These strange tales hint at what was, until quite recently, an underappreciated facet of our nature. Humans, it seems, can hibernate.
2014-03-27: Using torpor to improve ER survival odds

We’ve always assumed that you can’t bring back the dead. But it’s a matter of when you pickle the cells

2014-05-09: Torpor is more common than we thought

For a long time, there was no evidence that primates could hibernate. A species of Madagascan lemur was shown to practise regular bouts of torpor. “If you look at the lemur and look at us, we share 98% of our genes. It would be very strange if the tools of hibernation were all packed into that 2% difference.”

2020-06-13: Rats have it too

2 research groups had markers in the brains of rats which they used to identify the neurons that triggered torpor. They then just activated those neurons to turn on the torpor state. Torpor is a weaker version of suspended animation. However it is 2x as efficient as sleeping or resting.

2023-05-25: Perhaps induced via ultrasound

In response to a series of 3.2-megahertz pulses, the rodents’ core body temperatures dropped by about 3°C. The mice cooled off by shifting body heat into their tails—a classic sign of torpor—and their heart rates and metabolisms slowed. By automatically delivering additional pulses of ultrasound when the animals’ body temperatures began to climb back up, the researchers could keep the mice in this torpid state for up to 24 hours. When they silenced the minispeakers, the mice returned to normal, apparently with no ill consequences.

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