Claim: Bat Blood could be used to aid in human hibernation for space travel

Question

This article cites a study that claims that red blood cells within bats do not deteriorate over time, and thus could have implications in long term human hibernation.

Answer 1

The article cites a study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), which is a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). According to JSTOR, PNAS is “the world's most-cited multidisciplinary scientific serial.” The article correctly summarizes the study’s findings, which support the article’s claim that bat red blood cells could be “used to aid human hibernation in space travel.” The abstract of the study states that this could be accomplished by manipulating the blood cells “to ensure blood circulation at low body temperatures in humans, which may be one first step toward safe synthetic torpor in medicine and space flight.” I would consider this claim true because this is a credible source and this study has been cited recently by many other sources as well.

Answer 2

The article's claims are true.

It's mention of NASA's years of effort to study hibernation is correct. According to this NASA page, https://www.nasa.gov/general/torpor-inducing-transfer-habitat-for-human-stasis-to-mars/, it has been studying human stasis and publishing work in 2014, which is ten years till now.

The article is a paraphrase of this article on Popular Mechanics https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a63011314/human-hibernation-bat-blood/, which cites a study published on a journal called PNAS. PNAS is short for "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America". According to its website it is "one of the world's most-cited and comprehensive multidisciplinary scientific journals, publishing more than 3,500 research papers annually", a "flagship peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)", and "an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that spans the biological, physical, and social sciences, with global reach and open submission to researchers worldwide". So it is plausible that a study about thermomechanics of RBC that sheds light to a topic that NASA is interested in is published on PNAS. https://www.pnas.org/about

The study is about thermomechanical properties in RBCs of non-hibernating and hibernating species. This study reveals the mechanisms that slow metabolism and enable hibernation, which the article mentions accurately.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2405169121