Get the latest tech news

Could Humans Hibernate?

Hibernation allows many animals to time-travel from difficult times to plenty. Could humans learn how to do it too?

At the dawn of scientific enquiry into hibernation (from the Latin hibernus, pertaining to winter) in the mid-19th century, it was defined by Peter A Browne in an 1847 tract as ‘a natural, temporary, intermediate state, between life and death; into which some animals sink, owing to an excess of heat, or of cold, or of drought, or want of oxygen’. When the world is facing acute problems at a planetary scale, including climate change, technogenic disasters, wars, incurable disease, pandemics and mental health crises, and we are grappling with perennial questions, such as how to attain immortality (or at least extend high-quality life considerably), solve the mystery of consciousness or reach the far corners of the Universe, hibernation emerges as a potential opportunity, if not the only hope. From clinical applications to space travel, scientists, entrepreneurs, governmental agencies and even writers and artists turn to hibernation as a possible solution for our problems, those desires and anxieties we are unable to tackle with more down-to-earth approaches – or, at least, as a way to sleep through them and wake up when things are going better.

Get the Android app