I remember reading something like russian poor farmers that didn't have enough food for the winter to do this, it was called Lotska, which reported in scientific papers over 100 years ago - http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com/2010/03/curious-case-o...

"At the first fall of snow the whole family gathers round the stove, lies down, ceases to wrestle with the problems of human existence, and quietly goes to sleep. Once a day every one wakes up to eat a piece of hard bread, of which an amount sufficient to last six months has providently been baked in the previous autumn. When the bread has been washed down with a draught of water, everyone goes to sleep again. The members of the family take it in turn to watch and keep the fire alight."

But I don't find many reliable source about it. Does anyone if this is really true? It sounds hard to believe.

When I hired a car and traveled along the North Korean border circa 2005 the driver told me about how the NK villagers would, in recent memory, go up in to caves on the adjacent mountains in winter and basically lie there starving and dying in a group because their clothing and houses were so poor (no windows, no insulation) and the nearby land so denuded of firewood that they would otherwise freeze to death. The ones who survived were seen lying in the sun near the river in the spring awaiting the return of energy. I understand the first edible crops in the area are immature fern fronds which poke through the snow. According to the driver, the women would reportedly illegally cross the river to prostitute themselves in China before the winter to obtain rice to survive. It is likely these people have the same bone deformities.

I have long had the hunch that depression (and especially SAD) make sense from an evolutionary perspective as a sort of hibernation strategy. Common symptoms like lowered appetite and psychomotor retardation, coupled with the episodic nature of most depressive disorders, seems like a good fit for hibernating behaviour.

Fascinating research. Would be very interesting if the conclusions could be supported by other dig sites.

This is an interesting hypothesis, even though on first blush it seems obviously wrong. I'm glad the article was more nuanced than the headline.

This reminded me of an interesting tidbit from Graham Robb's book 'The Discovery of France'. He mentions the pre-industrial peasantry (in some extremely rural areas) living in a similar manner. During the winter when there were stretches of time where it was too harsh to do any productive work, the peasants just stayed inside. Food/calories were scarce enough even in the best of times so activity was limited to wake up, eat a bit, sleep, repeat.

Connecting the dots:

https://yellowstonebearworld.com/how-long-do-bears-hibernate

"Grizzly bears typically hibernate between five to seven months"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast "Scottish man Angus Barbieri (1939 – 7 September 1990) fasted for 382 days (...) 207 kg to 82 kg"

That's 327g per day so a modern human need about 59kg of added fat to survive 6 monthes without eating or hibernating , while being fully able and functionnal in case some additional food can be found during the time.

As an anecdote my longest fast was 8 days, and I recorded between 300 and 400g of weight loss per day. I was walking a few hours per day without any trouble, so no loss of physical energy.

I have no recollection of the source, but I read in what I recall as a reasonable source the following: Many French peasants in the mid-late 1700's would mostly sleep through winters, arising to eat (IIRC). I don't recall a mention with this of frequent death, but it could have gone without mention.

In a sense this is contemporary, compared to "early" humans, and possible to verify in the record.

There have been isolated cases of modern humans surviving by hibernation, but almost always in association with some kind of serious injury that seems to trigger some deeply buried metabolic mechanisms. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/21/japan.topstori...

There was some work around a decade ago into using precise concentrations of hydrogen sulfide to induce it deliberately.

If i get a feeling i gained too much fat, i like to use fasting to get rid of it fast. Kinda surprised after 3~4 days of not eating i could still function perfectly most wouldn't even see a difference. Strength did take a bit of a hit tho like could only operate on like 90% of max.

Never really went longer then 5 days, but I heard stories of people going complete 30 days without food consuming only water with some minerals and salt.

Ever since the last post on HN about insulating our bodies I got into researching hypothermia a bit. Princeton has a wonderful page on it containing many things I did not know[1]. One thing that struck me on this page as bizarre was this line: "at 90 degrees the body tries to move into hibernation" Surely that can't be right, we would have figured out practical use for this or at least observed it working in modern humans. Well, seems we have at least one case [2].

[1] https://www.princeton.edu/~oa/safety/hypocold.shtml

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/dec/21/japan.topstori...

I read an analysis of French peasant life in the late 19th and early 20th century that said that this was how the winters were passed. Not literal hibernation on the physiological sense that bears undergo it, but packing into a hut and spending only a handful of hours a day awake, not talking.

Since many of these poor households were still wealthy enough to have had animals I was always a bit dubious.

When Napoleon was Empire he ordered a "mini-Doomsday" book audit. It was reported that French farmers during winter did not work and eat very little. This was about 1810.

If humans were able to sleep that long at [reported 50 calories per hour](https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-your-bod...), that would give a three months energy expenditure of about 59kg of body fat ([at 7.7kJ/kg](https://www.quora.com/How-many-calories-are-in-1-kg-of-fat)).

However, I am not aware of any confirmation that sleeping so long is possible, and does not harm health. If there was indeed possibility to enter torpor in a controlled manner, that may be up to 88% energy saving, so only ~7kg of body fat would need to be used.

If that’s the case it makes it more likely that hibernation for long duration space flight may be more achievable. The ability might not be too far outside our standard biological envelope.

There are many long, slow, but low energy orbital trajectories between bodies in the solar system that take advantage of multiple gravity assists, etc. We currently use those for probes but plans to send humans places always aim for high energy fast trajectories for obvious reasons. This limits their payload and increases the cost. Hibernation would make these slow efficient paths viable.

There are down to earth uses too, like sleeping while waiting for a critical donor organ to become available or for the time it takes to culture one from your stem cells.

A bit off the main topic, but I've always wondered when we'll develop some sort of anesthesia/hibernation hybrid where when a person catches a disease that makes life uncomfortable or miserable, they would be put in suspension, similar to hibernation or general anesthesia, and reamin in that state until he or she is cured. For example, going through chemotherapy and radiotherapy, while unconscious, or even just dreaming, makes it way more appealing to me. I can think many, many other instances where this would be desirable.

people in sibiria used to do a similar thing called "lotska" although they wouldnt sleep completely through it because a fire was maintained afaik and once per day food and water was consumed. I always wondered what that does to your dreams and sense of reality, i know mine gets scewed easily.

Reminds me of the norse mythology cow Auðumbla: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au%C3%B0umbla

" Gylfi asks what Auðumbla ate, and High says that she licked salty rime stones for sustenance. He recounts that Auðumbla once licked salts for three days, revealing Búri: The first day she licked free his hair, the second day his head, and the third day his entire body."

Some pictures:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Ym... "The primordial being Ymir suckles at the udder of Auðumbla as she licks Búri out of the ice in a painting by Nicolai Abildgaard, 1790"

https://imgur.com/a/x8AHWWv

https://www.svetlanas-galerie.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/...

I suspect bipolarity is a feature, not a bug. It probably helped humans survive hard winters north of the equator by keeping us "depressed" and indoors during the harsh winter months and hyperactive during the more temperate months to harvest resources. Same with SADS and post-partum depression: keeps you indoors to care for a baby and avoid contracting new diseases or falling pregnant shortly after.

So is this about humans or about neanderthals? The article doesn't seem to be able to decide and it's not at all clear from it.

Except, bears don't hibernate, they go into torpor. Not the same.

Can't we all just finally out that myth to rest?

“Early Riser” by Jasper Fforde is a great speculative fiction novel about hibernating humans. Hijinks ensue.