I found this TED Talk via m1k3y over at grinding and it blew me away. Basically, suspended animation (the reduction of metabolic rate to near death for extended periods of time) is not just science fiction any more. It’s real, and they’re busy with human trials.
As the guy says at the start of the talk, they’re not designing things to send people on long space flights or anything like that right now; they’re developing technology to put someone into a suspended state to buy them time to receive medical treatment in the case of trauma and so on. But it’s clear to me, being a geek, that this is a massive step on the path to interstellar space travel and all kinds of other cool shit. The talk is about 19 mins long and well worth a watch.
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Awesome! I just finished writing a short with suspended animation
This is one of the reasons I love Sci Fi.
Not sci-fi any more!