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Hibernation on Demand
Mr. Christmas Lights writes "Dr. Mark Roth at the
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
has successfully
induced
a state of reversible metabolic hibernation in mice
which (no surprise) is
getting quite a bit of publicity.
Attempts in the past have used cooling techniques, but Dr. Roth
uses hydrogen sulfide (80 parts/million) to basically put the warm-blooded mice
into an advanced hibernated state, with a drop from the normal
120 breaths/minute to less than 10. Core body temperature also drops
as low as 11C (50F) to match the ambient room temperature. The mice recover in about two hours once normal air/temperatures are applied,
with no apparent ill effects - apparently there is a mice IQ/motor-skills test.
In addition to the obligatory reference to
Woody Allen's
Sleeper movie, this has applicability for emergency rooms as it
would be beneficial to in ER medicine as a way of "buying time"
while diagnosis is performed."
Why aren't hibernating mammals eaten alive by microorganisms? (yes there was a discussion before) Well, apparantly their immune system is actually disabled. However, they wake up periodically, specifically to fight off any infections.
0 2074547.htm
/ 4/1153
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/04/0204
Humans can't do this if their cytochrome C is inhibited by hydrogen sulfide, so if you ever do this with humans, you'd have to make sure they wake up periodically to prevent all kinds of nastyness.
Bats seem to have a different strategy. They stay in deep hibernation for prolonged periods up to 90 days, but their biochemistry changes quite drastically in order to do this. It's unlikely that human cells are able to change themselves so drastically.
http://physrev.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/83
I really wonder what would happen to a mouse if you induce hibernation for more than a month.
Buying hours and preventing damage would be a good purpose for artificial human hibernation, but I think space travel is a little far fetched.
If you're a suscriber there's a link to report "problems" with an article. I reported this one and many before it as dupes. Sometimes it helps (perhaps if enough people complain about a story), sometimes it doesn't.
Martin
These dupes send a clear message that the Slashdot staff, who are *paid* to work for a for-profit company....
That's because you're doing it all wrong. The staff doesn't care. But there is a solution; you mention that they work for a for-profit company. Gentlemen, I give you the contact information for the Open Source Technology Group, Slashdot's parent company:
(Source: http://www.ostg.com/contact/index.htm) You want the editors to, erm, edit? Complain to their bosses.Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!