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For a long time, animals have many abilities that humans envy.

For example, the ability to breathe in water, the ability to fly in the air, and the powerful ability to regenerate severed limbs.

These abilities belonged to the power of gods in ancient times.

In modern times, human beings have become the overlords of the earth by relying on their IQs. They go to the sky and enter the sea, omnipotent, so they no longer long for the abilities of fish and birds.

Although the ability to regenerate severed limbs, humans still cannot do it.

But with powerful artificial prosthetics, geckos are no longer the envy and hatred of humans.

And when human beings start the space age and move towards the stars and the sea.

They found that another special ability of animals has become very practical.

That is the ability to hibernate.

Hibernation is a fairly common ability in the animal kingdom, similar to the prevalence of stoning nuts in primates.

Every winter on this planet, dozens of species slump into a state of unconsciousness.

This state greatly suppresses their bodies' desire for food and air.

And when spring came and they quickly rejuvenated, the animals showed no signs of muscle atrophy, malnutrition, or illness from prolonged immobility.

Animals have amply demonstrated that they can switch seamlessly between high and low power modes to survive when the environment gets tough.

Not only animals, but bacteria that like warm and humid weather also hibernate in winter. They can even hibernate under the Arctic ice for millions of years, waiting for the moment when the glaciers melt and life revives.

For animals and bacteria, hibernation is a survival instinct in harsh environments.

The ancestors of Homo sapiens not only live in warm temperate tropical regions, do not have to deal with harsh natural conditions, but also quickly developed a big killer such as IQ.

As top predators, humans can deal with any prey, there are no natural enemies at all, and there is no need to hide through hibernation.

Hibernating for several months is very inefficient for humans, and it is far less profitable than grazing cattle and sheep in winter.

Over time, if you don't use it, you will retreat. This ability will be eliminated in the natural evolution.

It wasn't until humans needed to spend a long night in space that they suddenly remembered how useful the ability to hibernate is.

Scientists have been working hard to try to send humans into space and even colonize Mars.

Unfortunately, humans are a rather difficult species.

As large endothermic animals, humans have extremely active brains and consume large amounts of food, water and oxygen in the course of their daily survival.

All these costs make it difficult to design a spacecraft light enough to realize the 225 million-kilometer round trip between Mars and Earth.

According to the eating habits of astronauts on the International Space Station, a four-person crew will need at least 11 tons of food to complete the 1,100-day Mars round-trip mission.

4 people, 3 years of survival, the weight of the food alone is close to 10 times the weight of the Mars rover, and this is the largest load that humans have been able to land on Mars so far.

Add in all the other necessities, as well as the engine and tools needed to set up camp, and the whole weight comes up to a dire figure.

Calculated according to this standard, a fully fueled Mars spacecraft can easily weigh more than 330 tons when it leaves the Earth's atmosphere.

This is much heavier than the combined weight of two adult blue whales.

How can such a massive spacecraft generate all the power it needs for the round trip?

It is simply beyond human imagination, and also beyond the limit of human's current power system.

Of course, there is a very intuitive solution to this problem that anyone who has seen a sci-fi movie can tell.

That is to slow down the metabolism of the crew, so that they only need to consume a minimum amount of resources during transportation, which can save time and effort, and greatly save weight.

If astronauts could stay cold for most of their journey to Mars, the weight of resources used to sustain life could be reduced by more than 60%.

And cryogenics can help astronauts ward off some serious health problems, like radiation, as well as the psychological hazards of extreme boredom and loneliness.

Be aware that in the dark of space, people lose real-time communication.

Many people may think that reading a lot of books is enough, but in the boring day-to-day travel, reading books can quickly become boring.

A common scene in science fiction films is that an astronaut lies in a sarcophagus-like hibernation cabin and spends a long journey in space.

Their hearts only beat 3 times per minute, and their body temperature hovered at 2.78 degrees Celsius, but they were still able to survive. They had the tenacious vitality of archaea, and after opening the hibernation chamber, they miraculously returned to normal without any problems with their bodies.

This leads to a crucial question.

How on earth can humans safely de-energize a human body, bringing it close to death.

Then, how about bringing him back to life as needed?

Early in the research, scientists saw some promise in cryotherapy.

Hypothermia is a medical technique in which people who have experienced cardiac arrest are cooled, typically with cooling fluids intravenously, until their internal temperature drops to as low as 31.7C.

This lowers their metabolism so much that their cells can operate with about 30 percent less oxygen and energy.

Hypothermia can be life-saving for patients whose blood flow is reduced and the damaged body is struggling to heal.

Patients usually remain in this hypothermic state for only a day or two, mainly because the cold triggers intense shivering that must be controlled with strong sedatives and neuromuscular blocking agents.

But scientists have found a few rare cases where some patients can remain cold for up to two weeks.

So they started discussing how to keep this state as long as possible.

Unfortunately, in the in-depth study of cryotherapy, we encountered an unavoidable problem.

Drugs used to control tremors can also stop people from breathing, comatose astronauts will have to be intubated to stay alive, and the needles needed to keep IV fluids up increase the chances of infection.

The ideal alternative would be for astronauts to swallow a pill and lie down for a long, cold slumber, during which they can breathe on their own.

It may seem like a fantasy, but this scene is familiar to most people.

This is the hibernation ability of the animal kingdom.

Scientists began to imagine what it would be like to learn this ability from our close relatives, hibernating animals.

Maybe be able to adjust your brain and body, go into hibernation, and solve the problem of space travel once and for all.

It's a pity that the research in this area has not been smooth, and it hasn't set off a big wave.

NASA in Eagle Country has been funding related projects, and has not heard any useful progress so far.

Therefore, when Wei Kang saw that his R\u0026D personnel had made a breakthrough, he suddenly lost his composure.

"Is the secret of animal hibernation discovered?"

"Or is there new hope for the realization of human hibernation?"

There were waves of turmoil in his heart, and he couldn't wait to watch it.

"The research team obtained a very low-level squirrel that can hibernate, and then used microdialysis technology to observe and study it, and made some new discoveries about hibernating animals."

"Microdialysis allows tiny tubes to be inserted under the animal's skull to collect samples of neurochemicals for in-depth study."

"This process usually leaves a scar where the tube meets the brain, but when the polar squirrels came out of hibernation and woke up, the researchers were surprised to find that the scar was gone, not even where the probe had been inserted. "

"This infers that hibernation protects the brain from damage, a state of spontaneous protection in animals."

"If this state could be replicated in humans, potentially slowing down aging and repairing itself, it would be of enormous value."

"The research team conducted an in-depth analysis of the hibernation phenomenon of polar squirrels and found that activating A1 adenosine receptors in polar squirrels will induce hibernation."

"But this drug has a major flaw. It needs to be injected into the brain of the squirrel to work. If it is injected intravenously, the drug will affect the heart, causing the heart to slow down until it stops completely and cannot wake up from hibernation."

"The research team combined the drug with a macromolecular A1 adenosine antagonist to create an intravenous cocktail and tested it on rats that could not voluntarily hibernate."

"The experiment successfully put the rats into a low-temperature hibernation state, and the heart was not affected, and finally recovered from hibernation in a healthy state."

"After injecting the drug mixture, the internal temperature of the rats dropped to 30-32 degrees Celsius, the heart rate slowed down by 51%, the oxygen consumption decreased significantly, and the rats changed from using carbohydrates and fats to generate heat to only using fats, and entered a low-energy state. Consuming hibernation."

"After the rat woke up, a series of inspections were performed on it, and no damage was found. At the same time, some minor injuries to the body were also repaired during hibernation."

"Rats were given high doses of radiation during hibernation and found that when the cells became less active, they developed a significant resistance to radiation and began to repair the damage caused by radiation exposure."

"Rats irradiated while hibernating had a higher survival rate than rats irradiated while fully awake."

"Additionally, scientists have discovered fossils of a long-extinct human species that hibernated in caves around 430,000 years ago."

"It can be seen that the human genome may also have the same hibernation control gene."

"Currently, the project team is screening the rat genome, hoping to find genes that induce hibernation and regulate body temperature, and conduct further experiments on large and medium-sized animals."

"This project aims to explore the plasticity of body temperature in mammals, as well as the profound evolutionary adaptation for hibernation, and explore the feasibility of this research in enabling human hibernation during long-distance travel."

After reading the project report, Wei Kang let out a long breath, feeling a sense of loss and relief at the same time.

"It turns out that they just discovered the key drug molecule that can stimulate hibernation in rats, and they want to further find the genome that regulates hibernation in animals, and then apply this discovery to humans."

"Sure enough, it is still very difficult to allow human beings to have the ability to hibernate. At present, it is only the first step, and there are 99 steps to follow."

"Even so, this is a very pioneering and innovative research, and I have no reason not to strongly support it."

"As long as there are any discoveries, it's worth the extra money."

"If humans can really realize the dream of hibernation, interstellar travel will not be far away."

"Manned landing on the moon is already a step in the door, and it is likely to be realized this year, so the next goal will be to go to Mars."

"If human beings can hibernate before this, the journey to Mars will surely enter a new track of rapid development."

Thinking of this, Wei Kang couldn't help feeling emotional.

Of course, he is also very clear that this is destined to be a difficult road, and the research of the project team has just begun.

Hibernation has only been realized in lab mice, but it is still a long way to go before it can be realized in humans.

You must know that the human body is much more complicated than that of a mouse. It is not just about injecting drugs into the body and letting the mouse sleep by itself.

The whole process requires drugs, hibernation chamber, life support system, monitoring system, and wake-up mechanism to work at the same time to form a complete hibernation system.

In order to develop a truly usable hibernation capsule, maintain astronauts’ low energy consumption for several months or even years, wake them up at an appropriate time, and put them into work in a short period of time, it requires strong scientific research capabilities and various high-tech All-round integration, can there be a slight possibility of realization.

That is to say, Sanqing, with strong strength in both drug research and development and medical device research and development, can start such a long-term project that takes a long time and invests a lot.

"The road is obstructed and long, but if you walk, it will come. If you walk without stopping, the future can be expected!"

Wei Kang silently read this sentence in his heart, looked at the person in charge of the project, and found a surprising name.

"Zhang Li? Isn't she working on a brain-computer interface project with Chen Yiqing?"

"That's right. Under Chen Yiqing's cultivation and training with brain-computer excuses, she has finally grown up and has her own research and development project."

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but feel relieved, as if he saw a verdant cabbage in front of his eyes, growing out of the ground by itself, and growing extremely strong.

"Under the age of 30, I made such a discovery, found my own path, and persisted in going on. It is really a dreadful future generation, and the future can be expected!"

"Old Chen is cultivating successors for himself. He really knows the truth and benefits the company."

The more Wei Kang thought about it, the more beautiful he became, and he couldn't help grinning.

For a long time, Sanqing has had close cooperation with the space center.

As a medical boss who has been to space and stayed on the space station for a short time, no one understands the significance of space hibernation better than him.

As long as this research continues, humans are likely to achieve true hibernation within the next 10 years.

This timeline fits perfectly with the space center's plan to send humans to Mars within 10 to 15 years.

There is no doubt that the prevalence of hibernation in mammals, as well as related fossils, indicate that the ancestors of humans are actually hibernating animals.

It's just that in the long evolution process of tens of thousands of years, human beings no longer need this ability, so they lost it.

But temporary loss does not mean permanent loss.

This gene still exists in everyone's ancestral gene sequence, but it is no longer expressed.

With human technology, sooner or later this ancient gene will be awakened and given a new mission.