Do not cause my faint little heart to flutter so! I've always said I'd marry for money and then have myself cloned and the organs harvested so as to ensure a long life.
Muaha. Kidding. Kind of.
As an afterthought, I think there's a lot more to this than 'stasis sleep cool'. The cells in these animals stop reproducing, stop dying, stop everything. They just... Chill there. Imagine someone falling victim to a brain aneurysm or a stroke - with a simple injection, their body simply stops, long enough to get them to the hospital and repair the damage.
Imagine the survival rate from risky surgeries if the actual risk of cells dying from an accident like a vein being cut or artery being pierced was gone. Meesh.
Muaha. Kidding. Kind of.
As an afterthought, I think there's a lot more to this than 'stasis sleep cool'. The cells in these animals stop reproducing, stop dying, stop everything. They just... Chill there. Imagine someone falling victim to a brain aneurysm or a stroke - with a simple injection, their body simply stops, long enough to get them to the hospital and repair the damage.
Imagine the survival rate from risky surgeries if the actual risk of cells dying from an accident like a vein being cut or artery being pierced was gone. Meesh.
Man, thats nothing compared to what this species of Frog accomplishes 
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7735
with video!
http://video.google.com/videosearch?client...ed=0CBsQqwQwAw#
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7735
with video!
http://video.google.com/videosearch?client...ed=0CBsQqwQwAw#
Roth's work was big in the field about four years ago. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/308/5721/518.
Also published in scientific america: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1593465...Pubmed_RVDocSum
Sort of amusing CNN has finally gotten around to it.
Whats more interesting is the work he's doing with the worm C. elegans, a genetically tractable model system, trying to link the phenomenon where worm embryos literally stop development (embryonic diapause) to suspended animation. If the genetic pathways are linked, and there are candidate orthologues in Mouse (and humans) then this would be quite significant.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=A...cda3ad81dbda828
More intriguing are animals that can survive in the cold vacuum of space, be recovered, and then still give birth to viable offspring.
Enter the water bear (no not Ashteru):
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1469...ace-vacuum.html
These things are pretty amazing.
Apart from the 'how can a human survive without oxygen' component of suspended animation is 'how can cells survive while dessicated' and some of the luminaries in the field, in particular Doug Koshland are working on that as we speak.
Also published in scientific america: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1593465...Pubmed_RVDocSum
Sort of amusing CNN has finally gotten around to it.
Whats more interesting is the work he's doing with the worm C. elegans, a genetically tractable model system, trying to link the phenomenon where worm embryos literally stop development (embryonic diapause) to suspended animation. If the genetic pathways are linked, and there are candidate orthologues in Mouse (and humans) then this would be quite significant.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=A...cda3ad81dbda828
More intriguing are animals that can survive in the cold vacuum of space, be recovered, and then still give birth to viable offspring.
Enter the water bear (no not Ashteru):
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1469...ace-vacuum.html
These things are pretty amazing.
Apart from the 'how can a human survive without oxygen' component of suspended animation is 'how can cells survive while dessicated' and some of the luminaries in the field, in particular Doug Koshland are working on that as we speak.
