Freezing Your Ass Off? A New Pill Will Heat Your Blood For Several Hours In The Most Frigid Environments

Bryn Colton. Getty Images.

Rice University bioengineer Jerzy Szablowski is working w DARPA on nongenetic drugs that can temporarily enhance the human body’s resilience to extreme cold exposure. These drugs are planned to deploy a new screening method to find drugs capable of enhancing the cold adaptation response of brown adipose tissue (BAT), or brown fat, which regulates body temperature by breaking down blood sugar and other fat molecules in a process known as thermogenesis. “One involves shivering, which all of us have experienced,” Szablowski explained. “If you are getting ill and you are developing a fever, you begin to shiver, and that shivering raises your body temperature. The problem is that you lose dexterity and it is really unpleasant.

“The other type of thermogenesis involves BAT, which is capable of generating heat through a chemical reaction,” he said. “Nonshivering thermogenesis kicks in sooner but is not as efficient, so it cannot generate quite as much heat, at least not in humans.”

There's an organization that is funded by the Department of Defense called DARPA. DARPA's mission is to come up with ideas, innovations, or inventions that will help the warfighter accomplish their mission- no matter what that might be. They've developed many everyday tools like the internet, GPS, velcro, chem lights, and those golf carts that chase you around the course if you have a remote in your pocket. 

They've also developed many health-related innovations. For example, they've designed an exoskeleton that will allow troops to carry MUCH larger load-outs without wrecking their backs or slowing the mission. They've rolled out what is called "Quick Clot." It's essentially like a searing kitty litter that is designed to cauterize internal wounds without immediate surgical capabilities. If there's something like a sucking chest wound or a stomach that has been cut/blown open, you can pour some of the quick clot on it, apply pressure, and you'll have a much higher chance of survival. 

Some of their innovations work. Some don't. For example, they once developed a program for robotic elephants that could be ridden into battle in places like Vietnam. You just climb up on them shits like you're Aladdin going into the Palace to impress Princess Jasmine but instead of becoming the prince yourself, you drown in a river crossing because your enormous robot elephant wasn't exactly as waterproof as you had hoped. 

Anyway, on ZBT today, we talked about several of the new inventions they are rolling out this year… like the blood warmer. The blood-warming pill is an absolute game-changer. One of the things that separate the US military from other militaries around the world is that our logistic chain is far superior to any other country. Our supply and resupply chains are the best. Our ability to outfit our troops in weather-appropriate gear is second to none. 

Now, for an example of this, look at the Russians right now. They are locked in a war with Ukraine in the dead of winter. There have been reports of troops being forced to remove their own fingers and ears due to frostbite. Many have been frozen inside their tanks. At the onset of the war, the new Russian conscripts were standing in sweatshirts waiting for rusty weapons while warming themselves on flames from cardboard boxes. 

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Take that image and juxtapose it with our troops' vastly superior cold-weather gear. Now, add in a pill that WARMS YOUR FUCKING BLOOD and you'll be able to 

1. outshoot with better weapons

 2. get resupplied at a faster, more efficient rate 

3. Completely own the air

4. Have warm troops with hot blood ready to go.

I'll take those odds and the rest of the innovations they are rolling out this year.