Suspended animation of humans for real now.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2224004-exclusive-humans-placed-in-suspended-animation-for-the-first-time/?utm_campaign=onesignal&utm_medium=alert&utm_source=editorial

He mentioned we are not trying to sent people to Saturn but that could be one use for this technology which of course needs refining as this was only the first step.

@sonhouse said
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2224004-exclusive-humans-placed-in-suspended-animation-for-the-first-time/?utm_campaign=onesignal&utm_medium=alert&utm_source=editorial

He mentioned we are not trying to sent people to Saturn but that could be one use for this technology which of course needs refining as this was only the first step.

I hate to say this but somehow I very much doubt this alone would allow people to stay in suspended animation for very long as in the months required to go to Saturn etc. without dire health effects.

My personal idea on this is to first genetically modifying people to have the biology more like the wood frogs with their ability to be frozen and then recovered.

@sonhouse said
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2224004-exclusive-humans-placed-in-suspended-animation-for-the-first-time/?utm_campaign=onesignal&utm_medium=alert&utm_source=editorial

He mentioned we are not trying to sent people to Saturn but that could be one use for this technology which of course needs refining as this was only the first step.

I didn't follow the link, but I can guess that it involves cooling people down and replacing their blood with saline. I think the major applications are for surgery where the heart has to be stopped for extended periods. I think there's limits on how long one can do this for.

@DeepThought
And that limit has not been studied it seems. And maybe it never will be due to ethical concerns.
I guess they can do research on animals though.

@deepthought said
I didn't follow the link, but I can guess that it involves cooling people down and replacing their blood with saline. I think the major applications are for surgery where the heart has to be stopped for extended periods. I think there's limits on how long one can do this for.

That the required modification to the human cell membrane is obvious. What's not so obvious is what such a modification might do to the species.

Will we still be human?

@deepthought said
I didn't follow the link, but I can guess that it involves cooling people down and replacing their blood with saline. I think the major applications are for surgery where the heart has to be stopped for extended periods. I think there's limits on how long one can do this for.

Presumably you could supplement the saline with a cocktail containing glucose, hemoglobin or even synthetic red blood cells to deliver oxygen and nutrients.

@humy said
My personal idea on this is to first genetically modifying people to have the biology more like the wood frogs with their ability to be frozen and then recovered.

By which time they'll be more like frogs than humans.

We have brains, not merely central nervous systems.

@Shallow-Blue
Experiments like that are ongoing as we speak in China anyway. They are grafting in monkey genes into pigs to see if that can make pigs organ donors for humans with the idea of making the cells more human like and less likely to be rejected.
So far, not so good, the two pigs they did that too died within a week of birth.

https://www.newsweek.com/pig-monkey-chimera-china-1476162

@sonhouse said
@Shallow-Blue
Experiments like that are ongoing as we speak in China anyway.

That says enough. Next up (yours...): rhino horn.

@Shallow-Blue
Well the work the Chinese are doing in gen mod is trying to do something significantly more valuable than Rhino horns for low sex drive.
For now they are failing but you can never tell what door research will open up from such failures.

@sonhouse

Let's hope they have pleasant dreams !

@ogb
The Chinese government didn't like what he was doing and I think he is in jail as we speak. That won't stop less scrupulous scientists from doing genetic engineering on humans, the cat is out of the bag and no amount of squishing will get that particular bit of toothpaste back in the tube. Somewhere, some time there will be a pig that can climb trees......