AniMachine: Hypoxia, A Vertebrate's "Sleep Mode"

I've always had a fascination with animals that have evolved to exhibit innately machine-like characteristics. In High School, I wrote a report on how electric eels built up and stored an ionic charge between organ pairs that acted as capacitors comprising 4/5 of its body, releasing an explosive voltage pulse defensively and predatorily to stun or kill surrounding life forms. I regrettably did not continue my scientific studies after high school. 

We often joke about how machines can do many jobs more effectively and don't require much in return except for an occasional battery swap or lube job - they don't eat, sleep/hibernate (with the exception of a Mac or PC, respectively), breathe, or complain. There are some vertebrates, however, that exhibit some inanimate characteristics such as the ability to function for extended periods of time with little or no oxygen intake when immersed in a hypoxic environment. They simply "power down," reserving their energy for the most basic brain function to survive. Epaulette sharks, crucian carp, freshwater turtles and leopard frogs...the short list of vertebrates that can tolerate situations where there is zero to very little available oxygen. The growing number of human-induced "Dead Zones," ironically a primary result of the Green Revolution, is evidence that hypoxic conditions are not suitable for most life forms. Most of us need to eat, excrete, sleep and breathe. 

Although hypoxic-tolerant animals arguably do not have the same consciousness of their seemingly supernatural evolution, we are both aware of our past evolution and have been historically accurate in our predictions of our future - at least some of us. During the journey towards an always distant horizon of possibility, many of us subject ourselves to dire risks and oftentimes we are well aware of those risks including death (see below).