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 ...
Weaponize this for LEOs.
Use it on the population.
Mao said, “Kill one monkey to scare nine”
“antigravity, holodecks, and transporters will never materialize”
Way too early to make that call....
Never say never!
;-)
They could put me under for 500 years, then I can awaken and be the smartest guy on the planet
Let me add faster than light travel to that list. I know, but whatever.
Science fiction makes very few predictions that come true.
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I respectfully disagree.
Sci-Fi makes loads of predictions, true enough. Most have not yet come to pass but the ones that have materialized (pun intended) are doozies. I’ve seen real miracles just in my lifetime.
I recall the non-invasive medical wonders of Star Trek every time an oxygen monitor is clipped to my fingertip. Star Trek also gave us communicators (OK, so we call then cellphones) and while transporters and Warp Drive aren’t here yet, we’re working on it. Didn’t the Navy have a variation of Dr. McCoy’s diagnostic table on the design boards?
Sci-Fi Lord Isaac Azimov predicted that the next stage in human evolution would be for us to grow closer to our machines. Between miraculous medical devices and Google on the cellphone, I dare say we are closer than ever.
Anything we can dream, we can have. FTL travel (Faster Than Light) isn’t here yet but we’re working on it. Suspended animation isn’t here either. Neither are mind control, regrowth of amputated limbs or interdimensional travel. But we are dreaming about them. And humans are excellent dreamers.
Very well said sir. However, I must point out that technological advances typically work within the laws of physics, not outside of them. I don’t believe faster than light travel will ever be possible, or antigravity. But when we do work within the laws of physics, we see amazing things. That is pretty much always the case.
Pretty sure in China, the experiment volunteers you.
“laws of physics”
Those are human laws not natural laws.
Nature can do whatever it wants without asking homo sapiens for permission.
The human “laws” are limited by our senses and the sensors and analysis we create.
I suspect (but of course cannot prove because I am human) that what we know is a tiny tiny piece of what is really happening.
I would encourage you to pay attention to Rupert Sheldrake on this topic.
Here is one of his talks—a good 18 minute introduction to his view of nature and science:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKHUaNAxsTg
That means less than you think it does when the “laws of physics” keep changing as homo sapiens learns more about the outside world.
It is like a speed limit that starts at five miles an hour and over the centuries goes to the speed of light.
The concept of “speed limit” is amusing at that point.
The speed of light limit is not a law per se, and is actually based on other laws which have never changed since their discovery. In fact no actual laws of physics have changed since their discovery, but the discovery of new ones are always possible. Hence our understanding of physics may change, but not physics itself. No amount of “imagination” can make something go faster than light, for example, or back in time.
Check out this link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/science/quantum-physics-time.html
The universe is a very very messy place—I call it the “outlaw universe”—just refuses to obey “the rules”.
It appears I need to log in for that one. But it seems to concern an unexplained anomaly, perhaps? Those do happen occasionally, but I prefer to withhold judgement on those until we know more answers.
One other issue with “science” is that a lot of the interesting stuff is classified military secrets so that the “official” version of “science” can be decades behind what is truly currently known.
That may include a long list of what “official” science says is “impossible” and “violates the rules of physics”
Imho one of those big picture “secrets” is the that the universe is fundamentally fractal.
That means that the “impossible” world of the very very small is replicable to scale with appropriate technology.
To be very specific, that means:
—Time travel (at least to view)
—Bilocation (being in two places at once) which would be a variation of teleportation
—Exceeding the speed of light (wormholes or “warping” of space”)
—Telepathy (and the “remote viewing” variation)
—Mind control or mind-wiping
Imho one of the purposes of “official science” these days is to “hide the ball” so the elites can have a monopoly on the “good stuff” and the sheeple learn to obey out of ignorance.
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