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Suspended Animation Tests Successful
chrisb33 writes "Wired News reports that suspended animation tests have been successfully carried out with pigs. From the article: 'Long the domain of transhumanist nut-jobs, cryogenic suspension may be just two years away from clinical trials on humans (presuming someone can solve the sticky ethical problems).'" The pig that was the subject of the article was kept in suspended animation for two hours, and Duggan and his team have successfully suspended hundreds of pigs for an hour at a time. It's still a far cry from a spaceship filled with sleep pods, but would be just the ticket for doctors who need to buy extra time to save lives.
A similar story was posted a while back about U.S. Scientists doing this to dogs.
I just type my sig in the reply form...
...I seem to recall Larry Niven wrote about the possible (mis)uses of suspended animation in his Known Space series of books.
One of Niven's ideas was of using executed criminals as a source for organ replacement; this led to the eventual application of the death penalty for most crimes. The general idea was that this would be made possible by using suspended animation to keep the organs alive and healthy for long periods after the "donor" had been killed, so that a suitable match might be found. Your new liver might come from someone who died years ago, and whose parts were kept in storage until a matching donor like yourself had need of them.
Niven also introduced the idea that illegal organ harvesting could also happen; "organleggers" kidnap and disassemble people to provide a black market service. He was writing this in the 60's, and since then there have been signs of both situations (legal and illegal execution as a source of organs) happening in thw world.
Assuming we could keep body parts alive in suspended animation after the host is dead, we could do exactly what Niven described. The question is, will we?
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Not so. There exist vitrification compounds that prevent ice crystals from forming, and instead the water congeals into an ice-like substance. That's why embryos can be frozen solid and revived, as can certain tissues destined for transplant.
Quirks and Quarks had an episode on human hibernation discussing the known mechanisms and methods within the realm of immediate possibility. It is well established that cold-water near-drowning victims have survived several hours without oxygen. From an ethical point of view the first human subjects would have to be "last hope" interventions, where death would be inevitable if hibernation were not induced.
At the point where water freezes, cells rupture from the ice crystals forming within.
Actually, cell rupture from the result of sharp-edged crystal formation occurs during the post-warming cycle, not during cool down. This is why rescuers prefer to bring avalanche victims back to normal body temp in as much of a controlled process as possible, in order to avoid as much crystal formation as possible. The most common result is frostbite, of course. In addition, after it happens once, you are best advised to not subject the same body part to another incident, as tissue durability in regards to a repeat is lost.