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Biotech Science

Sub-Zero Squirrels 66

Posted by michael from the squirrel-on-the-rocks dept.
DesertFalcon writes "There's a Wired article about squirrels in the Arctic whose body temperatures drop below freezing when they hibernate. Scientists have the goal of applying this to humans in the long run. Could this be the answer to problems with long-distance space travel?" We had a previous story on this.
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Sub-Zero Squirrels More

Sub-Zero Squirrels

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  • Supercooling (Score:2, Insightful)

    by penguinoid ( 724646 )
    Must be a different type of supercooling than I know about. Any disturbance would cause the supercooled liquid to freeze.
    • I would guess that it has nothing to do with supercooling. Human blood [madsci.org] freezes at -2 or -3 degrees. Slightly different chemistry could make the freezing point lower for the squirrels.
    • In that case, then, could you imagine what a strong, localized earthquake would do to the local squirrel population?

      It'd be like a bunch of icepacks with fur.

      I think the fact that supercooling proceeds to completion at all is a sign that there's something else going on.

  • Temperature is not an issue (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ptaff ( 165113 ) * on Thursday December 11, 2003 @11:40AM (#7690600) Homepage
    Could this be the answer to problems with long-distance space travel?


    We're talking about -3C, it's not that fantastic. Some fish already survive in waters colder than 0C, and Girl scouts [girlscouts.org] already know about it :)

    And if a space habitat can heat up to 270K, well I guess it can heat up to 288K. It's not that different compared to the one digit Kelvin temperature in space.

    Hibernation is the real issue here.

    • Re:Temperature is not an issue (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Acidic_Diarrhea ( 641390 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @12:02PM (#7690826) Homepage Journal
      You may be completely correct. The only possible explanation of why this is more interesting than those fish (and I may be off in left field with this - so correct me if I am) aren't mammals. A squirrel is interesting because it is a mammal. Obviously the hibernation situation is the big step but I guess I see this as proof of concept that an animal similar to humans, moreso than fish anyway, can survive below freezing. Thanks for your comment nonetheless.

    • I would think the problem would be warming up after the hibernation period was over. The squirrel has to retain enough stored energy to complete this process.

      Come to think of it, as long as its body fluid doesn't freeze, the required energy remains minimal - melting is what hogs up so much energy. Now, the supercooling without freezing; that suggests that squirrel blood has a very low concentration of dissolved solids - or, like a previous poster suggested, has some kind of antifreeze in there.

      Because

      • Re:Temperature is not an issue (Score:5, Informative)

        by curious.corn ( 167387 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @02:47PM (#7692488)
        No, the problem is that solid water has a larger volume that it's liquid form. Freeze an organism containing water and you'll rip cellular stuctures apart. There wouldn't be any problem if the extreme cold ground matabolism to a halt because given decent enough thermal conditions some reactions would occour naturally and provide enough heat to provide for the more delicate ones. Unfortunately you can't just shut down before anoxia because water crystals destroy those delicate biochemical reactors that keep you alive (that's the reason frozen fruit looses it's consistency and taste when frozen).
    • The article mentions other uses of this concept than just cryogenic freezing and space travel. Those are merely the two that our fellow /.ers have focused on (go figure).

      By replicating the squirrel's trick, transplant organs would have a longer shelf life.

      Use your imagination (for something other than sci fi). There are plenty of sane scientific uses for this concept, that still guarantee keeping a steady -3 degrees.

      Then again, there's cryogenic freezing, and that's pretty much what I'm living to w

  • PETA objects... wow (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11, 2003 @11:42AM (#7690628)
    It seems interesting to me that a large portion of the article is related to PETA's objections to the program. I've done research into PETA for a school project... At first, I was respectful of the institution's goals- ethical treatment, yaddayadda, cool stuff, right on!
    But PETA's tactics and policies seem iffy at best... this website [consumerfreedom.com] has spiffy links with quotes from PETA people...
    I find this a pity. There should surely be some group out there which is concerned with animal rights but isn't afflicted with absurd zealotry. I think that it hurts the entire movement, which is a pity, especially when they do some useful stuff (the UNC lab-rat abuse a while back, for instance, where the staff was being delibrately cruel...)

    PETA and the terrorist groups it associates with really ought to go after something that's a bit more widespread or quite a bit more cruel, not a few dozen squirrels being monitored humanely for what may yet prove incalculable benefits to mankind.
    • It seems like PETA would prefer human testing to animal testing... in which case, I nominate the members of PETA for test subjects. Some of those animal-dressed chicks are pretty hot, but you can go ahead and drip drano into the eyes of the rest of 'em.

  • Dems good eatin (Score:5, Funny)

    by seanmeister ( 156224 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @11:49AM (#7690688)
    Could this be the answer to problems with long-distance space travel?

    That depends on how many squirrels you can pack onto the ship.
    • hehe, but the real problem would be training the squirrel to wake the other squirrels. Maybe a robotic squirrel can be there. You would need really small face huggers however. And of course a queen the size of a housecat isn't all that scary.

      Yes I watched to much aliens. Sue me.

    • Your subject sounds like an unfortunate political campaign strategy...

  • Don't bet on a quick fix, but learn anyway (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @11:49AM (#7690691)
    These ground squirrels are probably deeply adapted in multidimensional ways to the low temperatures. In contrast, the biochemical pathways of people are all tuned to operate at normal body temperature. I doubt that there is an easy way to make the human body hiberate at low temperature. Too many systems would be affected or thrown out-of-balance by the cold.

    Nonetheless, we can learn from hibernating animals. One area that may be promising is how bears maintain bone density during hibernation [yahoo.com] (pardon my potential redundancy if this was posetd on /. already). Helping astronauts retain bone mass during zero-G would involve a less severe chemical rejiggering than creating full-fledged cold-body hibernation.
    • (pardon my potential redundancy if this was posetd on /. already)
      This is Slashdot. We expect the same story to be posted two days straight, at least. Referring to an old story in passing is nothing to worry about.

      I'm surprised there's no "Redundant (+1)" moderation option.

  • can you buy 'em by the dozen? (Score:5, Funny)

    by KingPrad ( 518495 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @11:52AM (#7690724)
    Or we could start freezing the useless and parasitic parts of the population and use them for building materials.

    I, for one, would like to be able to buy a cord of assorted frozen politicians, lawyers, telemarketers, and SCO executives and build a log cabin of them. This may only work in northern regions though and you'd still have to insulate them to keep the summer heat from reawakening them, because that is a nightmare beyond imagining. Imagine your house beginning to yammer at you in mid-spring and reach a full-blast talk-fest in August until quietening down in October.

    We've got plenty of useless people in society...why not do something useful with them? Building materials. Lawn gnomes. Support beams for coal mines. Nuclear moderating rods. If we ever need to run dangerous medical tests we can reanimate them and they'll be perfecty useful again! Or we could freeze them into hibernation for most of the year except for a designated hunting season in March when they are warmed up and turned loose in a few game reserves.
    -
    • You would build your house on lawyers? Talk about a shifty(ng) foundation. Of course politicians would be used for towers. Free rotating action for the restaurant on top. SCO foundations would however collapse overnight whenever a 800 pound blue gorrilla sits on it.

    • Perhaps we could build some kind of 'ark', load it up with this bunch of bloody loonies, and arrange to have it crash somewhere very remote so we don't have to deal with them anymore.

      As long as everyone keeps their telephones clean, we'll be OK.

    • Well, I think these people should realize that a giant space goat is about to swallow the planet! They should quickly be put into hibernation and placed on a spaceship (called, oh I don't know, the B Ark) that will be auto-piloted to another planet!

      Meanwhile, all of us nontrolls and generally good people will get into two other Arks and be sent along afterwards.

      Hey if another planet can do it to us, we can do it to them...

      Long Live Doug Adams!

      TSage
      • My thoughts exactly. This would of course imply that the Golgafrinchans on Earth (a race of middlemen) would have somehow evolved two-thirds of their population into useful people.

        Truly, there is hope.

        History repeats itself - Beware dirty telephones.

  • Cuddly friends (Score:1, Troll)

    by rhs98 ( 513802 ) *

    "Barnes' research may do little to enhance human-squirrel relations, however, since it involves luring the squirrel into a cage and then whisking it off to the operating table where its abdominal cavity is cut open and a data logger inserted."

    They love to state the obvious.
    Also, what happens to the data logger?

    "Barnes said that the squirrels are not bothered by the procedure"

    I'd be bothered if some massive stranger came over, offered me food, didn't give it and put me in a cage. Let alone then operat

  • I have an ex-girlfriend who was frigid in bed

  • "The logger consists of a computer chip with memory capacity, a battery and a thermometer. It records the squirrel's internal temperature every 12 minutes. After a year and a half, the memory capacity is full."
    And now Barnes and the little squirrel live happily ever after...

    Almost.

  • RIP Kaminski, Hunter, and White. (Score:4, Funny)

    by cupofjoe ( 727361 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @12:27PM (#7691024)

    Everybody knows they already tried this with long-distance space travel. The problem wasn't freezing people, it was getting HAL to look after them.

    Duh.

    Besides, didn't we just leave this [slashdot.org] party?

  • Perhaps someone should inform... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...those Harvard light freezers about these squirrels. They might have a new place to shoot photons.

  • The answer to unemployment! (Score:5, Funny)

    by KurdtX ( 207196 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @03:28PM (#7692928)
    Hey, a bit off the wall, but wouldn't this be the answer to unemployment as well? Sure you'd have to figure out something to represent you so you don't have to be defrosted for every interview (as I assume the frosting/defrosting part is the worst), but I think that can be solved.

    Think about it, you get fired, and instead of heading to the bar and spending your last paycheck on booze, you step into a freezer and then when you wake up someone's ready to do final negotiations on salary & benefits with you. You've probably even made money from the unemployment checks. Now, if they could only figure out a way to have you virtually play video games the entire time you're frozen.

    (And no, I'm not serious, although it's cool to think about)

  • Another problem with radiation... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by orn ( 34773 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @03:57PM (#7693278)
    Your system has a bunch of different ways of handling cells that have DNA errors. There are some systems for actually repairing your DNA and there are systems for recognizing (and destroying) cells with lots of problems (this is a large part of what a sunburn is).

    All the techniques depend on your cells operating normally. If you hibernate for six months, presumably metabolism is slowed and those processes will slow. That means that your normal radiation repair functions will be inhibited and you'll be more likely to wake up with the precursors to cancer.

    Not good...

    I suppose, if you're out cold (literally) then you could be out cold in a tiny little chamber with some walls with a lot of mass. But those won't block everything. You have to wonder how an awake person in your average double-hulled, water-filled-gap space ship (which doesn't exist yet) will fare against the side of beef in the thickwalled freezer over the long run.

  • I, for one, (Score:3, Funny)

    by MainframeKiller ( 105858 ) <mark,slashdot&keegan17,ca> on Thursday December 11, 2003 @04:06PM (#7693435) Homepage
    welcome our new cryogenic squirrel overlords!

    Ah... I long for the days of AYBABTU...

    • Squirrel 1: What happen?
      Squirrel 2: Someone set up us the winter.
      Squirrel 2: We get signal.
      Squirrel 1: What?
      Squirrel 2: Main screen turn on.
      Old Man Winter: How are you rodents?
      OMW: All your body heat are belong to us.
      Squirrel 1: What you say??
      OMW: You are on the way to hibernation.
      OMW: You have no chance to stay active, make your time.
      OMW: Ha ha ha!
      Squirrel 1: Take off every nuts.
      Squirrel 2: You know what you doing?
      Squirrel 1: Move nuts.
      Squirrel 1: For great justice.

      Happy?

  • ...for a band

  • I'm suspicious (Score:3, Funny)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Thursday December 11, 2003 @09:14PM (#7696931) Homepage Journal
    I suspect this is all part of some elaborate scheme to steal more sunflower seeds from a nearby birdfeeder. Of course, we haven't figured out their plan yet - they're still outsmarting us.

    "So long and thanks for all the sunflower seeds", and such.

  • I like to think that my blood has a lower freezing point than others; it generally has a higher alcohol content than the average person's blood. I like to think that by drinking I would be able to survive some pretty extremely cold situations.

    On another note: "Hello everyone. . . My name is Mike. . . I'm an alcoholic"

  • hmm... I hope they have an good explanation for how the blood stays in a supercooled state.

    My understanding is that liquid is a supercooled state is very unstable. I saw a small mud puddle (in Canada) that had gotten into a supercooled state because the temperature was dropping very slowly and the puddle was not disturbed at all. But if you disturb it even a little, the whole thing would freeze solid. Does this happen to the squirls? What happens if you kick a hibernating squirel?

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