Fri, 22 Apr 2005
We're going to Jupiter!
Maybe not just yet, but ...
By successfully inducing a state of reversible hibernation in
mice, scientists have managed to make a mammal hibernate on
demand for the very first time.
Mark Roth of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in
Seattle, led the work and reports his results in the journal
Science today. "We think this may be a latent ability all mammals
have - potentially even humans - and we're just harnessing it and
turning it on and off, inducing a state of hibernation on
demand," he said.
In his experiments, Prof Roth and his colleagues knocked mice out
by making them inhale air laced with hydrogen sulphide, a
chemical produced in humans and other animals which is thought to
help regulate body temperature and metabolic activity. The mice
were kept in a hibernation-like state for up to six hours before
being returned to normal. During this time, the mice stopped
moving and appeared to lose consciousness. Their breathing almost
stopped and their core temperatures fell from 37C to as low as
11C.
"We have, on demand, reversibly demonstrated the widest range of
metabolic flexibility that anyone has ever seen in a
non-hibernating animal," Prof Roth said.
Okay, it's going to be a while before we get to human trials --
but there's a strong medical reason for going there: to allow the
airlift of injured people out of remote regions without their
medical condition deteriorating. And once we've got medically
proven reversible hibernation, suddenly the multi-year journeys
that current rocket technology imposes on us if we want to
actually go visit other planets become a lot less of an
insuperable obstacle.
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