|
: This article is about a suspended animation used in medical context. For the music album see Suspended Animation. Suspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold is used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use of this process has led to the developing science of cryonics. Outside of science fiction, the technique has never been applied to humans for more than a few hours. Placing astronauts in suspended animation has been proposed as one way for an individual to reach the end of an interplanetary or interstellar journey, avoiding the necessity for a gigantic generation ship; occasionally the two concepts have been combined, with generations of "caretakers" supervising a large population of frozen passengers. Since the 1970s hypothermia has been induced for some open-heart surgeries as an alternative to heart-lung machines. Hypothermia though only provides a limited amount of time to operate and there has been some evidence of risk of tissue and brain damage.
Recent experiments An article in the April 22, 2005 issue of the scientific journal Science, reports success towards inducing suspended animation in mice. The findings are significant, as mice do not hibernate in nature. The breakthrough was achieved when the laboratory of Mark Roth placed mice in a chamber containing 80 ppm hydrogen sulfide, and the test was conducted for 6 hours. The mice's core body temperature dropped to 13 degrees Celsius and metabolism, as assayed by carbon dioxide production and oxygen use, decreased 10-fold. In July 2005 scientists at the University of Pittsburgh's Safar Center for Resuscitation Research announced they had managed to bring dogs back to life with no brain damage by draining the blood out of the dog's bodies and putting an ice cold solution into their circulatory systems, which in turn keeps the bodies alive in stasis. After 3 hours of being clinically dead, the dogs were revived by delivering an electric shock to their hearts. The heart started pumping the blood around the frozen body, and the dogs were brought back to life. Scientists hope to begin human testing and have already begun discussions with hospitals to use "suspended animation" if everything else fails. Safar Research also pioneered modern C.P.R. (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) techniques. While most of the dogs were fine, a few of the revived dogs had severe nervous and movement coordination damage, causing them to be mentally disabled, and demonstrating behavior that was deemed "zombie" like. This has been pushed further by the media which named them "zombie dogs".• There is concern that this technique, if used on humans could result in brain damage similar to those suffered by some of the dogs in the experiment. Safar Research believes that the process is merely another way to give "more time" to the operation table, as vital repairs could be made when patients are in stasis: emergency operations fail frequently simply because of the lack of time, not the lack of expertise. On January 20, 2006, doctors from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced they had placed pigs in suspended animation, and then revived them with a 90 percent success rate.• On October 9, 2006, they announced they had been able to hibernate mice using hydrogen sulphide, a toxic gas.• Suspended animation in fiction Suspended animation is also a common device in fiction used to transport individuals from one time period to another, as in The Man Who Awoke, by Laurence Manning. In some cases, this would be a terminally ill person awaiting discovery of a cure for a currently incurable condition, as in A World Out of Time, by Larry Niven and The Twilight Zone episode Quarantine. Another common use is in space voyages, where the crew is put in hyper-sleep while the ship travels to its destination, saving food and water as well as the crew's lifespans, as in the films 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien and Planet of the Apes. In the Inquisitor War series of novels set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe characters are kept in suspended animation in stasis chest designed for the long-term storage of food. Their last thoughts as they are suspended remain with them for the entire duration, being either a torture, maddening or a blessing depending on the thought. Many of the deities of the Cthulhu Mythos, such as the titular Cthulhu himself, are known to be in long impermanent deaths or sleeps which correspoind with the modern idea of suspended animation. Equally gazing upon the Great Old One Ghatanothoa is so hideous that anyone who gazes upon it (or even a perfect replica) is petrified into a living mummy. The victim is permanently immobilized--the body taking on the consistency of leather and the internal organs and brain preserved indefinitely--yet remains fully aware. See also | ||||||||
|
| |||||||||
 |
|
| |