Suspended Animation A Reality? Suspended Animation Q/A

[GlobalOSSA 0]

I was reading an article on suspended animation (when animals go into like hibernation - some even "die" and are resurrected :/) and how scientists are trying to find how they can give this ability to humans. It was talking about how a certain chemical, Hydrogen Sulfate, could cause animals (when given in non-lethal doses) to go into hibernation or even "die"! Within a day or so, the scientists would rose the animal. An example the article described was how by lowering the oxygen content of the atmosphere while applying Hydrogen Sulfate allowed a field mouse to cease breathing and stop its heart (essentially it died) - but it was woken later good as new! Imagine having victims of a car accident be left to die, only to be woken later! The article was pretty short and not so sweet, but is anyone else interested in this subject? I'm doing some googling on this, posts, plz!

[Mahanon 0]

Yes, yes this is an interesting topic, suspended animation would be something to have around but I don't really know about people that died in a car accident being revived, that would be rather difficult considering that they died in a car crash. Suspended animation usually intales that a person is first placed into a state of suspended animation and that after the alotted amount of time passed they are then revived as if only being asleep.

[Kyole 0]

Ive seen how this kinda teqnique was performed by magicians. But what theyd do is use a fly and place him in a container with dry ice in it and the fly would be forced to inhale the carbon dioxide slowing down its heart but not killing it. then theyd place it somewhere. Next walk up to someone then pick up the fly andact like they just found it there but really they were the oens that placed it there. Then they placed the fly in their hand and acted like it was putting the life back into it when all that was really happening was the magicians hand was warming the fly back up and get the flys heart pumping regular speed again. Then the fly would get up and fly off like nothing happened. it was pretty cool. Ive never tried it myself though

[GlobalOSSA 0]

What the article meant was that when the ppls died, the doctors would heal them then revive their healed bodies.

[Qop 0]

I'd like to say 2 things on the subject:

 

1.

Suspended animation is real. I have been fascinated for quite some time now and have witnessed it. I raised 3 kinds of animals: Sea-Monkeys, brine shrimps (essentially the same) and Triops.

 

Brineshrimps(artemia to be precise)

These are little shrimpies (as the name suggests) which happily swim around in the great salt lakes in the VS. They lay eggs which can stay in hibernation

period for years. And years. And...some more years. Until finally, the right requirements are met, and the egg starts to hatch, spawning a fresh and healthy

little brine shrimp, ready to repeat this action. (Note that this period is flexible, not fixed. It can take 10 years for an egg to hatch, or it takes a week.)

 

 

Triops

Another interesting bloke is the triops (tri = three, ops = eye). This also shows a better case of hibernation.

 

In the spring, rain starts to fall in areas where it is normally drie most of the times. Within the dry earth are small eggs from the triops. They hatch when in

contact with water. The rain continues to fall during a long period, forming a big pool, or temporary pond if you will. Triops swim, grow, mate and lay eggs

happily here for around 50 days. Then they die.

 

Suddenly, just after the dying of the triops, the dry season starts, drainging the pool from its last water. 'Damn', you think, 'waht about the poor eggs?'. Don't worry, they're in a happy state of hibernation! Until next year, or the year after, or a lot of years, until the right amount of rain will fall on them so they can hatch and breed as they're ancestors have done.

 

Sounds pretty dumb way of living, huh? Nevertheless, Triops have continued to survive since the Triassic period (yes, that's 220 million years) practically without changing or evolving. The only species of which I know that has survived longer is the dragonfly, with 320 million years and running.

 

This is a brine shrimp

 

A sea-monkey in all it's glory

 

And the fearsome Triops

 

2.

The second thing I wanted to say is shorter but also more interesting concerning the topic.

 

When a person accidently slips under the ice, first you try to get out again. If you do not succeed in doing this within 3-6 minutes, your body takes preventative measurements: it start with shutting down blood supply to non-vital parts of the body. After another 2-3 minutes, it shuts down your senses and consiousness. Your speed with which your blood streams through your body is reduced to almost 0 km/h. Your heartrate is decreased to about 1 beat every 2 minutes. Your whole body slips into a sort of super-rest state, in which you consume so little energy and oxygen, you are capable of staying quite alive for a while under the ice (think about 3-6 hours, if not more).

 

That's why it scares the friggen daylight out of people when they pull a ice-cold, stiff-as-a-board -supposed- corpse out of the water which suddenly seems te be alive and jumping! Rushing with the body to safety, warmth, aministrating CPR, etc.

 

So you see, your body, after all, is still the best method to save yourself, wether from disease or coldness, when it comes hard-to-hard, it knows how to deal with situations.

 

NOTE: although it's quite remarkable what happens, it also could happen that, because of the lack of blood, a limb (or more) is frozen off. But what is a limb for a life?

 

I hope I've explained it clearly, and at least proven a bit that hibernation with people isn't that strange...

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Two words... Austin Powers...No seriously I think it's a technology that'll eventually be conceived in a logical way to be used on humans. Wether or not I feel it SHOULD be used is another thing as it seems pointless/dangerous depending on how people used it. Sure they could put someone into S.A. who has a lethal disease hoping to revive them when they can be cured...but what if they release other illnesses onto the future populace that had long sicne been thought extinct... just some food for thought. Either way I don't see alot of functional uses for such a technology..but thats just my opinion

[qwijibow 0]

There was a recent slashdot article, page in the nottingham free newspaper "Metro"They took a dog, drained its blood, and filled its veins with ice cold salt water. the dog dies of hypothermia before oygen starvation can do any damage.3 hours later, they gave the dog 100% pure oxygen, drained the salt water, and replaced it with oxygenated warm blood and adrenalin.. and re-started the heart with an electric shock.The dog was dead for 3 hours... no heart beat, no blood, no brain activity.after revival, the dog suffered no brain damage, and lived un harmed.i dont imagine having your blood drained, and ice cold salt water injected can be very pleasent..... but it works.then plan to test on humans within a year or 2.they are planning to use the technology for (no not space travel) medical purposes.anyone shot, or stabbed, and in danger of bleading to death can be put preserved, operated on (fixing any broken veins / ateries) before beeing brought back to life.were not talking about bringing frozen bacteria back to life, this is a whil huge dog !

[Herbert1405241469 0]

I remember talking about this in one of my highschool classes... Or maybe it was the Discovery Channel... I dunno. Anyway, the problem with the "Freezing Method" would be the fact that humans are approximately 70 percent water. Water expands when it freezes, so the cells that compose the human body expand. Imagine putting a paper cup in the freezer that is full of water. When you take it out, you'll notice that the bottom of the cup is most likely ripped. This cellular damage is what hinders successful suspended animation.They figure if they can get the freezing process down to a perfect method, then it might be possible. Hearing the story about replacing the dog blood seems to me that they have found new ways of achieving this method, and might be on the right track. (Though I would hope that the person is unconsious when they do this )I personally wouldn't want to be suspended for any length of time unless I had some sort of disease that wouldn't be curable through modern day methods... The reason being that I would only wake up to higher taxes, larger populations, and fatter people

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Dont forget that most people you know would be dead, unless of course they were frozen too...Plus it'd be gross if you got reanimated and one day found out you were dating your great great great great grand daughter or something...haha

[madcrow 0]

I would think space travel would be the main reason to do this. I can't see any real medical reason except for thatr same bizzare reason they give for cyrogenic freezing which always struck me as crud.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Which reason struck you as crud? If its the "waiting for a cure to a disease" one it makes sense to me...just because if I knew I could live through years of pain then die...or freeze and wake up in 50-100 years and be cured instantly and live a healthy life...I know which I would choose :lol:Oh and kudos on the space flight concept, that never even occured to me at all. It seems like it would indeed be a very viable solution for the whole "other planets are frickin far away" problem...assuming you could find volunteers for it

[Herbert1405241469 0]

Dont forget that most people you know would be dead, unless of course they were frozen too...

 

Plus it'd be gross if you got reanimated and one day found out you were dating your great great great great grand daughter or something...haha

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

To digress: You run the same risk in reverse if one were to time travel. It'd be gross if you were dating your great great great great grand mother or something

 

Going back to the topic, and curing diseases. Think what it would be like if suddenly we had a bunch (any amount, even in the thousands) of people from the dark ages, after being cryogenically frozen, come back to life in our day, all ready for a cure for, oh I don't know, some extinct disease like smallpox or something. Wouldn't it be rather disasterous for this sudden surge of diseased people to come back to today?

 

The only way to possibly prevent any epidemics would be to ensure that the cryogenically frozen person be isolated from everybody until (s)he is completely purged from any bacterial or viral infections. But you have to remember that the bacteria that was on/in the person was also frozen, and thus, preserved. So a quarantine period would be necessary.

[qwijibow 0]

They dont freese them, they just lower the body core tempreture to approx 4 degree's.no cell damage.Did anyone actually RTFA ? (read the fluffy article, lol)This actually works, they did it to a dog, and revived it 4 hours later.A lot can be done in 4 hours for someone bleeding to death from a knife wound.Someone who would normally die in an ambulance on the way to hospital could be cooled long enough to arive at the hospital, and have arteries and veins fixed.They arnt talking about suspended animation for years, or decades, or centuries.. just a few hours.

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

WTFA ( Where's the Full Article :rolleys: ) ? Can you gimme the link please? I want to read it.. rightaway :PThanks,m^e

[qwijibow 0]

sorry, ive lost the link, but here's part of it i saved.

Boffins create zombie dogsBy Nick Buchan of NEWS.com.au
June 27, 2005
From:

Eerie ... boffins have brought dead dogs back to life, in the name of science. SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.
Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre.

However rather than sending people to sleep for years, then bringing them back to life to benefit from medical advances, the boffins would be happy to keep people in this state for just a few hours,

But even this should be enough to save lives such as battlefield casualties and victims of stabbings or gunshot wounds, who have suffered huge blood loss.

During the procedure blood is replaced with saline solution at a few degrees above zero. The dogs' body temperature drops to only 7C, compared with the usual 37C, inducing a state of hypothermia before death.

Although the animals are clinically dead, their tissues and organs are perfectly preserved.

Damaged blood vessels and tissues can then be repaired via surgery. The dogs are brought back to life by returning the blood to their bodies,giving them 100 per cent oxygen and applying electric shocks to restart their hearts.

Tests show they are perfectly normal, with no brain damage.