The Insane Evolution of: Hibernation

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Special Thanks to

Lydia Greene and the Duke Lemur Center

Carla Frare and the Center for Transformative Research in Metabolism (TRiM) at the University of Alaska

Images Courtesy of Getty Images

Credits:
Narrator/Writer: Stephanie Sammann
Writer: Lorraine Boissoneault
Illustrator: Jacek Ambrożewski

References:

[realscience]

If you've ever wondered why humans are basically the weirdest animals on earth, this series will take you step by step explaining why.

[dondraper]

I am not lazy. I am an evolultionary step towards regaining hybernation capability

[trixrabbit]

Back in the 90’s there was a child that fell through the ice on a pond. Several hours passed before the rescue team found him. They were able to resuscitate him without any brain damage. The doctors said the reason was that he drowned in freezing water and it caused rapid drop in body temperature. His body didn’t have time to build up any of the dangerous chemicals. He was resuscitated while still hypothermic preventing any degradation before his body began to function again.
I’m not saying I want to try it myself but that sounds like a good place to start studying how to make people hibernate.

[christinamann]

The closest I ever came to hibernation is when I caught a cold, called in sick, and slept as much as I felt like, only getting up to eat and go to the bathroom. I was asleep for 22 out of the first 24 hours, and the next day I felt so much better, feeling like it accelerated recovery by days. The difficulty is having to fight the compulsion to be awake and wanting to go about life.

[NoahSpurrier]

I believe I once read that ectotherms (amphibians and reptiles) devote a large portion of their genome to multiple chemical pathways that allow them to function at different temperatures. One advantage of endothermy (birds and mammals) is that it simplifies the chemistry needed to run the body at the expense of needing more calories. One advantage of this is that it frees up space for the genome to evolve other useful traits (big brains). Not sure what this hypothesis is called or if it’s still considered plausible. It’s an interesting idea, though.

[allenthutmacher]

i’m literally just existing till Real Science comes and blesses my day

[petercarioscia]

Ive heard the stories of people falling into frozen lakes being revived after 40+ minutes, but never have I heard of the hiker who survived 24 days of exposure. That's wildly interesting.

[thorn]

Im so glad you have a calm voice because i like watching science videos before bed and im so tired of people borderline yelling in all their YouTube videos for no reason

[jeremiasrobinson]

In my most recent semester of school, I had to do a project analyzing the quality of a science news source. I did my project on Real Science. I got 100% on that assignment. Thanks!

[Fantastic_Mr_Fox]

A real science *and* a real engineerig vid in the same day?
unreal

[Aquamayne]

Love this channel and this narrator!

I've seen these techniques in open heart surgery and post heart attack/cardiac arrest. Cool stuff!

[waynejohn]

I used to hibernate when I was broke asf it works

[vice.nor.virtue]

I believe that I owe at least 75% of my general knowledge of pub quiz animal answers to Real Science. Honestly this team (or individual) are so thorough I feel vaguely expert on any given animal after I finish one of these videos.

[LudovicoTaddei]

Great video, hibernation is such an intersting phenomenon and you narrated it pretty well.
The only fallacy of your narration is to group togheter ectotherms' and endotherms' (torpor) hibernation. This is important because the hibernation process of ectotherms is passive, forced by environmental conditions (and which also requires massive adaptations like butt breathing), while torpor is an actively regulated phenomenon (although we still don't know the exact mechanisms). To put it in a simplier way, an animal can arouse from torpor even if the enviromental conditions stay advers, while an hibernating ectotherm can only be aroused if the envrionmental conditions improve (substantially if the wether gets hotter).
Anyway, that's not something I wanna argue about, it's just that you did such a good job and viewers seem to be really intersted in the topic, so I wanted to add at least a bit of my knowledge.

[kodiakbear]

Dwarf lemurs fascinating. By the way, I have difficulty communicating because I had a stroke in Broca’s area, the part of the brain that controls speech. 2/8/2021 but I lived again. (My wife helped me compose this.)

[khuzaimanawabali]

The originator of this channel exerted a tremendous amount of effort to gather data and presented it in a superb manner. The concepts that I grasped about Hibernation in this video are exceedingly captivating and enthralling, particularly the details about Mammals and Reptiles. Moreover, the creator's use of cinematography to showcase the Soft board Pin pictures in a group of hibernating animals and pointed to one specific image at the timestamp 2:46 is remarkable. I am fond of your channel, and to support you, I watched the full advertisements shown in your videos without skipping. Your content is admirable, please continue producing more.

[samk]

This may be entirely wrong, but it seems like the simplest explanation for not losing muscle/bone mass is that for non hibernating species losing those things is an adaptation. As in, we evolved to LOSE those things to conserve energy and recoup resources when they're under utilized. So the way hibernating species don't is by not doing that 😭. Like the loss of muscle and bone mass is an active process that doesn't occur in animals for whom it would disadvantage.

[Metonymy]

As someone that could be an Olympic gold medalist in sleeping, yes

[harrisun]

Insane biology of a scorpion would be so cool to learn more about how they glow

[Quadrt]

I feel like a challenge was set for how many times one can put “butt breathing” in a script. ^^