The article has been already published by scientific periodicals- see SCIENCE Vol. 308, issue 5721, pq. 518 for the full article on mice hibernation, and SCIENTIFIC AMERICA June 2005 for a useful overview of the entire subject.
Simply, when oxygen levels are really low, cells shut down. When there is not enough O2 to live, but just enough for the body cells to detect, cells start producing lactic acid, free radicals, and other nasty stuff that eventually kills off your cells, usually 36 hours after you yourself have died. (Rigor mortis is when the muscles tense up because of lactic acid, like cramps after a hard run. When the cells die, they muscles relax.) If you just got the cells to shut down, the human is clinically 'dead' as in they are not breathing, but the cells are, if belonging to a dead person, not dying.
Basically, while you are 'dead', your individual cells are still alive, but they lack the oxygen they need for their metabolisms (because your not breathing). The cells keep trying to use oxygen-dependent methods of living because there still is a residue of oxygen in your blood, but not enough to sustain them. It's like running. When your heart can't supply enough oxygen to your legs, the muscles use another way of making energy that doesn't use oxygen, but produced lactic acid (the burning sensation in overworked muscles). The buildup of lactic acid eventually helps to kill the cells later as waste products build up.
But if you told all the cells to shut down everything, the cells would not be sucking desperately for oxygen, harming themselves, but simply doing nothing. You can do that by blocking oxygen receptors in the body. CO2 kills because it 1.) can't be used the way O2 is used, and 2.) takes up slots in hemoglobin that normally is taken up by O2, pushing out the good O2.
If that explanation was as bad as I thought, tell me to do it again and I will.
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The article has been already published by scientific periodicals- see SCIENCE Vol. 308, issue 5721, pq. 518 for the full article on mice hibernation, and SCIENTIFIC AMERICA June 2005 for a useful overview of the entire subject.
2 1/518 (requires account)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/308/57
Simply, when oxygen levels are really low, cells shut down. When there is not enough O2 to live, but just enough for the body cells to detect, cells start producing lactic acid, free radicals, and other nasty stuff that eventually kills off your cells, usually 36 hours after you yourself have died. (Rigor mortis is when the muscles tense up because of lactic acid, like cramps after a hard run. When the cells die, they muscles relax.) If you just got the cells to shut down, the human is clinically 'dead' as in they are not breathing, but the cells are, if belonging to a dead person, not dying.
Basically, while you are 'dead', your individual cells are still alive, but they lack the oxygen they need for their metabolisms (because your not breathing). The cells keep trying to use oxygen-dependent methods of living because there still is a residue of oxygen in your blood, but not enough to sustain them. It's like running. When your heart can't supply enough oxygen to your legs, the muscles use another way of making energy that doesn't use oxygen, but produced lactic acid (the burning sensation in overworked muscles). The buildup of lactic acid eventually helps to kill the cells later as waste products build up.
But if you told all the cells to shut down everything, the cells would not be sucking desperately for oxygen, harming themselves, but simply doing nothing. You can do that by blocking oxygen receptors in the body. CO2 kills because it 1.) can't be used the way O2 is used, and 2.) takes up slots in hemoglobin that normally is taken up by O2, pushing out the good O2.
If that explanation was as bad as I thought, tell me to do it again and I will.