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...