A lot of research is being done on this exsct topic. I had a professor that studied nematodes, C.Elegans, to be exact, and had shown that restricting food sources produced a response in the nematodes similar to the tardigrades. The nematodes mouth and rear would seal shut and the metabolism would drop to near 0. Very interesting stuff. Like you said though, replicating it in humans is the hard part, have to start somewhere though.
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That's very interesting, I was under the impression that tardigrades were pretty much the only animals to be able to do such a thing (since I had never heard about this self-preservation process before). Just learned something new, thanks for sharing!
I believe the tardigrades are the best at it that we know of. The nematodes lifespan is never extended like the tardigrades, but can go from a couple of weeks to several months using this process. The amazing thing about the nematodes is that we have already nailed down the specific genes that allow for this process to happen!
Let's get those genes in us asap! Haha
Hahah. Oh how sweet it would be!