Spring has come and while temperatures are rising, the Las Vegas valley is seeing more pesky insects crawling and flying around.

According to the World Health Organization, Alzheimer's is one of our most debilitating diseases. It effectively erases who you are, insinuating itself at first with annoyance, then anger, then fright, and finally silence. It can take 20 years to play out, exhausting caregivers, family, and friends.

It’s a classic science fiction trope: Astronauts on an interstellar journey are kept in sleek, refrigerated pods in a state of suspended animation. Although such pods remain purely fictional, scientists have pursued research into inducing a hibernation-like state in humans to lessen the damage caused by medical conditions such as heart attacks and stroke, and to reduce the stress and costs of future long-distance space sojourns.