WEBVTT - Hibernation: The Ultimate Suspended Animation 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.120 Works dot Com. Hey there, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:16.960 your mind. This is Julie Douglas and I am vibrating 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.600 the stereo celia in your ear. Robert is out this 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:21.919 week with his son who has undergone surgery and is 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.560 doing well and recuperating. So we decided to rerun one 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:30.240 of our favorite topics, hibernation and suspended animation. Now, whether 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.879 this is the Winter of your discontent and you'd like 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.360 to look into the possibility of human hibernation, or you're 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.240 planning on entering into a state of torpor for future 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:48.880 travel to Mars, this is your podcast episode. Hope you enjoy. Julie, 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.960 we are both warm blooded creatures, and as we know, 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.080 warm warm bloodedness comes with a certain price. It's a 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:01.040 high level of energy consumption. So what do we what 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.040 do we do if we don't have energy to consume 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.720 to feed our body? Well take it down, yeah? Or 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.440 or will we die? That's all possibility. The idea behind 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:14.280 hibernation itself is that you have to cut the cost. 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:16.720 You have to spiral down, like like a business that 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.000 tested the lay off a bunch of people and close 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.080 one of its stores to survive a recession. Or the 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:24.000 example that always comes to my mind when I was 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:25.959 younger and I was living in Tennessee, I found myself 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.560 in a car a lot and I would often listen 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:30.800 to I think the guy's name was Dave Ramsey, who 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.520 is this kind of like local locally here in Atlanta, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.640 we have Clark Howard, who's like the the economic guru 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:38.520 that tells you how to get out of credit and 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.400 how to fine tune your financial situation. He's wonderful, by 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.920 the way. Yeah, yeah, he is Clark how It's wonderful. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.479 But I remember listening to the Dave Ramsey Show at 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:48.960 this point, and he was always advising people on how 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:50.480 to get out of credit card debt. And he would say, 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.120 all right, you're just gonna eat rice and beans for 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:53.920 a year, so you can do. You can eat rice 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.280 and beans and cancel cable. And that is kind of 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:01.760 what hibernation is about. Are personally, Yeah, it's it's about 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.880 cutting down that the energy consumption, cutting down the level 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.280 of life that is being lived by the organism so 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.720 that it can survive conditions that would otherwise be legal. Well, 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:15.000 and I've actually read before too that there are certain 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:18.000 places in the world before the advent of electricity and 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.959 so on technology that say you were in Siberia, winter 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:26.160 comes and a family of five probably will have a 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.240 sort of hibernation period. Of course, they're going to have 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.360 food available to them that they've stalked away, but there's 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:35.280 not a lot of reason to go outside for months. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.120 And it always reminds me of the Charlie and Chocolate 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.680 Factory movie where you see the family, the entire family 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.440 in the bed because you know, they're all trying to 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.160 keep warm it's winter, they're trying to conserve resources. So 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.639 this idea of hibernation, at least in humans. Yes, we 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.000 we don't completely close down our heartbeat, or I'm sure 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.720 those people didn't back in the day in Siberia, but 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.519 there's a version of it in which we have tried 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.640 to batten down the hatches when it comes to energy consumption. 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:06.000 It sounds like it's a great opportunity for board games 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:08.200 and families of board games. Maybe that's why they have 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.040 far better board games in Europe and all the great 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.200 board games come out of Europe. I don't know, I 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:14.000 don't know. I mean, you would think like Siberia would 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:19.160 would well no when they're well no, no, but but literally, 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.639 let's talk about these animals who do it right, who 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.360 do it straight up right. One of the most important 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.600 things to realize is that hypernation is not sleep. In fact, 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.720 according to zoo physiologist Brian Barnes, it's kind of the 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.400 opposite of sleep. He argues that instead of a blissful slumber, 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.000 because let's face it, sleep is pretty much the best, 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:40.360 right if you can, if you can actually achieve it 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:42.920 and you don't have any issues getting there, you're not 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.520 plagued by nightmares in which dogs all your face then, 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.080 or you're you're back in college and you didn't know 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.200 you had an exam. You thought you'd canceled the class 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.440 all that. If you can actually achieve good old sleep, 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.200 it's the best. It's like being in Nisconsin, a cozy, 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.480 warm cloud, right. So the idea of like this winter sucks, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:01.360 be nice if I could just sleep through and wake 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.880 up when it's warm or whole. I really don't want 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.520 to travel all the way across country. It wouldn't it 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:07.880 be great if I could just go to sleep and 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.080 wake up and be there. But Barnes argues that it's 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.400 not like this so hibernating squirrels, for example, would be 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:18.160 stuck in something that would be more like months of insomnia, 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:20.920 so it would feel like long stretches, he says, of 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.520 icy stupor punctuated by short, costly naps. Like. The idea 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.720 here is that their energy level is down, their metabolism 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:30.880 is down. Everything is taken down to the level to 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.479 where sleep isn't even possible. They have to power things 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:36.560 up a bit to actually sleep. They have to start 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.479 turning on the lights in the abandoned wings of the 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.080 hotel just to get to that level where that the 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.800 animal can rest well, isn't there. I believe I read 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.560 something to you about um after bears come out of 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.000 hibernation that there's a very long period where they have 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.599 a sort of sleep hangover, and they it's almost like 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.800 sleep deprivation, same thing, right, like, you're not you're not 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.719 necessarily having a nice, big, cozy sleep. You're kind of 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.119 coming out of the fog and re entering yet another fog. 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.039 And it cost energy to come out of that. The 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:09.240 ground squirrels, for example, they undergo cyclical rewarmings during this 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.360 hibernation process, and it costs more than the squirrels stored 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.600 body fat to do that, of course, worth noting, even 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.320 though we're talking mostly about warm blooded animals, and indeed 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.560 we are warm blooded animals. Hibernation also occurs in reptiles, 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.560 cold blood creatures, where it's called brumation. It differs from 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.479 the mammalian hibernation because reptiles, again are cold blooded. They 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:31.240 can't control their own body temperature, so they need to 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.640 spend the winter in a place where they'll stay reasonably warm. 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:39.040 It's not always a situation of something surviving cold temperatures. 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.080 There's also something called estivation, and this is where an 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:46.320 animal enters a hibernation like state during the summer, often 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.159 in situations where there's less available water and moisture. Yeah right, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:54.080 because conditions become really hot and dry. So that's in 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.719 addition to maybe your food supply dwindling in that area 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.720 as well. But for the most part, hibernation, and as 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.400 we understand it is considered a torporse state. That's basically 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.880 an umbrella term to describe all the various types of 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:09.760 temperature and metabolism reducing functions that are involved in hibernation. Yep, 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.240 that's right. So think about torpor in terms of oxygen consumption, 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:15.880 which can fall as low as one percent of resting 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.600 metabolic rate, and core body temperatures to near or below 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.680 freezing temperatures. Heart rate drops who as little as two 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.480 point five percent of its usual level of Chipmunk's heart 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.159 rate flows to five beats per minute from the usual 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:30.680 two hundreds. Like you said, breathing rate drops by fifty 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.760 to a hundred percent, which is just crazy. So you know, 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:39.400 you have reptiles out there that goes hibernation period without breathing. Yeah, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:41.679 and then in many cases we're also talking to about, 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.919 consciousness is greatly diminished. So even though this for instances 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.159 squirrel is in this weird and insomnia state, uh, it 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.360 doesn't mean it's just completely conscious either, so which I 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:55.440 don't think necessarily sweetens the deal. It's kind of this 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.599 uncomfortable semi conscious state, which is a far from the 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:02.520 oh I'm going to have a long winner snap and 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:04.680 wake up. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it does kind of 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.039 feel like, oh man, I am trapped in this body 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.560 and I don't get any of the great benefits here. 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:14.920 Of course, you know we're from fising a little bit here. 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.080 Another thing that's happening is the body fat, which we 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.600 know is packed with energy, is burned off to provide 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.680 energy that an animal needs to maintain levels of body functions, 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.920 and this can be really efficient. Then again, we've got 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.800 our Arctic ground squirrels and they live entirely off a 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.640 stored body fat for as long as it nine months. 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.240 So you have glands in the body that are altering 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.160 the amounts of hormones that are released to control just 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:44.239 about every physiological aspect of hibernation. And and when a 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.400 mammal warm blooded animal inters hibernation, it's essentially becoming like 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.640 a cold blooded animal. It cranks down the temperature, but 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.120 it has a set point in mind, and you can 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.800 think of this like a setting on your thermostatic Right, 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.160 let's say you're cutting energy consumption during the winter. You're 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.520 only willing to the house gets so cold because if 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:03.520 you know, if it gets colder than this set point, 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.840 it's going to start getting uncomfortable and and you'd rather 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.840 not not live that way. So in this case, there's 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.160 a set point because if things get much lower, the 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.600 creature may not be able to live. So the set 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:16.960 point will be there and is things that get colder 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.080 if it starts to drop below that set point, then 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.000 the energy will crank up. It will use some of 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.120 those fat reserves to keep it at a tolerable level. Right, 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.320 So each animal has its own little thermostat essentially. And 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:32.600 you're probably wondering what about defecation. I was wondering that, yes, yeah, yeah, well, 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:34.920 no fecal matter is produced because nothing is passing through 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:37.679 the digest Shut that wing of the operation down. That's right, 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.800 talking too much money, using too much energy. We haven't 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:43.160 got it. Shut it down. No pooping, no pooping. But 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:45.959 the body is always producing urea, which we know is 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.000 a waste by product of urine and hibernating animals, bodies 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.880 are able to recycle the urea. Whoa, So that's that's 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.680 pretty cool, right, because yeah, I mean have you ever 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:58.439 like in the middle of nights, man, I really don't 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:00.040 want to get up and get at bath room, and 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.400 that would be a good feature. I wish I could 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.320 just I mean, you know, we do you actually try either, Like, 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.240 let me just try and focus and recycle my urine. 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:13.160 I do idea trying to lucid dream it. Bears don't 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:15.120 urinate at all in the winter, but they break the 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.240 urea down into amino acids. And even though they don't 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.360 drink any water, they don't get dehydrated either. They're able 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.000 to extract enough water from their own body fat to 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.520 stay hydrated. And here's another really cool thing. This is 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.080 specific to black bears. They have a unique feature and 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:34.480 that they actually continue to reform bones by keeping their 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:39.040 calcium levels calibrated in their blood levels. And researchers believe 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.960 that it's the secretion of a hormone called a paraphor 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:45.400 morn and that's the reason why the calcium is recycled. 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.560 And there are a bunch of clinical trials in which 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.480 they are using the human version of that hormone and 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:56.000 giving it to patients with osteoporosis. So that's that's something 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:57.960 that they're trying to crack there with those black bears, 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.240 Like whine the world would they be actually for ring 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.000 new bone while they are hibernating. They're not ating or anything, right, right, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:06.280 I mean think about ourselves. I think if we've ever 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:08.880 been waylaid by something and you're in the hospital for 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.040 two weeks with a cast on, your body loses bone 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:16.600 in calcium. So yeah, just from that little bit of atrophy, 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.720 you have other species that basically enter this toper state 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.040 on a daily basis, which is always amazing. Hummingbirds, for example, 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:28.360 like hummingbirds are are huge energy users. Who discussed before, 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.120 I think just just how much energy a hummingbird uses, 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.440 and that's why flapping wings are really not that that 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:38.400 economic of a system. But nature cannot make a propeller, 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.320 so it's stuck with flapping wings. Yeah, the heartbeats, but 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.880 it's per seconds. Yeah, it's crazy. It's in saying because 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:46.760 they have the use an immense amount of energy, and 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.560 if they can't get the energy they need on a 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.720 daily basis, they will just shut it down every day 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.160 for a little bit. So they'll shut things down like 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.760 temperature will drop in a hummingbird on a regular basis, 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:00.839 just to maintain Think of it as a business as 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:03.400 an energy consumption has become more of an issue. You 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.960 have various buildings that will say on weekends only have 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.480 a certain portion of the office that is air conditioned, 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.200 and if you're coming into work on the weekends, you 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.600 need to relocate to a certain portion of the building 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.400 every day. Even it's saying all right, well during this time, 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:18.960 we're gonna have to shut it down a little because 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.880 we cannot maintain the energy costs involved in keeping this 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:24.199 level of consumption up minute to minute. But that is 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:27.520 an incredible ability to have. And you know is joking 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.440 saying that we're morphizing this, but we can't help it. 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.240 To project our own ideas onto this and say could 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.680 could we actually harness this for ourselves? And we're gonna 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:38.600 take a quick break and when we get back, we'll 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:52.280 talk about this possibility of humans hibernating. All right, we're back, 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.720 So human hibernation. There are two huge areas where we 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.880 could use this. One, of course, is space travel, because 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.280 space is huge, takes a long time to get anywhere. 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.319 With our current understanding of how physics work and how 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.520 space propulsion can work, they're very shortcuts in mind. But 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:11.920 for the most part, we're looking at long travels, travels 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.000 in most cases that are longer than the span of 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:18.480 human lifetime. So is there a way to suspend animation? 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.160 Is there a way to shut things down and preserve 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:23.760 human life across these vast distances, Because again, it's not 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:25.480 only a situation of like, oh, I don't want to 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.440 sit there and play take that toes for you know, 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:30.360 the length of a journey. Again, hopefully they would have 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:34.280 some quality European board games aboard that space ship. But uh, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:36.719 but then also, do we have the energy required and 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.520 the resources to keep people engaged in an everyday level 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.320 of activity in life over the course of a long voyage. 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:47.360 Cheaper better to turn them into low energy cargo for 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:51.720 that duration. The other huge area, of course is healthcare. 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.120 All right, so we have somebody who has a disease 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:57.280 that cannot yet be cured or an injury that needs 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.559 to be addressed. Say someone's injured out in the middle 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.000 of no Are and you need to get them to 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.160 a quality medical facility, and it's going to be a 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.520 day's journey or more. You need to put them in 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.640 a hibernated state, and potentially you could take this low 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.800 energy cargo move it to the facility where they can 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.440 actually treat the injury and take care of things there. 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.840 Another example is, say someone suffered oxygen starvation to the 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.480 brain through a stroke or heart attack. They could actually 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.160 be put into the suspended animation and lower their oxygen 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.040 to man and prevent brain damage. Right time is of 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.400 the essence and in these situations, so if you could 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.080 shut things down and sort of contain the situation just 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.080 long enough to get in there and do something about it, 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.319 and that would be huge. So it's one of those 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.320 things where one of the ideas is very far reaching 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.760 and super future of mankind and our most cosmic visions, 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.480 and the other is every day people having strokes every 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.960 day and then what could we do to mitigate that? Yeah, 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.920 and at the crux of this is our metabolic right, right, 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.280 our basimonomolic right, which is pretty standard in humans. We 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.760 don't have these tip offs in our circadian rhythms to say, hey, 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:03.840 guess what, we're taking it down to the steps today, 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.520 go in your cave. Um. We're pretty regular when it 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.320 comes serve as a basal metabolic rate unless you're like 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:13.600 a super yogi, right, and you can you can tinker 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.040 with it a bit. You could do some parlor tricks 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.800 and opportun you're dead for eighteen hours or something would 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.040 in fact you were not, but you had again taken 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.920 down your breathing and your heart rate. Okay, so beyond 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:27.200 the Yogi, what are we thinking about here? Well, they're 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:31.080 basically looking at ways to either use temperature or chemicals 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:35.240 to force a hybernative state on human beings and we 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.680 are certainly not there yet but that but a number 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.040 of experiments have been conducted. Mostly these are involving animals, 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.720 and we're looking at ways, all right, can we take animals, 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.000 either hibernating animals or non hybernating animals, tinker with them 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.600 either with temperature or chemicals and force a Hybernative State 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.600 biologist at the Institute of Arctic Biology and Fairbanks, Alaska 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:56.800 are particularly interested in this. They do a lot of 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.960 inquiries into how Arctic ground squirrels behave and hibernate. They 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.080 point out that Arctic ground squirrels, like us, like all animals, 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:08.440 produce a molecule called a denazine which slows nerve cell activities. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.240 So when a squirrel begins to hibernate, even when you 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.280 or I feel drowsy, right, that's what it is. That's 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.640 what's going on. So they devised a number of experiments 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.680 where they took non hibernating Arctic ground squirrels and they 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.400 gave them a substance that stimulated a denazine receptors in 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.720 the brain. And then they also gave a substance similar 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.560 to caffeine to arouse other squirrels. And I mean to 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.680 rouse them from there, not to yeah, not to arouse 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:38.160 them sexually. So in the same way that a denazine 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.200 is involved in that drowsy feeling you're getting, we're also 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.000 counteracting it when we run for that cup of coffee 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.440 or that discussing energy. That's right, I mean that splits 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:49.720 the binding point, right. It basically says, I guess what 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.400 you're not going to bind here, I'm caffeine. I'm waking 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:54.480 this person back up, which I thought was fascinating. I mean, 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.600 we know, obviously, we know that caffeine perks us up, 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.680 but to know that it works that specifically, and these experiments, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.920 they were able to activate a denizine receptors in sufficient 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:07.760 enough manner to induce this hibernative state in these Arctic 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:10.680 ground squirrels during our hibernation season. The small experiment in 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:13.080 some senses, you know, they're not certainly it's not the 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.320 same as say, oh, we put a human into hibernative state. 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:17.320 In this case, we took the ground squirrel and we 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.440 were able to induce hibernation. And it's actually read a 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:22.040 big I mean, it's one of the steps that could 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.920 conceivably lead us to being able to create this effect. 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:29.600 In humans. Right. Another really good example is I keep 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:31.920 thinking of it as pet cemetery. I have to say 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.640 the zombie dogs. Yes, this is from the Safar Center 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.040 for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh. They put 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.000 dogs in a state of suspended animation by flushing out 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:46.520 their bodies of blood, taking out their bood and replacing 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.520 it with forty five degree fahrenheit saline solution that contained 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.200 oxygen and glucose. The dogs went into cardiac arrest and 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:58.640 they clinically died right after three hours. The team withdrew 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.359 the solution so they were verse this process. They reintroduced 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.520 the blood and then applied to gentle electric shock and 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.360 while the dogs were raised from the dead. Yeah, there 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.120 was a similar experiment that was conducted by surgeon at 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.840 the Messagusetts General Hospital in Boston, Like I'm in the 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.680 name of Hassan Alam, and he tested the technique about 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:20.240 two times on pigs with a success rate, and it 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.720 basically involved putting the animal under draining out some blood. 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.240 In this case, he used cuts and major veins to 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:28.960 stimulate the multiple gunshot wounds, so he was he was 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:33.000 trying to create the situation of fatal or life threatening injury. 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:35.760 And then as the pig rapidly loses about half its 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.560 blood and there's a state of shock, Dr Alam would 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.200 drain the blood store it before pumping this chilled organ 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.119 preservation fluid into its system. Then the animal's temperature falls 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.359 to about kindegrees celsius until it injures this state of 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.440 profound hypothermia. And then later they were able to put 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.640 the blood back in and restore the pig to life. Yeah, 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.800 and again it's not about terrorizing dogs and pigs. It's 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:02.080 about trying to create these trauma situations that might happen 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:04.960 in a hospital and giving doctors an alternative in terms 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.120 of trying to extend the life period and be able 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:09.919 to take out all the tools in the arsenal to 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.800 help that person. And it speaking about thermia, it just 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.600 made me think about cell biologist Mark Roth. He has 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:19.560 a great ted talk about this about suspended animation. He 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.800 may be the furthest along I think in trauma medicine 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.440 in terms of looking at ways that we can play 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:30.280 with hibernation. He was inspired by a skier in Norway 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:32.959 who was trapped in an icy waterfall for two hours 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:36.480 before she was extracted. She had no heartbeat, and she 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.840 was thought to be frozen dead. Seven hours later, still 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.679 without a heartbeat, they brought her back to life and 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:44.800 she went on to be the head and radiologist at 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:50.240 that hospital. Later on. Roth was always amazed by this, 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.480 and he wondered, if there's some agent in our bodies 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:55.919 that we make ourselves, that we might be able to 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.119 regulate our own metabolic rate. Okay, So he was like, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.639 is there some sort of flexibility here that we don't 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:07.600 know about that the skier unwittingly tapped into. And normally 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:09.600 you would say this would be a fool's erranty even 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.480 try to mess with our metabolic rate in this way, 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:14.800 but he just kept picking up the problem, picking up 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.920 the problem. And he was watching like Nova or something 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.120 one night and they were talking about hydrogen sulfide and 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.600 he had that kind of dinging moment where he's like, yes, 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.760 that's the thing in our body that we actually do produce, 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:31.320 albeit in small amounts. And he started to think, could 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.439 it cause oxygen to not bind like a kind of 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:40.600 game of musical chairs, leading to uh to not consume 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:44.200 that oxygen and then by reducing our demand for oxygen. 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:50.840 So he decides to start administering hydrogen sulfide to mice 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.080 and then again put it in the cold environment because 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.000 he thinks that there's something key to this coold environment 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.520 that happened with the skier. And indeed, then Mike started 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:03.480 stopped moving up here to dead, oxygen consumption rate fell 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.679 by tenfold. So this again, this is really important, right 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.480 because we don't have brains to starve from lack of oxygen. 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.160 But he says, this is the real kicker, that hydrogen 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.959 sulfide is rapidly metabolized. So if you were dosed with 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.040 us after six hours of d animation, all you would 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.200 have to do is be put out into room air 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.240 and warm up, and you would be, in his words, 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.320 none the worse for wear. So and one model of 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.119 heart attack animals were given the hydrogen sulfide and they 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.359 showed a seventy percent reduction and heart damage compared to 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.719 those who got the standard of care that you and 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.000 I were to receive if we were to have a 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.399 heart attack here today. And the same is true for 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:44.520 organ failures. So when you have a loss of function 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.399 by going to pour profusion of kidney or liver, you 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:51.160 have damage that suffered. So in he started human trials, 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.120 and he says that we're on the path of really 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:58.480 understanding this metabolic flexibility, and the not too distant future 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.679