☞ Hibernation, Aestivation, Cryonation, Torporvation
Humans don’t hibernate, right? I mean, not normally. I’m sure there’s some dude in Japan who hibernates. But there’s a dude in Japan for everything. There’s a dude who hasn’t slept in like 20 years. There’s another who just eats hot dogs all the time. There’s probably one who’s been playing Tetris hanging upside-down while blindfolded and eating nothing but hot dogs for 20 years while not sleeping.
What was I talking about again?
Right. Hibernation.
Hibernation isn’t in our homo-sapien repertoire, right? I’m asking for a friend. He’s been sleeping a lot lately. More than usual anyway, but maybe not as much as hypothetical-Japanese-hibernator-guy-I-just-made-up.
Normally, I… he doesn’t sleep very much. He’s like a six hour a night sleeper. Eight to ten on the weekends to catch up. But for the past couple weeks it’s been like eight to ten standard and more like twelve on the weekends. He thinks it has something to do with the weather. He hopes it has something to do with the weather.
It’s certainly the right time of year for it. Grizzly bears, fish, birds, the whole gang is hibernatin’! Everybody fattened up at Animal Kingdom Thanksgiving (where they still serve turkey, which is super awkward for the turkeys) (most turkeys opt for the tofurky) (except the sickos), and now they’re settling into their respective caves and tree nooks and frozen ponds and whatnot to avoid the holidays. Since the only thing worse than Animal Kingdom Thanksgiving is Animal Kingdom Christmas. Because man, if your secret Santa is the ostrich? Congratulations, guess what, you’re getting a hollowed out painted ostrich egg. What an asshole.
Point is, if humans were into hibernation, winter would be the time. Unless of course humans turned out to be into aestivation. Aestivation? Yeah, aestivation. You heard me.
(Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either.)
Aestivation is hibernation, but, like, the opposite. It’s lowering your metabolic rate when it’s balls hot out instead of when it’s balls cold out. Appropriately enough, it’s more for cold-blooded types… reptiles and amphibians for the most part. Although, man, given how much I hate the heat, I could totally be into aestivation were I not doing this hibernating thing. Err, I mean, were my friend not doing this hibernating thing.
While human hibernation isn’t in our programming by default, that hasn’t stopped up from trying. Humans love screwing with the natural order of things. We’re always busy trying to figure out if we could, we’re never stopping to think if we… oh look, a velociraptor!
Zum bespiel, remember a few years back when there was all this commotion about zombie dogs? Scientists drained blood out of some dogs, replaced the blood with chilled salt water, the dogs clinically “died,” then a few hours later, they replaced the blood, jumpstarted the dogs’ hearts and bam, dogs are back!
Mostly.
So yeah, some of the dogs experienced permanent brain damage, and while they were technically alive, they exhibited “zombie-like” behaviors. (Presumably a bad fashion sense and surprising resiliency to shotgun blasts.) Not cool, scientists. Not cool.
They did the same thing with some pigs later on, but no one really cares about pigs. Sorry pigs. Your secret Santa gifts typically suck anyway.
The justification for the zombie dogs was to try and get humans in on it. One word: Cryogenic research.
There are many hypothetical applications for cryogenics. The most popular being medical in nature. The idea is that with the ability to cryogenically freeze ourselves, we’ll be better able to treat diseases and injuries as we can slow down the ailment— hibernate it, even— giving us more time for treatment. Three words: Walt Disney’s head.
NASA also has expressed interest in cryogenics. Their thought is if we’re sending dudes into space, why not freeze them and thaw them out when they get to their destination? Not a bad idea, NASA. That is, until you watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and realize that when you freeze dudes (or at least Ricardo Montalbán), when they wake up, they’re pretty pissed off and want to kill you (or at least Captain Kirk).
But now we’re getting off topic.
What was I talking about again?
Right. Hibernation.
Say, did you know that when wood frogs hibernate they produce organic anti-freeze that courses through their body? How badass is that? More badass, the anti-freeze is made out of urea and glucose. If I didn’t drink whole milk with my cereal my bones would probably disintegrate, and these little suckers are making anti-freeze out of piss and sugar and hibernating under a pile of leaves for months at a time. Madness.
Sidenote: wood frogs are also the official amphibian of New York state. Wood frogs represent! What what!
But again, off topic.
The only other thing I can think of is maybe this isn’t hibernation. Maybe this is torpor. Torpor. You know, torpor. It’s sort of a lighter version of hibernation. Like a mix between hibernation and laziness.
To put it in nerd parlance, shutting down your laptop is like cryogenics. If you shut it off totally, the battery will last a long time, using barely any energy. If you set it to hibernate, it’ll write all of its RAM to the hard drive, and then shut down. That, appropriately enough, is like hibernation. Torpor though, is like just shutting the lid. The screen will shut off, and the hard drive will spin down, but the OS is ready to spring back to action at any moment.
I think my only hope my friend’s only hope is that these past couple weeks have just been a bout of torpor. Like the wood frogs of New York and the dogs who were resuscitated who did not become zombies and Ricardo Montalbán in “Space Seed,” this is just an energy-saving measure.
Phew. That analogy was exhausting. Think I’ll take a nap.
