Quoted: University of Wisconsin physiologist Hannah Carey has 100 squirrels hibernating in two dark walk-in refrigerators in her lab. She’s discovered that hibernating squirrels can last 20 minutes without oxygen. She thinks the squirrels have a genetic response to the cold that protects them from multiorgan failure. “I often say that people are the oddities,” jokes Carey. Biotech firm Hiberna, hatched last year with undisclosed funding from Boulder Ventures, has used DNA chips to spot 15 genes that appear crucial for protecting tissue during hibernation.
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