X-Message-Number: 26224
From: "Igor Artyuhov" <>
References: <>

Subject: Buying Time in Suspended Animation: Cover Story in the Scientific 
American June 2005 issue
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 13:17:55 +0400

Buying Time in Suspended Animation

By Mark B. Roth and Todd Nystul

An ability to put the human body on hold could safeguard the critically
injured or preserve donor organs for transport. Does the power to reversibly
stop our biological clocks already lie within us?


Fantasy writers have long been captivated by the possibility of preserving
human life in a reversible state of suspended animation. In fictional tales
the technique enables characters to "sleep" through centuries of
interstellar travel or terrestrial cataclysms, then awaken unaffected by the
passing of time. These stories are great fun, but their premise seems
biologically far-fetched. In reality, we humans do not appear capable of
altering our rate of progression through life. We cannot pause the bustling
activity of our cells any more than we can stop breathing for more than a
few minutes without sustaining severe damage to vital organs.

Nature, however, abounds in organisms that can and do reversibly arrest
their essential life processes, in some cases for several years at a time.
Scientists describe these phenomena by a variety of terms--quiescence,
torpor, hibernation, among others--but all represent different degrees of
suspended animation, a dramatic reduction of both energy production
(metabolism) and energy consumption (cellular activity). What is more,
organisms in this state enjoy extraordinary resistance to environmental
stresses, such as temperature extremes, oxygen deprivation and even physical
injury....continued at Scientific American Digital

(http://sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000B97C7-074E-1
289-BC2083414B7F0000)

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