Studies show that the adult gray squirrel, for example, eats almost its own weight (one to one and a half pounds) each week during the peak months of activity in order to store fat for winter. In other words, the squirrel’s lifecycle hinges on surviving winter. However, most squirrels spend the warmer months hoarding food, getting plump and building shelters. Given the number of squirrel species-more than 200-and the fact that these rodents have established themselves in just about every natural environment, it’s difficult to make generalizations about them. But if a squirrel isn’t squirreling away food in the colder months, what exactly is it doing? This means the necessary process is in place and it just needs to be enhanced.The sight is a familiar one: a squirrel dropping a nut or acorn into a hole to store it for the coming winter (thus the phrase “squirreled away”). The good news is in the early 90s scientists found evidence that people are capable of recycling small amounts of nitrogen from urine from the same process as squirrels. Researchers note that these applications are possible but still quite a way away from being feasible.Ī lot of additional work is needed to convert this natural mechanism safely and effectively to people.
Sarcopenia is an age-related loss in muscle mass leading to a 30% to 50% decline in skeletal muscle mass in people from 40 to 80 years old.īy harnessing the same process squirrels use to hibernate millions of lives could be helped. Over 805 million people around the globe experience muscle depletion as a result of malnourishment which means this could help with areas experiencing famines or low amounts of food.
Having squirrels help us out with space travel is incredible but we could be seeing impacts of these findings right here on Earth. This would also mean they wouldn’t need to take as much food, water and oxygen with them which would help save enormous amounts of weight and fuel. If what’s happening with the microbes in the guts of squirrels could be used in people, we may be able to put astronauts into a hibernation state without serious muscle loss. These biologists confirmed a 30-year-old theory called 'urea nitrogen salvage,' which takes nitrogen salvaged from urine and used to make muscle tissues to replace any loss from not eating food.Įssentially meaning they’re recycling their pee. To better understand how this unusual hibernation process works, a recent study published in science injected the blood of ground squirrels with tracking agents to allow them to see their bodies’ changes over the winter. Squirrels can do this because microbes in their gut generate crucial proteins and amino acids, allowing the squirrels to burn almost no energy when they hibernate with no loss of muscle mass. This is a key takeaway as people’s muscles would atrophy in such a long sleep. To be able to get through a long winter with no food, hibernating squirrels can slow their metabolism by as much as 99% and yet still manage to maintain their muscles. So why not study bears instead? They are the epitome of hibernation after all.īut they have found that larger animals that hibernate like bears are slowing down using energy they aren’t saving it during hibernation.īears are actually losing it, with some grizzly bears having a negative energy savings of 124%.īut smaller hibernating mammals like squirrels tend to save far more energy. In real life, we are held back because traveling so far takes a huge chunk of time.īut biologists may be turning this science fiction thinking into fact with the help of a tiny mammal you probably see every day - squirrels.Ī solution that NASA has started to help long-term space travel is to put astronauts into a state of hibernation.įor people, this long period of not eating and inactivity would reduce the mass and function of muscles, but this doesn't happen in hibernating animals.
Hopes of sending people lightyears away into deep space may seem like a work of science fiction. This edition of A Wilder View takes a look at why the unique way that squirrels hibernate can help astronauts travel through space. MISSOULA - We have all heard of bears hibernating but probably don’t think about squirrels doing the same thing.
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