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<b>Could Astronauts Sleep Their Way to the Stars?</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />The state of suspended animation that astronauts enter during long-haul space flights is a staple of science-fiction movies. But now the European Space Agency (ESA) wants to turn it into reality.<br /><br />Agency staff are planning future research into the possibility of inducing a hibernation-like state in humans. "We are not sure whether it is possible," says Marco Biggiogera, an expert on hibernation mechanisms at the University of Pavia, Italy, who is advising ESA. "But it's not crazy."<br /><br />ESA believes hibernation would help astronauts to cope with the psychological demands of decades-long return journeys to destinations such as Saturn. And because less space and food would be needed on such missions, the spacecraft would be lighter and easier to launch.<br /><br />Practical hibernation mechanisms are at least a decade away, says Mark Ayre of ESA's Advanced Concepts Scheme. But he and colleagues are already considering what research needs to done to bring such systems to reality.<br /><br />One route of inquiry centres on DADLE (D-Ala,D-Leu-enkephalin), a substance with opium-like properties. An injection of DADLE is known to trigger hibernation in ground squirrels during the summer season, when the animals would normally be awake. It also seems to send cultures of human cells to sleep: the cells divide more slowly and their gene activity drops when the molecule is applied, say Biggiogera and his colleagues in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation.<br /><br />Researchers want to test DADLE in non-hibernating animals, starting with rats. Carlo Zancanaro and colleagues at the University of Verona, Italy, ran such an experiment last month and are currently analysing data from sensors that tracked the animals' heartbeats and brain activity after DADLE was applied.<br /><br />Muscle booster<br /><br />R