environment. We report that hydrogen sulfide can induce a suspended animation-like state in a nonhibernating species, the house mouse (Mus musculus). This state is readily reversible and does not appear to harm the animal. This suggests the possibility of inducing suspended animation-like states for medical applications.
http://www.anologger.com/
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Many organisms respond to changes in environmental conditions by entering into a suspended animation-like state in which a decrease in metabolic rate (MR) is followed by a reduction in core body temperature (CBT) (1). Regulated induction of a hypometabolic state is hypothesized to have great medical benefit for a variety of conditions, including ischemia and reperfusion injury, pyrexia, and other trauma (2). Suspended animation-like states may also be useful for creating beneficial hypothermia in surgical situations and for improving organ preservation (1). Inhibiting oxidative phosphorylation reversibly induces states of profound hypometabolism in several model organisms (3-5). Because hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a specific, potent, and reversible inhibitor of complex IV (cytochrome c oxidase), the terminal enzyme complex in the electron transport chain (6), we hypothesized that it could reduce MR and CBT in mammals. When mice were exposed to 80 ppm of H2S, their oxygen (O2) consumption dropped by È50% and their carbon dioxide (CO2) output dropped by È60% within the first 5 minutes (Fig. 1A) (7). If left in this environment for 6 hours, their MR dropped by È90% (Fig. 1A). The MR of control mice, as judged from O2 consumption and CO2 output increases (8). This drop in MR was followed by a drop in CBT to È2-C above ambient temperature (Fig. 1B). The average CBT of these mice reached a minimum of 15-C in an ambient temperature of 13-C (Fig. 1B). At this minimum CBT, both CO2 output and O2 consumption was È10% of normal (Fig. 1A), and the breathing rate of the mice decreased from È120 breaths per minute (BPM) to less than 10 BPM (8). After 6 hours of exposure to H2S, the mice were returned to room air and temperature, and their MR and CBT returned to normal (Fig. 1, A and B). Exposing mice to varying concentrations of H2S revealed a linear relationship between the concentration of H2S and CBT (Fig. 1C). CBT dropped faster and reached lower temperatures as concentrations of H2S increased from 0 to 80 ppm (8), suggesting that the effects of H2S are concentration-dependent. However, this MR reduction is not dependent on ambient temperature (fig. S1). Because H2S can be toxic in high doses, we conducted behavioral and functional tests, selected from the SHIRPA protocol (9), to assay for H2S-induced damage. No behavioral or functional differences in the mice were detected after exposure to 80 ppm of H2S for 6 hours (8). In the absence of H2S, no effect on CBT was observed (Fig. 1B, control atmosphere). In addition, others report no long-term health effects with these H2S concentrations (6). The sequential drop in MR and CBT observed in mice (Fig. 1D) exposed to 80 ppm of H2S is similar to that observed when animals initiate hibernation, daily torpor, or estivation (1). On-demand induction of a suspended animation-like state could provide insight into the mechanisms that govern natural states of reduced metabolism. Lowering metabolic demand in this way could be used to reduce physiological damage resulting from trauma and might improve outcomes after surgery.
Really, I've done this. I hacked my deep freeze to cryogenically freeze me and let me awake in the year 2211. I set up a Unix server to run it all and made sure I had power available until then at least by having my power bill paid from an account into which I deposited $263. I figured the compounding interest over that time would more than pay for the power plus give me a nice nest egg when I awoke. Assuming they still used money in those days. I put myself to sleep on Februray 4th, 2003. Unfortunately I had forgotten to put out dog food for the time I was going to be asleep and poor old Turing (the dog) got a bit restless and he ended up pulling the power on that Unix box. Well, the freezer defrosted, the door popped open and I awoke. First thing I did was turn on the TV. MTV in fact and wow, everything was so different than before. I saw nothing I recognised. I was convinced I had awoken in my choosen time. ThenI looked at my watch and it was February 5th. 2003. Damn the fast moving and ever changing world of popular music.
Two questions:
1) How the heck did they persuade mice to eat a poisoned apple?
2) Where will they find a conveniently unattached prince?
It can slow the metabolic rate alright, but does it really slow the aging of cells. If it does not do that, it cannot be of much use in space travel. Because there we measure distances in light-years and it will take several years to reach an exosolar object.
The amazing thing, given the amount of the stuff you use in basic inorganic analysis, is that any of us got any work done at all.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
From eating you alive? Metabolism is down to 10% of normal conditions and almost all of our enzymes have an optimum around 310 K (37 Degrees C). Immune cells won't be very active in hibernation (282 K, 11 degrees C), while some microorganisms flourish at that temperature. Just put a piece of cheese in your fridge, wait two months and take a look to see what the effects can be.
Actually there's probably already a couple of billion of them on your skin and completely sterilizing a human being (alive) is long from possible. Six hours of hibernation is one thing, but I wouldn't want to try this for more than a day.
Imagine this becoming a commodity: you can hibernate through all kinds of rough or simply boring times. Lost your job? Hibernate for 6 months and see whether things have improved. Perhaps something for the loving and caring US government, a way of managing the population?
Anyway, judging from the research into the life-prolonging effects of calorie restriction this might make people live longer (at least in real, if not in subjective, time)
.... I got screwed by my bank the other day, and want to tell the world: www.moderngeek.com/usbank
Sig: I stole this sig.
HAL 9000 computer on board... we all know what happens then... "im sorry, i cant let you do that dave"
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. - HHGTTG
shithouse mice are resistant
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
My main concern about "hibernation" as you call it, is what happens to your body in between. Your muscles get weaker (since you dont use em), and there is the matter of your body excrements (solids, liquids).
:)
I dont suppose that beeing in suspended animation would mean you could get up and go to the bathroom every day or so. Could be a pain if an application would be "interstellar space journeys".
Besides, we all know where we'll end up if we start playing with hibernation, all we're doing is setting up the technology for the matrix.
Red pill for me, thank you.
it was in the FIRST EPISODE like FIVE YEARS AGO
imagine what can be done when this research is combined with research into the vegetative-state-inducing effects of television.
Vegetative State! What's the white house have to say about this?
Alright what's going on here.. several searches later I find the comments void of Bobba Fett jokes of any shape or size? What.. not even subtle nod towards carbonite, the fashionable substance that gave birth to advancements in stasis such as these?
Truly this is a dark day for Slashdotters everywhere...
Mice are also much smaller than humans (yes a statement of the obvious) and so their thermal mass is much slower - i.e. they cool down MUCH faster due to their increased surface area to mass ratio. I'll try to not become too enthusiastic until I see some larger animal studies - preferrably on cats (not dogs please - I like them) or also on a few of the weird looking guys who hang out at the gas station by my house.
..........FULL STOP.
Nobody gives a rats ass about Star Wars anymore.
...sooooooo cool!
As hibernation tech increases you can bet many will pay millions for it, and why not? All we need now is some megacorp to set up a freezing station on the moon to store all those human popsicles and they will be billionaires.
I doubt you would be so quick to condemn someone to death rather than hibernation if it was your life on the line.
at least airlines wont have to;
1. put up with idiotic customers
2. serve drinks and food
3. show entertainment
4. have good leg room
Just pack up em like cargo as tight as it can go.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Little nano-bots with little laser beams. Perfeerably resembling the classic blaster design from starwars. or perhaps tiny light sabres, although, the colladeral damage may be too great.
I'm still waiting for them to develop human rebooting. Some of us could use a little restart in our lives.
~ Old Warriors Society
there are companies out there already freezing people - problem is we dont 'yet know how to defrost ans resusitate them. If a technology such as this were to replace cryonics is'nt their a danger that cyrogenically frozen people may never be resusitated? Could this create a new industry with the same promise that cryonics offered?
...
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
This would make the hibernating human an easy target for anti-technology extremists, natural disasters, and of course the specter of gross negligence, especially over a very long time period. It wouldn't be a big deal if I were already about to die, but if I wanted to hibernate soley to live a period of my life in the distant future, I'd invest in nothing less than an underground bunker run by NetBSD robots.
*Drives happily along the 401 on a Canadian Winter day*
*Woops, where's the anti-freeze?*
BOOM!
*Head banged on steering wheel, releasing the all new SBS-H+ airbag filled with H2S*
*Instant Hiberny despite 8 fractured rips and massive internal bleeding due to the all new nano-tubes selt belt*
*10 seconds after hiberny*
*Hood on fire*
*Not good*
wake me when bush is gone
I'm thinking that perhaps that is why we find that particular smell so noxious. Could we somehow know the possible negative effects? Could the "bad smell" that we perceive be our body warning us?
barzelay.net
I disagree and I think you'll find most people (maybe even on Slashdot) think that first and foremost prisons are there for removing criminals from society and giving them some sort of punishment. The political and academic reasonings might be different but they're not the real reasons, just feelgood justifications.
The only prisons I know of who successfully reform inmates are using a combination of strict discipline with education but this is rare since those who think of it as a place for reform usually hate most forms of discipline (60ies syndrome).
Btw your "Penetentiary concept" can only have a chance to work as reform if criminals truly realize they have done something wrong or actually have done something wrong, which is why the whole concept fails in the first place as most criminals either do not take responsibility for their actions or do not agree that what they did was actually criminal.
Back on topic the use of hibernation on criminals would probably only be as possible volunters for testing. Since the biggest problems with prisons and criminals is how to make them pay for themselves and actually contribute something to society rather than continuing to harm it I doubt freezing them will be a solution until the energy and hardware becomes extremely cheap, and at that point we have hopefully figured out, solved or reduced the problem of criminality by other means.
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
bulk meat products for distribution.
Puts the expression, "we're all meat", in a whole new perspective...
Ok so the long term hibernation test started to see if it's safe for humans. We should have some conclusive results in about 1000 years.
How about a religion of sorts for the wise. they sleep and tend-one-another in turns. The membership can be self-supporting with replacments chosen by the group by invitation.
every x years, a 'class is awoken', it is shown an explination of the last y years developments by the previous class (the previous class is then put into hibernation for a spell).
each class digests and reflects on humanities progress, problems etc. and issues reports, runs for offices, give grants etc etc etc.
right now, our insect-like-lifespans cause chaos. there is no incentive to plan long term, there is no incentive to build real solutions to real long-present problems.
maybe if we all lived longer (or my flight-of-fancy "Cult of the Wise") we would stop thinking about our personal pleasure more and start to think about how to gaurantee pleasure for all... and taking reward in eliminating war, famine, global-pollution etc etc.
or, we could fly off to other planets - hell i dont know.
Fry meeting Leela, you mean ?
why'd he want to meet Bender anyway ?
also, you could have said...
Buck Rogers meeting Lt. Wilma Deering
http://www.starbase21ok.com/TE2004EG1.jpg
Spacesuits... anyone ?
This rather ruins the phrase "About as much use as a fart in a spacesuit" doesn't it?
I mean since mice can't talk how do they know how this affects their memories? The normal human brain cannot go without oxygen for 5 minutes, and while oxygen wouldn't be completely cut off from the brain, it would still be greatly reduced. I wonder if this would send the brain into a "skeleton system" type of environment where it keeps on only the bare essentials to survive and therefore shuts out memories. Humans breathe roughly 12 - 20 times per minute, if we apply the rate change of the mouse (1/12 it's normal rate) then humans would be breathing between 1 and 1.5 times a minute. I wonder if this would be enough oxygen for the brain to retain everything that it needs so when the person wakes up they can still perfrom their lives and jobs.
The Technomancer
"Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active."-
A little bit of H2S and the metabolic rate crashes, body temp falls close to ambient, with no apparent cognitive downside after six hours? :-) ), could have such an effect.
I'm amazed that a single simple molecule (even a smelly one
I'm left wondering about the genetic background of these mice. Perhaps they have a hibernating recent ancestor? There will be a rush to replicate the result on other animals.
Safe human hibernation could open up the solar system.
That's a bloody racist thing to say. Maybe they have an IQ of 40, but that's measured by testing skills that are typical to western culture. You're using a wrong scale to measure a multifaceted property as intelligence.
Or adjust the population growth rate to 0%. However, that would take coordination, planning and forethought.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Anyone else think it a bit strange that the BBC is the first to report on an American University's scientific findings? Shouldn't we have heard about it from an American source first?
Finally I can do something useful in the summer months ;)
They don't really have prisons. They have jails which is just a place to store you for a short time before they either fine, spank, or kill you.
That style of justice is nothing new. Prisons were originally meant as a reform for that type of system. I'm not so sure that it is superior; it surely is much more expensive for arguably worse results.
You've put yourself at the mercy of the future's denizens. It is commonly assumed that society and technology is progressing towards some sort of utopia where there is little crime, little disease, and a highly advanced social justice prevails. The only reasonably safe assumption is advances in the physical sciences and technology. Our history has already demonstrated that ethics and morality progresses much more slowly than our technology. I think waking up in a DIStopia is far more likely. That is if they permit you to wake up at all.
One, for every problem solved by technology others are introduced. To someone frozen in the early 1800s, this would be a strange and wondrous time. It would be no paradise though.
Two, our hypothetical 1800s thawee would need a lot of education to get by in our world. There are a lot of things schools don't teach because you pick them up growing up in a typical household. I never took a class on operating remote controls for instance. Even assuming our thawee is open-minded, intelligent, and adaptable it will still be a long and expensive process to make him functional in our society.
Three, if enough time has passed then the thawee finds himself in a world where all of his friends and family are dead. Education or not, he probably won't relate well with most people he encounters. It could be a very lonely existance.
Four, the world to come will have it's own problems. A multitude of frozen people from the past expecting to wake up in a land of milk and honey will be seen as adding to them. Never waking them up will be an option. For that matter, just dumping the human-sicles in the ocean might be another. Paradise nothing. You'll be lucky if they decide to wake you up in the first place.
So there you are, you probably thawed yourself with the idea that the interest on your fortune would cure whatever disease you had and pay for your way in a brave new world. If you're lucky, all they'll do is take your fortune and make you a kind of lonely welfare recipient. On the other hand, if you're going to die anyway and the suspended animation really works then it's just a gamble where you don't have anything to lose.
you may have aged nothing while your twin brother or sister will have aged twenty, thirty, forty or however many years it is, depending on how long you were frozen. This will come to you as a profound shock, particularly if you didn't know you had a twin brother or sister.
Sorry it had to be done.
You have been warned.
It will drop you for a little more than "momentarily". H2S has the capacity to kill at less than 100ppm, depending on how long your exposure is. Yes, it will make you pass out -- but you might never wake up.
It's nasty stuff and all refineries, pipelines, and other oil/gas installations are trained about H2S and it's risks. Where H2S is present in the lines, you will see many of the technicians wearing portable H2S monitors.
(BTW, I sell H2S detectors for natural gas custody transfer points. Not the portable ones I spoke about but large scale one for pipeline intersections)
I've always wanted what was advertised in that Saturday Night Live spoof-commercial. To be able to hybernate through a nasty cold or flu would be awesome.
"Success, Doctor. She's now in a complete state of hibernation."
"What?!?! You mean she's no longer self-aware and able to take care of herself? Pull the feeding tube. She wouldn't want to wake up after breathing THAT stuff for a couple years anyway. She told me so."
Energy consumption.
It's a moot point unless an alternative to our dependance on fossil fuels is found. Starvation will quickly solve the popluation problem in short order.
It's all about energy. If you have energy, nothing is a problem - period. If you don't have energy, EVERYTHING is a problem. We're past the point where a retreat to an agrarian life is possible without bloody revolution.
The only answer is new energy technologies - efficient fusion, improved fission, better solar, clean burning coal extraction and liquification, etc etc etc.
..don't panic
The uses are almost endless. Anyone can build a home H2S chamber and just shut themselves down for days at a time. I can envision a time when people are freed of the need to wait for anything. Spiderman 7 coming out in 15 days and you just can't wait? Hop in the chamber, dial it up for 14 days and 23 hours, and just "chill out".
The cool thing is that since metabolic activity cease, your cells would stop dividing, and therefore the aging process would cease as well. Opportunistic viruses would not multiply since they require cellular mitosis, and most bacteria would also take a nap.
I would, however, worry about anaerobic bacteria, especially the kind that thrive on sulfur gases; they'd literally eat you for lunch while you were out like a light. If even one of those suckers got inside, then when someone opened your chamber six months from now you'd be pretty much a skeleton with a mass of oozing, smelly residues--ewwwww!
I would also wonder about undigested food sitting in your stomach and small intestine for days or months, not to mention feces still in the colon. You want to move that stuff through before you shut down the system. On second thought I think I'll wait before trying this one out.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
It's corrosive, explosive, poisonous...
Es tu Jackie Chiles ?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
New Subject - Last night the movie "Forever Young" came on TV. Coincidenc in timing, don't you think?
scientists at University of Washington have successfully induced a state of extreme hibernation
Well, as long as they get the drivers sorted out before mass distribution, it'll be fine. I'd hate it if I went into hibernation and then locked up on resume. Where's the "power" switch on a human, anyway?
Very true, and thank you for pointing out that violent attrition is useless. Most (including this thread so far) gloss over the fact that human culture, economy, and society complicate the biological aspects immeasurably. There is no simple answer.
There are aggregates of answers that address various factors that stand a good chance of solving malthusian problems when taken together. Essentially, it seems that solutions like
- elevated standard of living with decreased disparity
- frugal consumption patterns
- whole-cost accounting in all activities
- family planning
- innovative and systems-oriented land-use design and norms
- significant cultural shifts
- better education levels overall, w/ attention to these problems
- regional economic diversification and self-reliance levels
- a whole systems-aware approach to efficiency
- much better understanding of ecological patterns
all need to be implemented, and soon, to manage to keep away a serious global malthusian crisis, where shortages will not be merely regional and politically unsolved.All the examples I list are interrelated. Many solutions are relatively simple in theory but difficult given economic momentum etc., such as designing car-free urban environments, or decreasing meat consumption. Some are going to be so tough (like whole-cost accounting) that I don't see them being done in time.
The primary fulcrum for much of the problem seems to me to be in the cultural shift, the rules governing semi-conscious choices. Move the people, and the governments and corps will follow. Actually, I hope that's wrong, since the fate of the world would rest with teachers, artists, and religious authority .
Damn those pesky terrorists
Reading the blurb up top.... I wonder where will we store all of those who do not wish to die? It could get pretty packed in the next 10-15 years.
I can't wait for the catchy ad slogans... 2 for 2 tuesday... and such.
:-( --- argh. Despair, I owe again.
What if we use this technology to send five astronauts to the future. Only to find that the the planet is inhabited by apes and a superhuman race of men that worship an atom bomb? Prior to destroying the planet, apes discover the technology we used but enhance it so they can go back through time to modern day earth only to infect other apes with the genetic mutation.. ultimately leading to a war between humans and apes.
Why bother? He's going to die a virgin anyway.
1.) Go into hibernation.
2.) ???
3.) Profit!!!
"Humans wouldn't necessarily appreciate the smell of hydrogen sulfide while being placed into suspended animation."
Not that anybody is asking them, but I'm guessing the mice don't appreciate the smell either...
I'd hibernate until a democrat is in office.
After four years of daily exposure to HS during my time as a ammo "loader" in an Army artillery battery, my sense of smell is almost entirely gone. I can't smell anything noxious at all, and have to carefully control the conditions in order to be able pick up smells like perfume or coffee. So IMHO the olfactory nerve thing is very real.. Wish i could have hibernated through my foru years in the Army though...
I hibernate most of the time without any breakthroughs, thank you very much, that's why I go to work!
You can't handle the truth.
BOWMAN
Hal, give me manual hibernation control.
HAL
Have you decided to revive the rest of the crew, Dave?
PAUSE.
BOWMAN
Yes, I have.
HAL
I suppose it's because you've been under a lot of stress, but have you forgotten that they're not supposed to be revived for another three months.
BOWMAN
The antenna has to be replaced.
HAL
Repairing the antenna is a pretty dangerous operation.
BOWMAN
It doesn't have to be, Hal. It's more dangerous to be out of touch with Earth. Let me have manual control, please.
HAL
I don't really agree with you, Dave. My on-board memory store is more than capable of handling all the mission requirements.
BOWMAN
Well, in any event, give me the manual hibernation control.
HAL
If you're determined to revive the crew now, I can handle the whole thing myself. There's no need for you to trouble.
BOWMAN
I'm goin to do this myself, Hal. Let me have the control, please.
HAL
Look, Dave your've probably got a lot to do. I suggest you leave it to me.
BOWMAN
Hal, switch to manual hibernation control.
HAL
I don't like to assert myself, Dave, but it would be much better now for you to rest. You've been involved in a very stressful situation.
BOWMAN
I don't feel like resting. Give me the control, Hal.
HAL
I can tell from the tone of your voice, Dave, that you're upset. Why don't you take a stress pill and get some rest.
BOWMAN
Hal, I'm in command of this ship. I order you to release the manual hibernation control.
HAL
I'm sorry, Dave, but in accordance with sub-routine C1532/4, quote, When the crew are dead or incapacitated, the computer must assume control, unquote. I must, therefore, override your authority now since you are not in any condition to intelligently exercise it.
Yes I live just fine with lots of stuff in me. However some of what is in me is harmful. When I'm operating normally my immune system takes care of that harmful stuff. (Some of the worst cases put in bed for a while, and somethings are deadly, but most of it is just taken care of without my knowledge) When I'm in 'suspended animation' my immune system is not functioning. Anything harmful that gets into the hibernation room can kill me because I'm not taking of it automatically.
No longer use my nose
The kittens run away from me and hide
Weird things between my toes
And people often think something has died.
I climb a lonely hill
On the Boulevard of Bad Hygiene
I frighten CowboyNeal
But he could learn to love it if he tried.
Something has died? Something has died.
Something has died? Something has...
My B.O.'s the only thing that walks beside me.
My B.O. makes strong men think of suiciding.
My Odor kills the flowers and the pine trees.
Smells like, something has died.
Arrgh ack, Arrgh ack, Arrgh ack, *Cough* *Cough*
Arrgh ack, Arrgh ack, Arrgh ack.
I'm walking down the line
diners flee the buffet so that's fine
so I can take my time
And eat onions, cabbage and... *sniff* something has died.
I can shower, fine.
Or I could on go slashdot tonight.
Closed window, pull the blinds.
But the neighbours think something has died.
Something has died? Something has died.
Something has died? Something has...
My B.O.'s clings to surfaces behind me
My B.O.'s beyond a mortal understanding
Sometimes they wish someone would put me in a... um...
Plastic bag, something has died.
Arrgh ack, Arrgh ack, Arrgh ack, *Cough* *Cough*
Arrgh ack, Arrgh ack, Arrgh ack.
Something has died? Something has...
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Bad Hygiene
City evacuates
in it's pants and something has died.
My B.O. is worse than a Bush e-con-omy.
My B.O. gets UN weapons inspectors antsy.
My Odor could be casus beli if they could find me.
I think, Something has died.
from amiright.com
I appreciate the dangers of this particular chemical, but we won't necessarily use this chemical to achieve its effects in humans. If researchers figure out the process the chemical induces in organisms, they can synthesize safer methods.
Bring on the hibernation! Jupiter, here we come.
You think America's a free country? Try doing exactly what you suggested. Watch what happens.
I'm going into stasus...
;)
Wake me when it's the year of the Linux Desktop!
put the what in the where?
Great until I'm elected. I'll save a lot of money by pumping chlorine gas into your chamber instead of the normal hibernation drugs. Then I'll live a normal life without having to go back to sleep. My scientists won't spend half of their waking time figging out what happened while they were asleep so they will get more done than those who lived under your plan.
I will be unpopular, but only among the dead, so who cares? The living will be happy they lived. The only hard part is making sure nobody else comes up with this idea before I'm elected and gets me in hibernation. In short: I'm compelled to do this first because someone will get me otherwise.
(Finally! A slashdot story about an obscure gas that happens to be my area of expertise... this is tacokill's time to shine!)
This is just a thought, not an opinion, but maybe the Wachowski brothers are on to something with their concept on the Machine powerplant. It would solve two major problems; Over population and the energy crisis.
I'm not saying this is a viable, and definately not a moral, decision, but if we're forced with no other alternative, that may be our only ticket to our survival.
Like I said, just a thought.
The traveling salesman. I'm not sure I need to say more.
Even bigger problem: controlling birthrates to "preserve" the human race can lead to denying the joys of child-rearing (yes, it's a joy, I have two and plan on more) to countless individuals. You have to ask yourself: if we make life on the planet so joyless for so many, what exactly are we preserving?
Not directing this at you since I am not advocating a one child policy like China, but one can also say the same thing about drug use.
Obviously drugs bring joy to the person who use it (or at least a temporary releif from the withdrawl pains), but drug use has been outlawed by most world governments because it has been deemed "bad". This of course is debatable by both sides.
I think the major reason (or least so they say) that drugs are outlawed is because it makes someone go out and cause crime in order to pay for drugs (theft, prostitution) or just to protect them from themselves.
Now the same can be said about having kids like it or not. Having a child indirectly increases the burdern on resources on the earth. Now it isn't apparent in the western world as say India, Africa, or China. I think it offends people when you say "having children is bad" so I'm not going to say that.
However one must realize if the problem isn't solved then perhaps your great great great great grand children will be faced with the fact that they do not have enough food to feed their own children and will have no joy whatsoever in their lives.
Or not... Technology might have solved the problem by then. This is all speculation, but I would hope technology will make the argument a moot point in 200 years.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Hibernation would be stupid if you still die when you're 80... is there any research into whether or not it helps you to live longer?
brave new world was a dystopic nightmare future.
you did realize that right?
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
If you're slowed down, you'd perceive moving through space in fast-mo, not slow-mo.
Why would anyone in the future want to defrost some poor 200 year old schmuck from the past who went into hibernation because there hadn't been a cure for his eyebrow cancer or some other shit that he feared? There will prolly enough geezers around, without a need for even more old frats who'd never be able to adopt. Just imagine someone from 200 years ago would have to live today. Answering stupid user questions at a help desk would be nothing compared to them.
Yes...you're probably forgetting to add in the infrastructure required to support all of these people. Companies. Jobs. Schools. Police. Hospitals. Airports. Roads. Municipal facilities. Jails. Prisons. Water distribution. Sewage Treatment. Waste Disposal. Open space. Food production/distribution.
I'm sure I've left out a ton of stuff, but once you add all of these "extras" in, the notion that we can "fit everyone into an area the size of Texas" seems little more than an academic musing.
There have been cases, for example, of people ending up underwater for extended periods in swimming pools and being brought back. The explanations were to the effect that they were hibernating (or something very close).
.
.
However, given the sparsity of reported cases, don't try this at home . .
This might also have some application for trauma cases where the victim needs a lengthy transport . .
hawk
After Christmas, wouldn't it be nice to just pull up the covers and sleep 'til Easter? Sure, I'd be sleeping away a couple of months of my life every year, but I'll bet I'd get it all back by avoiding the wear and tear due to shoveling snow (and the stress from chewing on curses aimed at the snow I have to shovel.)
Yes, until they were cut up to be tested on....
You just touched on something that came up today at the (proverbial) water cooler. Depending on whether one wants people to feel alarmed or reassured, one can describe large numbers as either:
If you want to describe, say, the national debt, and your goal is to make it seem manageable, your preferred image is a volume. ("All those dollar bills would fit in a dumpster that's x feet by y feet by 5 feet deep." The dumpster doesn't have to be that big.) If you want to make the numbers seem staggering, you say "stack up those dollar bills in a pile -- they'd reach to the moon and back" (or whatever it works out to).
Another example I remember was from a (not-too-special) book by the author of "Innumeracy," and it used the Grand Canyon to do exactly what you're doing here with Texas. The population of the world, it's true, would fit into the Grand Canyon, with fair-sized apartments for each individual.
But that's the "make it less frightening" approach. If we want to make it seem like the lid's blowing off, we can always say "In 1850 if everyone had stood shoulder to shoulder they'd have gone around the world once, whereas today we'd go around X number of times."
...And any real sense of how world population trends work out would depend on a much more nuanced (look out! John Kerry's wishy washy word!) view. For example: the worldwide rate of population growth peaked in the late 1960s and has been falling since then. There's a colossal difference in the rate of growth between "developing" and industrial states, though. Wade into those numbers -- look at the different problems facing Japan (low birth rate, aging population) and Nigeria (huge birth rate, not nearly enough investment to educate all the kids) despite the fact that Nigeria's the 9th biggest population on the planet and Japan's 10th -- and suddenly "distribution" starts to look like the problematic knot of all Gordian knots. The demographic fault lines are pretty dramatic, even if we could stack everyone in a Texas-sized dumpster, slap a "Don't mess with Texas" sticker on the side, and have done.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
So you are saying, all of those nasty kids sitting at the back of the bus farting their asses off were really just trying to slow down my metabolism and make me live a longer life?
only a couple decades away from popping everyone in little red pods . . .
I loved the futurama reference.
How is hibernation going to PREVENT DEATH FROM INJURIES???
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
That's just a problem of technology. And the point isn't that we'd actually want to fit everyone inside of Texas. The point is that Texas takes up a very small portion of the earth's surface. So lack of physical space on the earth is not the problem.
I guess the idiot that did that has never been to Fry's! Hibernation would be a great thing to have when waiting to check-out of that damn place.
And, WTF is up with the obscure references in the topics? Futurama?
makes me wonder what kind of effects common memory lapses would have on the brain. if half of your life doesnt exist because you were in hibernation, is your overall memory process effected?
how much time would you spend going over everything that happened while you were asleep (assuming hibernation can be done for weeks, months, etc.) and would your long-term memory become horribly fragmented because of this?
My wife and I have 2 kids. We'd have had 3 or maybe 4 if we had the money to support them. I don't understand how those 3rd world women think. I could understand having 2-3 children and stopping, but 5-6 children or worse 9-10 children?
Talk to your grandparent's generation. They lived in a time when large families were much more common than they are now.
My father had four brothers and sisters (and two that died young), my Mom had five siblings, and her step-family consisted of seven more. This was the norm in the farming communities in which they lived: having more kids meant having more help around the farm. Also, contraceptives weren't invented yet, and weren't widely socially accepted even once they were developed. Using them to prevent "God" from "blessing" the family with children was seen as sinful by many people, even a generation later.
Two generations later, society is largely urbanized, contraceptives are widely available, and birth rates have plummeted. This is a sharp cultural change from most of western history: we shouldn't be so smug about other nations who haven't changed as quickly as we choose to.
--
AC
The point is that Texas takes up a very small portion of the earth's surface.
I don't disagree. But nobody has come up with an estimate as to how much this estimate would change if all of the infrastructure were included.
I counted four replies who didn't take it seriously. (I guess the others who replied are substandard specimens and can be culled...)
Troll, Funny, Troll, Funny ... well, judging by the response I guess congratulations on the well executed troll are in order.
> Fry will be able to meet Bender after all
Best joke from the series:
Fry: My brother was the first man on Mars. I was supposted to be the first man on Mars. Now I'll never get there!
Leela: You went there this morning...for doughnuts.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Better mark me with fragile stickers and put a BIG padlock on my door so that I don't wake up with my ass stuffed with drugs
It's all been written, it's all been told, that we'll have a hard fight during reckoning. I've seen it in Microsoft't "Age Of Mythology", and I think our only chance to win, is to save our best commander for the future.
I think you all appreciate what George W. Bush is doing with terrorism while being president of U.S. of A. My proposal is - to hybernate him till reckoning, to have a brilliant fighter against the forces (and axis) of evil at the right time and place.
That's possible now. http://tinyurl.com/8weqg . In Space, people could have as many children as they want for a very long time SO LONG AS they can produce enough new spacecraft for them to exit the nest.. Turning our homes into hyperbaric health chambers has been on my websites almost 2 years: http://www.newpath4.com/AAINDEX/paget6.htm . Such a home provides isolation from external gaseous hazards (pollution, terrorist attack). But this new system for hibernation (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/ 22/0228226) presents an added twist. People can go under one gas for sleep, come back to pure oxygen for super-life when they're awake! Heck, just Dial the home (or spacecraft) for what you want... You could hibernate with your teddy bear too or in your favorite position. We could even Name This System the Dial-A-Life System.
Well, this is completely tangential to the question of whether or not there are too many people in the world, but it's also a question which is based on far too many factors to have a reasonable answer. Most infrastructure is unnecessary for life, and how much infrastructure is necessary really depends a lot on how you'd design things and what technologies you'd use. It's just a question with too many variables, which is really pointless anyway, because there's no need to pack all people into the smallest possible place.
...imagine the jet lag!
I imagine shutting down your body does something awful to your circadian rhythm. Also, I'd like to point out that you could always use general anesthesia for an instant flight... probably also a bad idea.
"Contrary to popular belief the world is NOT overpopulated. Infact I am sure it could handle 10 or 20 billion.
SO TRUE! We dont need to stabilize population at all! There are more possible, practical, and desireable solutions:
1. simply eliminate farming and switch to land-conserving, factory food production based on soon-to-be-developed "animal-less meat growth tanks" and underground bacteria production tanks.
2. move people off of the coast and force them to live and work in vertical "Tower Cities" throughout the continent.
3. Use some soon-to-be-developed technology to prevent the effectiveness of increased disease vectors resulting from crowded living.
4. switch power production for our tower-cities to nuclear. This, combined with the lack of vehichles in tower cities could reduce the five tonnes of carbon dioxide gas produced by each american each year to one tonne! Assuming we only need to halve CO2 production for sustainability, we could practically DOUBLE the population!
5. since the global population IS, in fact doubling every 35-50 years, we also need to take advantage of soon-to-be-developed "Atmosphere Conditioners" to preserve and restore nature.
5.b. - although there IS a back-up plan for this... we could simply maintain the tower cities and let the outside atmoshere change. We can already survive in space suits - we can *definitely* survive on a changing Earth if someone needs to leave the tower. Nature will adapt and still be restored. It could even be New And Improved!
6. Of course, our plentiful nuclear energy will allow us to desalinate as much ocean water as we need and synthesize materials rather than continue using forest lumber and lake water.
7. simply stop developing nations from adopting the wasteful technologies that we *currently* use. The oil-producing countries are the biggest potential problem, so we need to take control of them first. There are countless options for preventing the rest of the world from "Developing". I think we should use a mix of military, political, and economic power.
8. Since it may not be easy to keep the rest of the world down permanently, we will simply take advantage of nearly-as-soon-to-be-developed technologies that allows mining, manufacturing, and construction technologies to operate on 10% of the materials, landmass, and energy that they currently use. THEN the other 90% of the world can have our Utopian "Tower Cities" too!
THERE! EASY! No more deterioration of nature AND we all get to live in a developed world with refrigeration, TV, and clothing made from soft and durable "nonexistafibres".
9. ... Actually - I don't know what we need nature for - wilderness areas are SO 19th century! Even before we get the technology for step 8, we could just rip down what we need to increase tower city and goods production to western levels and let the developing world eat cake too!
Things like population awareness are stupid - we have LOTS of room to allow for the 4 to 8-fold increase in polulation expected in the next 100years.
Sure, my proposals only allow for a 10-fold increase in population, but what kind of idiot tries to plan 150 years in the future? Im sure that with future technologies, we won't need or want Food, Clothing, Material goods, or Housing at all! And if we need to stop growing at that time, we'll just instantly stop!
If you over-populationists need proof - check out:
http://www.novaspace.com/POSTERS/PHOTO/Nam-nite.ht ml
Just look at all of the land we haven't used up yet! Sure, this is one on the least densely populated habitable areas of the world, but don't forget the Tower cities and the reduced mining, & eliminated farming, water, & foresting systems we will use!
In the interests of staying objective, you could check out what some wacko "Scientists" say:
http://www.absw.org.uk/Briefings/Land_resources.ht m
but they are WRONG - we can keep growing!
What is the big deal, I sleep all the time anyway!
You don't need to read this article.
It was already posted tomorrow.
Was your mention of vat transfer an intentional (albeit oblique) reference to Gibson's Count Zero? I only ask since it is such an odd concept.
Sarcasm aside, have you noticed that food production growth has been faster than population growth for some time.
Yes, I have.
And no, I haven't.
It has kept up with, surpassed, and fallen behind in fits and spurts since the 1950's and the Green Revolution.
The green revolution was an outstanding optimization of agricultural capacity - although the loss of biodiversity and nutrition diversity that resulted is troublesome. (1.6 billion hectares of efficient cropland does NOT = Nature!)
Post-Green Revolution, The increase has matched the increase in land use.
Advances in Dwarfism and climate-to-crop matching aside, Increase in food production will continue to be a problem until we stop using land for food production.
Oddly enough, I was only partly sarcastic on that note - I DO think that landless food production will help us postpone population problems. There really are companies working on growing meat without growing animals. Check out :
http://www.acfnewsource.org/science/harvesting_mea t.html