Science Renders Breathing Obsolete

[Conn1496]

Good job scientists of the world. You deserve a good, long rest... Too bad you can't take a rest because you've got to do more awesome stuff. Hop to it, cool sciencey people!

 

[viranimus]

That is wonderful... and its great for every living thing!... well... except for maybe the test animal... sounds like it kinda got the shitty end of the deal having to prove it.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

An example of what we as a species are truly capable of if we truly want to bother. And all because they didn't want anyone else in similar circumstances to die if they could help it. Now that's the true soul of a doctor at work.

 

[Krion_Vark]

They've invented LCL. We're one step closer to Evangelion's nightmare future.

LCL must have had some type of special agent which would have been able to directly interface with the lungs. The human body can't withstand water in the lungs, because it can't extract the oxygen.

No it can. It just can't do it quickly. When you accidentally breath water/drink you don't spit it all up some of it stays in the lungs and gets dissipated through the lungs. Now I just have to find that thing I read it on.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

NOoooo I'm so sad right now.

I wanted to read the actual research article through my university network, but my university's subscription doesn't cover this article.

That is wonderful... and its great for every living thing!... well... except for maybe the test animal... sounds like it kinda got the shitty end of the deal having to prove it.

The test animal went through some serious discomfort, but we don't know if they were anesthetized or not. If the US is anything like the Netherlands, researchers have to get permission from an Ethical Commission before they're allowed to work with animals. The EC ensures that no pointless or unnecessary tests on animals take place and tries to keep animal suffering during the test to a minimum.
Most animals used for these tests have had a fairly decent life, much better than the animals used for meat.

I'm a bit biased though, as biomedical scientist student.

 

[Sushewakka]

And no one cares about the animals they 'used' to find this out?

In a word: No.
In more words: They gave their lives for Science. That is to be honored, not shunned.

 

[Tharwen]

Does having oxygen in your blood suppress the instinct to breathe?

If not... that's going to be a pretty unpleasant 15 minutes.

 

[DaWaffledude]

What if the person starts breathing again before the 15 minutes are up?

 

[Gordon Freemonty]

And no one cares about the animals they 'used' to find this out?

In a word: No.
In more words: They gave their lives for Science. That is to be honored, not shunned.

But who said they were dead?

 

[PatrickXD]

I'm trying to imagine what it would feel like to hook yourself up to an IV with this stuff and just not breathe for 10 minutes or so.
And I'm a little confused by the 'blue blood' comment. Surely if it was pulled from one of the scientists' veins, it would still be red? There isn't actually any deoxygenated blood in the body, it's just less oxygenated than the other blood right?

 

[surg3n]

The Escapist - Videogaming journalism's equivalent of The Daily Mail.

FFS guys, breathing is now obsolete because you can inject an oxygen substitute and keep someone alive for 15 minutes. Stop writing these outlandish headlines to lure people in, people who will probably read the article anyway. Stop mimicking retarded tabloid newspaper techniques, we are not idiots, stop treating us like we just got off the special bus.

 

[Durgiun]

It's nice to hear about benefitial scientific breakthroughs, instead of ones that can be used to spy on people or just fuck them over.

 

[Quaxar]

Does having oxygen in your blood suppress the instinct to breathe?

If not... that's going to be a pretty unpleasant 15 minutes.

It doesn't in most people because that would be a bad thing, the breath reflex is usually triggered by a rise in the blood-Co2 levels. Now with COPD patients the reflex is triggered by O2 levels which means give 'em too much oxygen and they'll simply stop breathing, you can imagine now why that would be a bad thing to have.
In any way, I don't think in a situation where an OxyPen (I like this name so I will use it for now) would be required heaving a pleasant time is your biggest concern.

This.. is actually of a lot of interest to me, having asthma and all that, I haven't had a major attack in years, but having say an epipen of this stuff in case I start to get it really badly would be really comforting if nothing else.

So... when you can't catch your breath you'd really try looking for a vein, then properly puncture it and apply the oxygen solution? I'd personally stick with an autoinjector or inhaler but if you've got the gift go for it.

The Escapist - Videogaming journalism's equivalent of The Daily Mail.

FFS guys, breathing is now obsolete because you can inject an oxygen substitute and keep someone alive for 15 minutes. Stop writing these outlandish headlines to lure people in, people who will probably read the article anyway. Stop mimicking retarded tabloid newspaper techniques, we are not idiots, stop treating us like we just got off the special bus.

People using sensational headlines to lure in readers? What has the world come to!

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I just wish David Carradine could be here to see this.

I am fucked if it turns out that hell exists, because I laughed at this for 3 full minutes.

 

[DionysusSnoopy]

Cool now all they need to do is find a way to remove the CO2 and we will never use our lungs again.

More seriously it is an incredible breakthrough for emergency medicine.

 

[Sushewakka]

And no one cares about the animals they 'used' to find this out?

In a word: No.
In more words: They gave their lives for Science. That is to be honored, not shunned.

But who said they were dead?

They're lab mice. It's what they do.

 

[Deadyawn]

"Some of the most convincing experiments were the early ones," he says. "We drew each other's blood, mixed it in a test tube with the microparticles, and watched blue blood turn immediately red, right before our eyes."

Maybe someone can explain this to me. I've never really been good with how the pigmentation of blood works. There isn't any actual "blue" blood, right? Or is it possible to make blood appear blue in an oxygen-free environment?

Yeah... now I'm confused. I learned in school that vein blood was blue, then in college that it wasn't really and people were just mistaken. I've also given blood to the Red Cross, and they pull that from your veins into a vacuum (so no oxygen addition), and it's definitely not blue.

So I looked it up. [http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/02/11/is-blood-ever-blue-science-tea/] If by "blue" you mean "darker red", then it sounds like blood can be blue. But if by "blue" you mean, you know, "blue", then no, that's just the vein color.

I don't know what Kheir is talking about. He's either assuming people think de-oxygenated blood is blue and speaking appropriately, totally unclear about the meaning of color, or he dyed the blood.

Or I've been lied to by the internet.

Yeah, it's kind of confusing.

As I understand it, blood is red all the time due to the fact that (aside from the plasma which has very little colour) it's almost entirely made of red blood cells. The shade of red varies from bright red (oxygenated) to dull red (deoxygenated).

Veins on the other hand are...also red. They just look blue because of the light refracting through the skin. If you were to pull one out it would normally look red. At least, I think thats how it works as far as I can remember.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

They've invented LCL. We're one step closer to Evangelion's nightmare future.

LCL must have had some type of special agent which would have been able to directly interface with the lungs. The human body can't withstand water in the lungs, because it can't extract the oxygen.

It's not that we can't extract the oxygen, we can. Oxygen will defuse into the blood from the water as long as a concentration gradient exists. The problem is that water is much denser than air. So we when we exhaust the free oxygen in the water we can not get it out of our lungs as the lungs do not posses muscles that are strong enough.

 

[wgar]

In 20 years, the breathing goop from The Abyss really going to happen?

You know that was an actual scene for the rat; it was method acting?

 

[DaRigger420]

As an Asthmatic I'm quite pleased with this development...

As a fellow asthmatic, I agree whole-heartedly (or should that be whole-lungedly). Imagin if in addition to emergency inhalers we had an eppy-pen-like device to inject this during an attack. Epic Win.

And on a side note, this is yet another science fiction Star Trek device that is becoming science fact. The idea of an injectable oxygen supplement (aka tri-ox) was introduced to the world decades ago through the visionary works of people imagining a better future.

Ok now scientests of the world, get busy on those holo-deck devices and personal shuttlecraft!