What If You Hibernated for 100 Years?

Summary

In this video, the possibility of hibernating during a 100-year space journey to Alpha Centauri is explored. While animals enter hibernation to conserve energy, humans face significant challenges due to our physiology, such as difficulty lowering body temperature and avoiding tissue damage. Cryogenics might offer a solution, but even then, surviving such a journey could be hazardous due to muscle loss, energy depletion, and the potential dangers of prolonged inactivity. The video delves into these scientific obstacles and the evolving world that travelers would wake up to after a century in hibernation.

Takeaways

• 😀 Hibernation is a state where animals' body functions slow down to conserve energy during winter or when food is scarce.
• 😀 Humans are not naturally equipped to hibernate like animals, making it difficult to survive a 100-year space journey.
• 😀 Researchers believe that humans cannot lower their body temperature to the extreme levels required for true hibernation.
• 😀 Cryogenics, which involves replacing body fluids with anti-freezing agents, might offer a way for humans to survive long-term freezing without damage.
• 😀 While cryogenics has been tested on small tissue samples, the technology is still not advanced enough for humans to survive freezing for extended periods.
• 😀 The Earth will likely look very different when humans wake up after 100 years, with technological advancements and potential environmental changes.
• 😀 Environmental issues like climate change may result in drastic changes to Earth, making space travel a more appealing option for survival.
• 😀 If humans were to hibernate for long periods, they might experience significant muscle atrophy, weakening their bodies from inactivity.
• 😀 Animals like bears store enough fat before hibernating to survive without eating, but humans could face health risks like thickened arteries if they tried to do the same.
• 😀 The concept of long-term hibernation for humans is still more science fiction than reality, requiring significant advancements in medical technology to make it feasible.

Q & A

What is hibernation?

Hibernation is a prolonged resting state that animals enter during winter months or when food is scarce. During hibernation, an animal's body temperature, heart rate, and metabolism decrease significantly, entering a state known as torpor, where the animal is almost completely inactive.

Can humans hibernate for 100 years in space?

Humans are not naturally equipped for hibernation like some animals. While research suggests it is theoretically possible to induce a hibernation-like state in humans, we face challenges like the difficulty in lowering human body temperature to the levels necessary for hibernation, and the potential for cellular damage caused by freezing.

Why is lowering human body temperature to 0°C difficult?

Lowering human body temperature to 0°C (32°F) is difficult because our body mass and physiology make it challenging to achieve such extreme cooling. Unlike smaller animals such as rodents, which can cool down significantly, humans only experience a slight decrease in body temperature, making it hard to induce true hibernation.

What is the process of cooling, and how might it help with hibernation?

Cooling is a process used in some medical treatments, such as surgeries, where ice packs or cooled solutions are used to lower body temperature. This could theoretically help induce a hibernation-like state, though current methods can only sustain cooling for up to 14 days.

What is cryogenics, and how could it help humans survive long-term hibernation?

Cryogenics involves replacing normal body fluids with anti-freezing agents to prevent the formation of damaging ice crystals in cells during freezing. This method has been used successfully in preserving small tissues, and it might offer a way to safely preserve human bodies during long-term hibernation, although more research is needed.

What happens if ice crystals form inside cells during freezing?

If ice crystals form inside cells, they can rupture the cell walls, causing permanent damage. This is one of the main reasons freezing a human body without protection is not currently feasible for long-term hibernation.

Could hibernation actually slow aging in humans?

Research suggests that animals who hibernate for extended periods tend to live longer, possibly because hibernation slows down their biological processes. This raises the possibility that humans in hibernation could experience slowed aging, though this theory is still under investigation.

What might the world look like after 100 years in hibernation?

If humans were able to hibernate for 100 years, they would wake up in a world that might be very different. Advancements in technology, changes in societies, and potentially significant environmental shifts (such as those caused by climate change) could make the Earth nearly unrecognizable.

How have technological advancements changed the world in the last 100 years?

In the last 100 years, the world has seen the invention of numerous technologies, including talking movies, penicillin, helicopters, nuclear bombs, computers, and the internet. These advancements have revolutionized daily life, communication, and global industries.

Why might humans not survive a 100-year journey in space, even with hibernation?

Humans might not survive a 100-year space journey due to the physiological challenges involved in long-term hibernation. Our bodies are not built to sustain inactivity for such long periods, and without adaptations seen in hibernating animals, we would suffer from muscle atrophy, weakened immune systems, and other health issues.