http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=2251
Torporific Biomimicry
Certain animals, such as the American black bear, exhibit hibernation, a
temporary, sleep-like torpor during cold, winter months (see Tyson,
2000). The torpor involved in hibernation is “a state of self-induced
reduction in body temperature and metabolic rate” to conserve energy
(Harder, 2007; Fury, n.d.). Evolutionists are unsure why animals
hibernate (see Luis and Hudson, 2006).
How hibernation works remains a mystery. Harder reported for
Science News Online:
Researchers still don’t understand how natural hibernators put
themselves into torpor or how they bring themselves out of it. But new
studies are peeling away the outer layers of that mystery. Far from
succumbing to hypothermia, it seems, hibernators exploit it. Experiments
are also revealing how animal tissues evade the damage that comes from
inactivity and low blood flow, and suggesting that relatively few genes
are involved in torpor and hibernation. That’s an auspicious sign for
researchers who strive to manipulate the process (2007).
Physiologist Hannah V. Carey, of the University of Wisconsin–Madison,
added: “These animals have got it right. They know how to use
hypothermia to their advantage” (quoted in Harder). Hibernating animals
are resistant to tissue breakdown that would kill other animals exposed
to frigid temperatures.
The arctic ground squirrel, for example, hibernates over half the year
and adopts the lowest body temperature ever measured in a mammal
(“Arctic...,” 2006). Researchers at the University of Alaska at
Fairbanks have shown that the squirrel’s body temperature drops below
freezing, a condition known as supercooling (“Arctic...”). Every two to
three weeks, while still in a state of torpor, the hibernating squirrel
shivers and shakes for 12 to 15 hours, warming its body to 98 degrees
Fahrenheit (“Arctic...”).
Researchers hope to reduce the danger of certain tedious medical
procedures, particularly when ill or injured human patients are
involved, by inducing torpor. Harder reported that “recent findings in
animals point the way toward medical shortcuts that might mimic in
people the effects of torpor, although these measures don’t exactly
reproduce the biological state” (2007).
In 2005, “[u]sing a natural chemical humans and other animals produce
in their bodies, scientists...for the first time induced hibernation in
mammals, putting mice into a state similar to suspended animation for up
to six hours and then bringing them back to normal life” (Britt, 2005).
This achievement, “the first demonstration of ‘hibernation on demand’
in a mammal, ultimately could lead to new ways to treat cancer and
prevent injury and death from insufficient blood supply to organs and
tissues” (“Buying Time...,” 2005). The mice required no freezing.
Instead, “the rodents breathed air laced with hydrogen sulfide, a
chemical produced naturally in the bodies of humans and other animals.
Within minutes, they stopped moving and soon their cell functions
approached total inactivity” (Britt). Mark Roth, affiliate professor of
biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine and
leader of the mice investigation, said: “Manipulating this metabolic
mechanism for clinical benefit potentially could revolutionize treatment
for a host of human ills related to ischemia, or damage to living
tissue from lack of oxygen” (quoted in “Buying Time...,” 2005).
Humans have gone essentially cold-blooded automatically in some
emergency situations, so developing a reliable torporific procedure
seems advantageous (see Britt). Clinical applications of induced
metabolic hibernation could include treating severe blood-loss injury,
hypothermia, malignant fever, cardiac arrest, and stroke (see “Buying
Time...,” 2005). The potential medical benefits also include improving
cancer treatment by allowing patients to tolerate higher radiation doses
without damaging healthy tissue (“Buying Time...”). Roth commented:
“Right now in most forms of cancer treatment we’re killing off the
normal cells long before we’re killing off the tumor cells. By inducing
metabolic hibernation in healthy tissue we’d at least level the playing
field” (quoted in “Buying Time...”). Molecular biologist Sandra Martin,
of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, admitted
that such applications “lie far in the future” (quoted in Harder, 2007).
While animals already “know” how to use hypothermia to their advantage,
scientists, the alleged inheritors of millions of years of evolutionary
development, are yet to understand the hibernation process well enough
to manipulate it in non-hibernating mammals and harness torpor’s
advantages. Man continues his quest to understand and apply God’s
masterful design. Often, however, he does so while ignoring or denying
the very existence of the Designer (Romans 1:19-22). Will multiplying
examples of biomimicry open his eyes? Apologetics Press remains
committed to offering him every opportunity to see the truth of the
Genesis account and its massive implications for human life and
spiritual afterlife.
REFERENCES
“Arctic Ground Squirrel” (2006), Denali National Park and Preserve, [On-line],
URL: http://www.nps.gov/dena/naturescience/arcticgroundsquirrel.htm.
Britt, Robert Roy (2005), “New Hibernation Technique Might Work on Humans,”
LiveScience, [On-line],
URL: http://www.livescience.com/health/050421_hibernation.html.
“Buying Time Through ‘Hibernation on Demand’: Landmark Finding in Mice
May Lead to New Approaches for Cancer and Trauma Care in Humans,”
(2005), Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, [On-line],
URL: http://www.fhcrc.org/about/ne/news/2005/04/21/roth.html.
Fury, Amy (no date), “Naturalist Notes: Birds in Winter,” Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center, [On-line],
URL: http://www.wolf-ridge.org/whats_hap/nat_note_archive/birds_in_ winter.html.
Harder, Ben (2007), “Perchance to Hibernate,”
Science News Online, [On-line],
URL: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070127/bob9.asp.
Luis, A.D. and P.J. Hudson (2006), “Hibernation Patterns in Mammals: a Role for Bacterial Growth?,”
Functional Ecology, [On-line],
URL: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2435. 2006.01119.x.
Tyson, Peter (2000), “Secrets of Hibernation,”
NOVA scienceNow, [On-line],
URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/satoyama/hibernation.html.
