Pack your bags because
you're traveling through space
to see Alpha Centauri.
There's just one problem.
It's going to take 100 years.
Is it at least possible to sleep on a trip?
Yeah, but get comfy because
you're going nighty-night
for an entire century.
So what is hibernation exactly?
You know, besides a really long nap?
It's a prolonged resting state
that animals enter
during winter months
or when food gets scarce.
During hibernation,
an animal’s body temperature,
heart rate and metabolism decrease.
A lot.
That's because the animal's body enters
a torpor state.
It's a deep sleep when the animal is
almost entirely inactive.
Like me, at the end of the day.
Now look,
I don't blame you
for wanting to sleep through the winter.
But 100 years in space
is another story entirely.
How would you even pull it off?
First, you'd have to induce hibernation,
which might get tricky.
See, lowering human body
temperature is harder
than you might think.
Researchers think that
because of our body mass,
we wouldn't be able to lower our body
temperature to 0 °C (32 °F)
as rodents do.
It turns out we're more like bears,
as our temperature only declines slightly.
But you might have a workaround.
Have you heard of the process
called cooling?
Hospitals use it to slow down
or stop the body's functions
during some surgeries.
Ice packs, coolers
or even a cooled saline solution directly
injected into your blood
can lower your temperature.
Then, you enter that torpor state
we talked about before.
But here's the problem.
We can only cool humans
for 14 days, tops.
So how do we keep you nice and
cozy for the other 36,000?
When you freeze,
ice crystals form deep inside your cells.
Once formed, these cell cycles
can rupture and cause permanent damage.
To get around this,
we’ll need to bring out the big guns.
Cryogenics.
This process involves
replacing your regular body fluids
with an anti-freezing agent.
And you know what?
It might work.
Scientists have used this technology
to freeze and,
more importantly,
unfreeze 50 mm (2 in) of tissue
without causing any damage.
Let's say we’ve got a cryogenic
setup on the ship.
Would it allow you to survive
your 100-year journey?
Research shows that animals
who spend more time hibernating
tend to live longer.
Yeah.
Hibernation could slow aging.
If that's the case,
you'd wake up in a new century.
Technology would have advanced,
societies would have evolved
and the environment would have changed.
When you woke up,
you'd be in a completely different world
that you may not recognize or understand.
Think about it.
In the last 100 years,
we saw the invention of talking movies,
penicillin, helicopters,
nuclear bombs,
credit cards,
seat belts, computers and the internet.
Wait, when were seat belts invented?
Wow, 1959.
So we created the nuclear bomb
before seat belts?
Okay.
A lot of stuff will change,
and the Earth won’t be
exactly like you remember it.
If there still is an Earth.
As climate change continues,
more and more environmental disasters
will occur.
Before you went into hibernation,
you were going to travel
to another planet.
Well, at least you won’t have to deal
with Earth's climate change, I guess.
But if I'm being honest,
I don't think you'd survive the trip.
You’re just not built for it.
Your body doesn't have the same
physiological adaptations
that allow animals
to maintain a state of torpor.
In reality,
attempting to hibernate like an animal
could be super dangerous.
For example,
a bear eats a large amount of food
before hibernating,
which allows it to store
enough energy to survive the winter.
If you tried to do the same thing,
your artery walls would thicken
and give you a big list of health problems.
A bear can remain
completely still for months,
but you would lose
muscle mass and strength
after just a week or two of inactivity.
This is why bedridden patients often
suffer from muscle atrophy and weakness.
So we've still got some work to do
before you can pull this off.
We humans just aren't
made to sleep that long.
But what if you took
that as a personal challenge?
What if you stopped sleeping entirely?
Well, that's a story
for another WHAT IF.