WEBVTT - Hibernation: The Ultimate Suspended Animation! 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.600 Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to stuff to blow 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:15.640 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and my name 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.080 is Julie Douglas. Julie, we are both warm blooded creatures, 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:24.360 and as we know, warm warm bloodedness comes with a 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.760 certain price. It's a high level of energy consumption. So 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:29.960 what do we what do we do if we don't 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.560 have energy to consume to feed our body? Well, take 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:37.000 it down? Yeah? Or or will we die? That's all possibility. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:41.360 The idea behind hibernation itself is that you have to 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.080 cut the costs. You have to spiral down, like like 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:46.000 a business that test of lay off a bunch of 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.160 people and close one of its stores to survive a recession. 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:51.800 Or the example that always comes to my mind when 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:53.440 I was younger and I was living in Tennessee, I 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:55.800 found myself in a car a lot and I would 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.600 often listen to I think the guy's name was Dave Ramsey, 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.120 who is this kind of like local Locally here in 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.240 Atlanta we have Clark Howard, who's like the the economic 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:06.039 guru that tells you how to you know, get out 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.600 of credit and how to fine tune your financial situation. 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.160 He's wonderful, by the way, Yeah, yeah, he is Clark 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:13.200 how it is wonderful. But I remember listening to the 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.160 Dave Ramsey Show at this point and he was always 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.000 advising people and how to get out of credit card debt. 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:19.399 And he would say, all right, you're just gonna eat 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:21.400 rice and beans for a year, so you can do. 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:23.679 You eat rice and beans and cancel cable. And that 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:28.440 is kind of what hibernation is about our version at least. Yeah, 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.039 it's it's about cutting down that the energy consumption, cutting 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.200 down the level of life that is being lived by 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.880 the organism so that it can survive conditions that would 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.160 otherwise be lethal. Well, and I've actually read before to 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.600 that there are certain places in the world before the 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:48.320 advent of electricity and so on technology that, say you 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:52.559 were in Siberia, winter comes and a family of five 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.520 probably will have a sort of hibernation period. Of course, 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:58.920 they're going to have food available to them that they've 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.280 stalked away, but there's not a lot of reason to 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.960 go outside for months. And it always reminds me of 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.040 the Charlie and Chocolate Factory movie where you see the 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.600 family the entire family in the bed because you know, 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.639 they're all trying to keep warm it's winter, they're trying 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.519 to conserve resources. So this idea of hibernation, at least 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.120 in humans. Yes, we we don't completely close down our 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.120 heartbeat or I'm sure those people didn't back in the 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.360 day and Siberia, but there's a version of it in 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.400 which we have tried to batten down the hatches when 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:31.680 it comes to energy consumption. It sounds like it's a 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:35.359 great opportunity for board games and family use of board games. 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.120 Maybe that's only they have far better board games in 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.239 Europe and all the great board games come out of Europe. 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.240 I don't know. I don't know how you think like 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.160 Siberia would would well know when they're well no, no, 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:49.400 but literally, let's talk about these animals who do it right, 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.000 who do it straight up right. One of the most 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.000 important things to realize is that hypernation is not sleep. 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.480 In fact, according to zoo physiologist Brian Barnes, it's kind 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.000 of the the sit of sleep. He argues that instead 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.959 of a blissful slumber, because let's face it, sleep is 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.480 pretty much the best right if you can, if you 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:09.400 can actually achieve it and you don't have any issues 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.680 getting there, you're not plagued by nightmares in which dogs 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.480 all your face then, or you're you're back in college 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:18.200 and you didn't know you had an exam. You thought 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.400 you'd cancel the class. All that. If you can actually 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.200 achieve good old sleep, it's the best in a cozy, 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.640 warm cloud, right, So the idea of like, oh, this 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:28.680 winter sucks, I would be nice if I could just 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:30.600 sleep through it and wake up when it's warm or whole. 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.040 I really don't want to travel all the way across country. 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:35.440 It wouldn't it be great if I could just go 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.040 to sleep and wake up and be there. But Barnes 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.760 argues that it's not like this, So hibernating squirrels, for example, 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.200 would be stuck in something that would be more like 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:48.480 months of insomnia. So it would feel like long stretches, 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:53.040 he says, of icy stupor punctuated by short, costly naps like. 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.960 The idea here is that their energy level is down 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.440 and metabolism is down. Everything is taken down to the 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.240 level to where sleep is even possible. They have to 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.280 power things up a bit to actually sleep. They have 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.240 to start turning on the lights in the abandoned wings 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:09.840 of the hotel just to get to that level where 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.520 that the animal can rest well, isn't there. I believe 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.320 I read something to you about um after bears come 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.760 out of hibernation that there's a very long period where 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.160 they have a sort of sleep hangover, and they it's 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.359 almost like sleep deprivation, same thing, right, like, you're not 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.440 you're not necessarily having a nice, big, cozy sleep. You're 0:04:27.520 --> 0:04:29.920 kind of coming out of the fog and re entering 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.760 yet another fog. And it cost energy to come out 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.880 of that. The ground spirrels, for example, they undergo cyclical 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.720 rewarmings during this hibernation process and it costs more than 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:42.839 the squirrels stored body fat to do that. Of course 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.839 worth noting. Even though we're talking mostly about warm blooded animals, 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.800 and indeed we are warm blooded animals, hibernation also occurs 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.080 in reptiles, cold blooded creatures, where it's called brumation. It 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:56.400 differs from the mammalian hibernation because reptiles, again are cold blooded. 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.120 They can't control their own body temperature, so they need 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.760 to spend the enter in a place where they'll stay 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.840 reasonably warm. It's not always a situation of something surviving 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.760 at cold temperatures. There's also something called estivation, and this 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.039 is where an animal enters a hibernation like state during 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.640 the summer, often in situations where there's less available water 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:21.320 and moisture. Yeah, right, because conditions become really hot and dry. 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.200 So that's in addition to maybe your food supply dwindling 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:26.080 in that area as well. But for the most part, 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.960 hibernation and as we understand it is considered a torpor state. 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.520 It's basically an umbrella term to describe all the various 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:36.200 types of temperature and metabolism reducing functions that are involved 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.640 in hibernation. Yep, that's right. So think about torpor in 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.400 terms of oxygen consumption, which can fall as low as 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:46.680 one percent of resting metabolic rate and core body temperatures 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:50.040 to near or below freezing temperatures, heart rate drops who 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.360 is little as two point five percent of its usual 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.160 level of chipmunk's heart rates flows to five beats per 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.520 minute from the usual two hundreds. Like you said, breathing 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:02.120 rate drops by fift a dred percent, which is just crazy. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:04.240 So you know you have a reptiles out there, they 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:08.360 go hibernation period without breathing. Yeah, and then in many 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.440 cases we're also talking to about consciousness is greatly diminished. 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.680 So even though this for instances squirrel is in this 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.520 weird andsomnia state, uh, it doesn't mean it's just completely 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:22.400 conscious either, so which I don't think necessarily sweetens the deal. 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:27.560 It's kind of this uncomfortable semi conscious state, which is 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:29.479 a far cry from the oh I'm going to have 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.000 a long winter snap and wake up. Yeah. Yeah, I 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:33.520 mean it does kind of feel like, oh man, I 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.320 am trapped in this body and I don't get any 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.720 of the great benefits here. Of course, you know we're 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:44.279 from rising a little bit here. Another thing that's happening 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.200 is the body fat, which we know is packed with energy, 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:50.440 is burned off to provide energy that an animal needs 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.839 to maintain levels of body functions. And this can be 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.520 really efficient. And again we've got our Arctic ground squirrels 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.120 and they live entirely off a stored body fat as 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.240 long as in nine months. So you have glands in 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.760 the body that are altering the amounts of hormones that 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:10.800 are released to control just about every physiological aspect of hibernation. 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.320 And and when a mammal warm blooded animal. Inners hibernation, 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.000 it's essentially becoming like a cold blooded animal. It cranks 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.520 down the temperature, but it has a set point in mind. 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:22.680 And you can think of this like a setting on 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.120 your thermostat. Right. Let's say you're cutting energy consumption during 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.600 the winter. You're only willing to let the house get 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.560 so cold because if you know, if it gets colder 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.240 than this set point, it's going to start getting uncomfortable. 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:35.920 Uh and and and you'd rather not live that way. 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.840 So in this case, there's a set point because if 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:41.160 things get much lower, the creature may not be able 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.840 to live. So the set point will be there, and 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.800 it's things that get colder. If it starts to drop 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:48.240 below that set point, then the energy will crank up. 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:50.560 It will use some of those fat reserves to keep 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.000 it at a tolerable level. Right, So each animal has 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.720 its own little thermostat essentially. And you're probably wondering what 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:00.600 about defecation. Oh I was wondering that, Yes, yeah, yeah, well, 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:02.960 no fecal matter is produced because nothing's passing through the 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.680 dieg just shut that wing of the operation down. That's right, 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:08.800 talking too much money, using too much energy. We haven't 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.200 got it, shut it down. No pooping, no pooping, But 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.000 the body is always producing urea, which we know is 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.040 a waste by product of urine and hibernating animals, bodies 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.880 are able to recycle the urea. Whoa, So that's that's 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:24.720 pretty cool, right, because yeah, I mean, have you ever 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:26.440 like in the middle of nights, man, I really don't 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:28.080 want to get up and get at the bathroom. I mean, 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.440 that would be a good feature. I wish I could 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.320 just I mean, you know, do you actually try to like, 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:37.880 let me just try and focus and I do idea 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.840 trying to lucid dream it. Bears don't urinate at all 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:44.440 in the winter, but they break the urea down into 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.280 amino acids. And even though they don't drink any water, 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.360 they don't get dehydrated either. They're able to extract enough 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.080 water from their own body fat to stay hydrated. And 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.840 here's another really cool thing. This is specific to black bears. 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.319 They have a unique feature and that they actually continue 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:04.240 to form bones by keeping their calcium levels calibrated in 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.120 their blood levels. And researchers believe that it's the secretion 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:12.160 of a hormone called paraphormorn and that's the reason why 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.800 the calcium is recycled, and there are a bunch of 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.880 clinical trials in which they are using the human version 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.920 of that hormone and giving it to patients with osteoporosis. 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:25.079 So that's that's something that they're trying to crack there 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.160 with those blood bears. Like, why in the world would 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.960 they be actually forming new bone while they are hibernating 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.439 or anything, right, right, I mean think about ourselves. I 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.000 think if we've ever been waylaid by something and you're 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:38.480 in the hospital for two weeks with a cast on, 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.520 your body loses bone in calcium. So yeah, just from 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.000 that little bit of atrophy. You have other species that 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.800 basically enter this hope or state on a daily basis, 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:53.199 which is always amazing. Hummingbirds for example, Like hummingbirds are 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.839 are huge energy users. We discussed before. I think just 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.959 just how much energy a hummingbird uses, and and that's 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.240 whine Flapping wings are really not that that economic of 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.120 a system, but nature cannot make a propeller, so it's 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:11.600 stuck with flapping wings. Yeah, the heartbeats per second. Yeah, 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:13.280 it's crazy. It's in same because I have to use 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.280 an immense amount of energy and if they can't get 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.080 the energy they need on a daily basis, they will 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:21.600 just shut it down every day for a little bit. 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.760 So they'll shut things down like temperature will drop in 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.719 a hummingbird on a regular basis, just to maintain Think 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:30.440 of it as a business. As an energy consumption has 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.720 become more of an issue. You have various buildings that 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.280 will say on weekends, only have a certain portion of 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.240 the office that is air conditioned, and if you're coming 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.120 into work on the weekends, you need to relocate to 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.360 a certain portion of the building every day. Even it's saying, 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:45.960 all right, well during this time, we're gonna have to 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:47.880 shut it down a little because we cannot maintain the 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.200 energy costs involved in keeping this level of consumption up 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:53.640 minute to minute. That is an incredible ability to have. 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.320 And you know is joking saying that we're morphizing this, 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.839 but we can't help it to project our own idea 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.560 onto this and say, could could be actually harness this 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.600 for ourselves. And we're gonna take a quick break and 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.679 when we get back, we'll talk about this possibility of 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:16.880 humans hibernating. All right, we're back, So human hibernation. There 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.559 are two huge areas where we could use this. One, 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:24.760 of course, is space travel, because space is huge. It 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.080 takes a long time to get anywhere. With our current 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.320 understanding of how physics work and how a space propulsion 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.680 can work, they're very shortcuts in mind. But for the 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.520 most part, we're looking at long travels, travels in most 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.120 cases that are longer than the span of human lifetime. 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.760 So is there a way to suspend animation? Is there 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.640 a way to shut things down and preserve human life 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.079 across these vast distances, Because again, it's not only a 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:48.920 situation of like, oh, I don't want to sit there 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.839 and take that toes for you know, the length of 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.320 a journey. Again, hopefully they would have some quality European 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.960 board games aboard that space ship. But but then also 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:00.599 do we have the energy required in the resources to 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:04.560 keep people engaged in an everyday level of activity in 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.480 life over the course of a long voyage. Cheaper better 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.280 to turn them into low energy cargo for that duration. 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.000 The other huge area, of course is healthcare. All right, 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:17.800 so we have somebody who has a disease that cannot 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.000 yet be cured, or an injury that needs to be addressed, 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:23.199 Say someone's injured out in the middle of nowhere, and 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:26.000 you need to get them to a quality medical facility, 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.640 and it's going to be a day's journey or more. 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:30.760 I need to put them in a hibernated state, and 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.240 potentially you could take this low energy cargo move it 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.000 to the facility where they can actually treat the injury 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.680 and take care of things there. Another example is, say 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.080 someone suffered oxygen starvation to the brain through a stroke 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.439 or heart attack. They could actually be put into the 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:51.120 suspended animation and lower their oxygen to man and prevent 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.880 brain damage. Right. Time is of the essence in these situations. 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:56.760 So if you could shut things down and sort of 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.120 contain the situation just long enough to get in there 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.480 and do something about and that would be huge. So 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.160 it's one of those things where one of the ideas 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.400 is very far reaching and super future of mankind and 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:09.920 our most cosmic visions, and the other is every day 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:12.680 people having strokes every day and and what can we 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.200 do to mitigate that? Yeah, and at the crops of 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:19.240 this is our metabolic right, right, our basil metabolic right, 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.160 which is pretty standard in humans. We don't have these 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:25.120 tip offs and our circadian rhythms to say, hey, guess what. 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.360 We're taking it down to the studs today. Go in 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:30.840 your cave. Um, we're pretty regular when it comes there 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:34.600 as basil metabolic rate unless you're like a super yogi, right, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:37.160 and you can you can tinker with it a bit. 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.360 You could, you know, decent parlor tricks and opportun you 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.120 were dead for eighteen hours or something when in fact 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:45.400 you were not, but you had again taken down your 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.400 breathing and your heart rate. Okay, so beyond a yogi, 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.800 what are we thinking about here? Well, they're basically looking 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.920 at ways to either use temperature or chemicals to force 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.800 a hibernative state on human beings. And we are certainly 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.360 not there yet, but but a number of experiments have 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.560 been conducted. Mostly these are involving animals, and we're looking 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.560 at ways, all right, can we take animals, either hibernating 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.360 animals or non hibernating animals, tinker with them either with 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:14.440 temperature or chemicals, and force a hibernative state. Biologists at 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.320 the Institute of Arctic Biology and Fairbanks, Alaska are particularly 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.520 interested in this. They do a lot of inquiries into 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.960 how Arctic ground squirrels behave and how the hibernate They 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:27.080 point out that artic ground squirrels, like us, like all animals, 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.440 produce a molecule called a denazine, which slows nerve cell activities. 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.240 So when a squirrel begins to hibernate, even when you 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.520 or I feel drowsy, that's what it is. That's what's 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:40.840 going on. So they buys a number of experiments where 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:43.920 they took non hibernating Arctic ground squirrels and they gave 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.880 them a substance that stimulated a denazine receptors in the brain. 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.400 And then they also gave a substance similar to caffeine 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.440 to arouse other squirrels. And I mean to rouse them 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.640 from there, not to yeah, yeah, not to arouse them sexually. 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:01.760 So in this same way that a denazine is involved 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.120 in that drowsy feeling you're getting, we're also counteracting it 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.480 when we run for that cup of coffee or that 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.520 discussing energy. That's right, I mean that splits the binding point, right. 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.160 It basically says, I guess what you're not going to 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:16.080 bind here, I'm caffeine. I'm waking this person back up, 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.160 which I thought was fascinating. I mean, we know, obviously, 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.120 we know that caffeine purchase up, but to know that 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.960 it works that specifically, and in these experiments they were 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:27.640 able to activate a denazine receptors in sufficient enough manner 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:31.360 to induce this hibernative state in these Arctic ground squirrels 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:34.360 during the hibernation season. A small experiment in some senses, 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:36.680 you know, they're not certainly it's not the same as say, oh, 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:38.960 we put a human into hibernative state. In this case, 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.320 we took the ground squirrel and we're able to induce hibernation. 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.160 And it's actually rather big. I mean, it's one of 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.600 the steps that could conceivably lead us to being able 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.640 to create this effect in humans. Right. Another really good 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.160 example is I keep thinking of it as pet cemetery. 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.520 I have to say the zombie dogs. This is from 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.520 the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh. 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:05.400 They put dogs in a state of suspended animation by 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.480 flushing out their bodies of blood, taking out their blood 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.480 and replacing it with forty five degree fahrenheit saline solution 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.480 that contained oxygen and glucose. The dogs went into cardiac 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:20.280 arrest and they clinically died right after three hours. The 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:24.640 team withdrew the solution, so they reversed this process. They 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.920 reintroduced the blood and then applied to gentle electric shock 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.360 and the dogs were raised from the dead. Yeah, there 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.080 was a similar experiment that was conducted by surgeon at 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.840 the Messacuset General Hospital in Boston, Like I'm in the 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.680 name of Hassan Alam, and he tested the technique about 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.120 two hundred times on pigs with a success rate, and 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.720 it basically involved putting the animal under draining out some blood. 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.240 In this case, he'd used cuts and major veins to 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.360 stimulate the multiple gunshot wounds, so he was trying to 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:56.520 create the situation of fatal or life threatening injury. And 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.000 then as the pig rapidly loses about half its blood 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.560 and there is a state of shock, dr Alam would 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.160 drain the blood store it before pumping this chilled organ 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.080 preservation fluid into its system. Than the animal's temperature falls 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.840 to about tend to be celsius until it enters this 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.080 state of profound hypothermia, and then later they are able 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.320 to put the blood back in and restore the pig 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.639 to life. Yeah, and again, it's not about terrorizing dogs 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:24.440 and pigs. It's about trying to create these trauma situations 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.800 that might happen in a hospital and giving doctors an 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:30.399 alternative in terms of trying to extend the life period 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.240 and be able to take out all the tools in 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:35.520 the arsenal to help that person. And speaking about apthermia, 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.280 it just made me think about cell biologist Mark Roth. 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.720 He has a great ted talk about this about suspended animation. 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.320 He may be the furthest along I think in trauma 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:49.000 medicine in terms of looking at ways that we can 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.760 play with hibernation. He was inspired by a skier in 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.560 Norway who was trapped in the icy waterfall for two 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.199 hours before she was extracted. She had no heartbeat and 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.240 she was thought to be frozen dead. Seven hours later, 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.600 still without a heartbeat, they brought her back to life 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:07.800 and she went on to be the head radiologist at 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:13.200 that hospital later on. Roth was always amazed by this, 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.480 and he wondered, if there's some agent in our bodies 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:18.879 that we make ourselves that we might be able to 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.119 regulate our own metabolic rate. Okay, So he was like, 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.560 is there some sort of flexibility here that we don't 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:30.600 know about that the skier unwittingly tapped into And normally 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:32.600 you would say this would be a fool's arranty even 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.520 try to mess with our metabolic rate in this way. 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:37.760 But he just kept picking up the problem, picking at 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.919 the problem, and he was watching like Nova or something 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.080 one night and they were talking about hydrogen sulfide and 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:46.600 he had that kind of ding ning moment where he's like, yes, 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.760 that's the thing in our body that we actually do produce, 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:54.320 albeit in small amounts. And he started to think, could 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.399 it cause oxygen to not bind like a kind of 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:03.560 game of musical chairs, leading to UH to not consume 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.200 that oxygen and then by reducing our demand for oxygen. 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:13.840 So he decides to start administering hydrogen sulfide to mice 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:15.840 and thin again and put it in the cold environment 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:17.520 because he thinks that there's something key to this cool 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.080 environment that happened with the skier. And indeed, then Mike 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:27.480 started stopped moving, appeared dead. Oxygen consumption rate fell by tenfold. 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:29.960 So this again, this is really important, right because we 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:33.000 don't have brains to starve from lack of oxygen. But 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:35.720 he says, this is the real kicker. That hydrogen sulfide 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.119 is rapidly metabolized. So if you were dosed with US 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.159 after six hours of d animation. All you would have 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.840 to do is be put out into room air and 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.520 warm up and you would be, in his words, none 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.560 the worse for wear. So and one model of heart 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.359 attack animals were given the hydrogen sulfide and they showed 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.560 a seventy percent reduction and heart damage compared to those 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:00.800 who got the standard of care that you and I 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.119 were to receive if we were to have a heart 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:06.280 attack here today. And the same is true for organ failures. 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:07.920 So when you have a loss of function and going 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.919 to poor profusion of kidney or liver, you have damage 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:15.400 that suffered. So in two he started human trials and 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:17.760 he says that we're on the path of really understanding 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:21.520 this metabolic flexibility and the not too distant future we 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.119 could have e m T s actually giving people this 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:29.359 hydrogen is fullified and extending the their lives possibly you know, 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:31.959 so you know, if you were in an emergency situation, 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.000 you're being transported, you might be able to be put 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.520 under in this suspended animation and not have any ill 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.200 effects to your tissue. Well, that one of the take 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.879 comes here for me is that suspended animation induced human hibernation. 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.200 It may look easy in some of our sci fi visions, 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:48.000