A researcher is working on one day sending astronauts on long missions in deep freeze. If it succeeds, it could also advance cancer therapy.
By Christian J Meier
Walter Tinganelli believes that hibernation isn’t just reserved for some animals. The radiobiologist from the Society for Heavy Ion Research (GSI) in Darmstadt reports on people who have survived accidents thanks to a kind of hibernation. The Swedish doctor Anna Bågenholm, for example, fell under the ice of a stream while skiing and could only be freed after 80 minutes. Her body temperature dropped to below 14 degrees, she looked dead – but doctors managed to revive her.