Space agencies like NASA and ESA are funding research to see what humans can learn from animals that are able to stop eating and producing waste for several months, writes Le Monde journalist Nathaniel Herzberg.
Hibernation seems tailor-made to help humans explore outer space. Developed by many animal species to cope with the scarcity of resources in winter, it offers potential answers to three of the main challenges of space travel. First, the hope of drastically reducing onboard mass. "This is one of the obsessions of the space agencies," said Alexander Chouker, an intensive care specialist at the University Hospital of Munich and co-leader of the group of 20 experts on hibernation at ESA. "Because it affects the size and power of the spacecraft, but also because each kilo on board costs more than 10,000 euros. Imagine what this means for a crew going to Mars, a two-and-a-half-year mission. But animals that hibernate stop eating and drinking, and no longer produce waste. That's a godsend."
Another constant concern of space agencies is protecting astronauts' muscles and bones. "Gravity alone imposes an action on our muscles," noted Fabrice Bertille, from the Hubert Curien Interdisciplinary Institute in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, whose research on bear hibernation is supported by the ESA. "In the International Space Station, in microgravity, despite continuous exercise, astronauts face serious problems of muscle wasting, and when they come back, they are at risk of bone fragility. In a more constrained environment and over a longer period of time, this can become critical. However, bears do not encounter these difficulties. They lose 15% of their muscle in the first month, then nothing."
Finally, space holds an invisible, but pernicious danger: cosmic rays. On Earth, the magnetic field that surrounds our planet protects us from this radiation emitted by the sun and other stars. However, beyond a distance of 50,000 kilometers from the Earth's surface, we are naked to the protons, ions and X-rays of the solar wind. It is out of the question to surround a vessel with a lead shell, as the weight would prevent it from flying. Other, lighter materials are being tested. But early experiments, conducted for NASA in the 1960s, and especially a more recent study conducted at the Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, for ESA, have established that rats – a non-hibernating species, like us – that were artificially placed in a state of torpor were largely protected from ionizing radiation, a likely effect of reduced cellular metabolism.
Can such "synthetic torpor" be applied to humans? In the United States, Europe and Japan, researchers are working on it. They put forward several arguments. First of all, there have been some examples over the last century of humans miraculously spared from death due to cold exposure by what looks like hibernation. Hominid remains, found in Atapuerca, Spain, dating back 500,000 years, to the middle of the Ice Age, also seem to testify to our ancestors' ability to hibernate. "Hibernators are found in all groups of mammals, even primates," said Alexander Chouker, "and they don't have specific genes. I don't see what would prohibit us from doing so."
Bonjour!
Journalism may be one of the best professions where you can get paid to be curious, if that curiosity makes you discover new and important things. My dad collects old movie cameras, so I began filming with a small Super8 camera when I was 12. Around 25 I realized that I could try to bring together both of these cool worlds, and I dove into video journalism! Le Monde was not my first choice because I wanted to make documentaries, but in the past five years this newsroom has become one of the most innovative and impactful video media in France. There is no other French newsroom where you can work for one month on a single video, with the help of the best specialists and top-level motion designers.
P.S. “Diantre!” the General de Gaulle would have said ;)
-CH
Hi!
Thanks for your question.
We worked with researchers in ethics from the very beginning of the project to build the project framework. One of them is Nadia Guerouaou, who specializes in neuroethics and is one of the very few researchers worldwide working on how audio deepfakes can be useful medically (to recreate the voice of someone suffering from throat cancer for example). She advised us to be very transparent about what is based on historical documents (the text of the speech, for example) and what is an artistic or technological interpretation: the actor reading the text, and the supercomputer encoding the final voice. To be honest, I was a bit surprised by the enthusiasm of the researchers in ethics I contacted. Making dead people talk through deep learning is not a moral question in itself, they told me. Everything depends on why you want to do this: to help others learn, or to manipulate?
-CH
Hi, thanks for your question! I think that part of the answer lies in finding stories with something visual at the heart of the subject. That’s why we recently created a video team investigating videos and satellite imagery. When you can show something as proof, the story almost comes by itself. For example, this story about police violence during the Yellow Vest movement of 2019 sparked an interesting debate in France about police regulation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRVrbLeLAB8
At the same time, some of the most interesting videos I have worked on are the ones where we had absolutely NO visual documentation at the beginning. I wanted to tell the story of French war crimes against women of the resistance during the Algerian war (1954-1962). There was no video and almost no photos. We created “Louisette”, a short animated film based on the only known audio testimony of one these women.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CNyiSwzCIg&vl=fr-CH
LeMonde_en OP t1_jcl96vk wrote
Reply to Hibernation, a closely studied option for extended space travel by LeMonde_en
Space agencies like NASA and ESA are funding research to see what humans can learn from animals that are able to stop eating and producing waste for several months, writes Le Monde journalist Nathaniel Herzberg.
Hibernation seems tailor-made to help humans explore outer space. Developed by many animal species to cope with the scarcity of resources in winter, it offers potential answers to three of the main challenges of space travel. First, the hope of drastically reducing onboard mass. "This is one of the obsessions of the space agencies," said Alexander Chouker, an intensive care specialist at the University Hospital of Munich and co-leader of the group of 20 experts on hibernation at ESA. "Because it affects the size and power of the spacecraft, but also because each kilo on board costs more than 10,000 euros. Imagine what this means for a crew going to Mars, a two-and-a-half-year mission. But animals that hibernate stop eating and drinking, and no longer produce waste. That's a godsend."
Another constant concern of space agencies is protecting astronauts' muscles and bones. "Gravity alone imposes an action on our muscles," noted Fabrice Bertille, from the Hubert Curien Interdisciplinary Institute in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, whose research on bear hibernation is supported by the ESA. "In the International Space Station, in microgravity, despite continuous exercise, astronauts face serious problems of muscle wasting, and when they come back, they are at risk of bone fragility. In a more constrained environment and over a longer period of time, this can become critical. However, bears do not encounter these difficulties. They lose 15% of their muscle in the first month, then nothing."
Finally, space holds an invisible, but pernicious danger: cosmic rays. On Earth, the magnetic field that surrounds our planet protects us from this radiation emitted by the sun and other stars. However, beyond a distance of 50,000 kilometers from the Earth's surface, we are naked to the protons, ions and X-rays of the solar wind. It is out of the question to surround a vessel with a lead shell, as the weight would prevent it from flying. Other, lighter materials are being tested. But early experiments, conducted for NASA in the 1960s, and especially a more recent study conducted at the Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, for ESA, have established that rats – a non-hibernating species, like us – that were artificially placed in a state of torpor were largely protected from ionizing radiation, a likely effect of reduced cellular metabolism.
Can such "synthetic torpor" be applied to humans? In the United States, Europe and Japan, researchers are working on it. They put forward several arguments. First of all, there have been some examples over the last century of humans miraculously spared from death due to cold exposure by what looks like hibernation. Hominid remains, found in Atapuerca, Spain, dating back 500,000 years, to the middle of the Ice Age, also seem to testify to our ancestors' ability to hibernate. "Hibernators are found in all groups of mammals, even primates," said Alexander Chouker, "and they don't have specific genes. I don't see what would prohibit us from doing so."
Read the full article here: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/science/article/2023/03/13/hibernation-a-closely-studied-option-for-extended-space-travel_6019088_10.html