Posted on 12/30/2022 9:14:11 AM PST by BenLurkin
Space is so large, and human technology so limited, that the time it would take to travel to another star presents a significant barrier.
One potential solution would be generation ships... Another would be artificial hibernation, if it could be successfully implemented.
This is what scientists from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have started to investigate; not in humans, but in monkeys, by chemically triggering a state of hypothermia.
Hibernation and its slightly less comatose state, torpor, are physiological states that allow animals to withstand adverse conditions, like extreme cold and low oxygen.
The body temperature lowers, and metabolism slows to a crawl, keeping the body in a bare-bones 'maintenance mode' – the bare minimum to stay alive while preventing atrophy.
This can be found across several animals, including warm-blooded mammals, but very few primates. Neuroscientists Wang Hong and Dai Ji of SIAT wanted to see if they could artificially induce a state of hypometabolism, or even hibernation, in primates by chemically manipulating neurons in the hypothalamus responsible for sleep and thermoregulation processes – the preoptic neurons.
The research was performed on three young...monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). In both anesthetized and non-anesthetized states, the researchers applied drugs designed to activate specific modified receptors in the brain, known as Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs, or DREADDs.
Then, the scientists studied the results using functional magnetic resonance imaging, behavioral changes, and physiological and biochemical changes.
The researchers found that a synthetic drug called Clozapine N-oxide (CNO) reliably induced hypothermia in both the anesthetized and awake states in the macaques.
However, in anesthetized monkeys, the CNO-induced hypothermia resulted in a drop in core body temperature, preventing external heating. The researchers say that this demonstrates the critical role POA neurons play in primate thermoregulation.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencealert.com ...
However, in anesthetized monkeys, the CNO-induced hypothermia resulted in a drop in core body temperature, preventing external heating.
—
Sort of sounds like the Macaca died.
Science fiction makes very few predictions that come true. Sorry, but antigravity, holodecks, and transporters will never materialize (was that a pun? You decide). The communicator and Dick Tracy’s watch is an exception. Suspended animation? The jury is still out.
If hibernation had a survival value in primates, primates would be hibernating during the winter. They don’t.
Attempting to put a primate into hibernation runs into the very obvious fact that primates do not have a state of hibernation because it does not have a survival value for primates.
In order to test his, the “scientists” would need volunteers willing to be put into induced hibernation for several years. They would have to willingly accept the possibility that family members or friends could die during that period.
There will be some people willing to volunteer for this. I’m not.
So in some cases we outdo even the most ambitious dreams of SF writers.
In fact. Star Trek computers of the 23rd century are retarded trolls compared to our present day ones.
If and when we finally do develop the technologies to travel to the far reaches of space, will there be enough interest among Earthlings to care about such missions?
That was a funny movie…
They can hibernate whoever or whatever they want.Thee chance of a space vehicle surviving the voyage of several billions of miles is mathematically zero. Collisions with space junk would destroy the best made vehicle and its contents.
Hibernation is in fact a latent aspect of all primates, having evolved from rodent-like creatures who were able to burrow underground and hibernate for something like a year, which is what allowed them to escape the fate of the dinosaurs when the meteor wiped them out instead of us (since we are also primates). I know that was an overlong sentence, sorry.
Monkey Experiment Reveals a Brain Switch That Could Be Useful For Space Travel and is presently found in all progresives to be in the off position.
LOL
At presently available interstellar speeds, a voyage to Alpha Centari, the nearest star system to our Sol system, is estimated to take approximately 72k years.
Magic brain switch notwithstanding, trying to use a hibernation system designed, at maximum, to get you through a single earth winter isn’t going to cut it.
Photoshop “President” Biden with that same Goofball expression, and you’ll have the state of Washington DC today.
Methinks it’s all about the “Spice,” but that’s just me.
5.56mm
"Another would be artificial hibernation"
If hibernation had a survival value in primates, primates would be hibernating during the winter. They don’t.
I’ve recently read that bears and such don’t hibernate because of the cold, but due to the scarcity of food during winters.
“Sort of sounds like the Macaca died.”
They don’t care it’s SCIENCE! The NIH is injecting cocaine into Beagle pups. Mengele assholes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.