Already there are companies that will gladly freeze the dead in hopes some way of curing and reviving them might develop in the future. The field is called cryonics. So far, no one has been brought back.
The trick with the mice didn't require 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.
Humans use hydrogen sulfide to "buffer our metabolic flexibility," Roth explained. "It's what allows our core temperature to stay at 98.6 degrees, regardless of whether we're in Alaska or Tahiti."
In extreme doses, the hydrogen sulfide is thought to bind to cells in place of oxygen. The organism's metabolism shuts down. Upon breathing normal air again, the mice "quickly regained normal function and metabolic activity with no long-term negative effects," the researchers report. They plan to test the technique on larger mammals next.
