https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74cO9X4NMb4

So you'd like to spend a few hundred years in dreamland and awake in a transformed world. Who wouldn't?

Unfortunately, the means of doing so are a little inconvenient. You – or at least your head – could be shot full of antifreeze and suspended in liquid nitrogen. If that seems a little radical, you could try being drained of blood and then frozen: You might not make it more than a few hours into the future, but to a zombie that'll be plenty.

The current options, then, are few. But maybe that's changing: In a study published yesterday in Anesthesiology, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital used hydrogen sulfide – the gas that makes rotten eggs smell so bad – to completely suspend the metabolism of mice, who were revived several minutes later without any apparent side effects.

Earlier studies had suggested the metabolism-slowing power of hydrogen sulfide, but scientists weren't sure whether to credit the gas or the hypothermia attendant to metabolic shutdown. To distinguish between these effects, the MGH researchers dosed two groups of mice, then kept one group at room temperature while heating the other.

Both groups experienced the same metabolic effects. Hydrogen sulfide, not hypothermia, was responsible.

Scientists next need to see whether this works in larger animals, and whether it's damaging when maintained for more than a few minutes in species more complicated than mice.

Among the possible long-term applications are deep-space travel, organ preservation during surgery and battlefield treatment – and, of course, de facto time travel and debt evasion. But even if it's safe, there could be a catch: Who'd want to arrive in the future stinking of rotten eggs?

Enlightened residents of the future might look back at the early 21st century and call this poetic justice. But screw 'em. That's what noseplugs are for.

Inhaled Hydrogen Sulfide: A Rapidly Reversible Inhibitor of Cardiac and Metabolic Function in the Mouse [Anesthesiology]

Video: The General Motors Futurama at the 1939 World's Fair

See Also:

WiSci 2.0: Brandon Keim's Twitter and Del.icio.us feeds; Wired Science on Facebook.