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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
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.
The human ecosystem (body) is host to ~10e14 bacterial cells. A bit more than a couple of billion. Your dirty. Scrub till you bleed if you want, it won't make much of a difference. They are everywhere, on your eyes, in your ears, in your GI tract, in every little pore on your body, all over the skin, in your mouth. Many of your normal flora can be pretty nasty too, if their virulence genes get turned on. You have a lot of Stahpolococcus sp. in your mouth and on your skin. Under the right conditions, they will betray you.
As for sterilizing a human, even if it was possible, it would be a very bad idea. Your normal flora are adapted to live peacefully side by side with. They protect you by outcompeting invasive foreign species. They manufacture vitamins in your intestines. It would not be a good idea to get rid of them.
Sterile people can be made in theory. It's been done with mice. Scientists aseptically cut them out of the uterous and raised them in sterile environments. They lived twice as long as ordinary mice, but they were weak and sickly the entire time and died of strange nasty diseases. Some of these sterile mice were exposed to a normal environment. They died soon after of horrible nasty diseases.
In summary. Long term refridgeration will cause your little buddies to turn on you and sterilization will lead to a bubble life.
Nice Marmot
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)