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Injectable Oxygen Keeps People Alive Without Breathing
#1
http://www.psfk.com/2013/05/indictable-o..._238547711
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#2
The text of this article might disappear, if they edit that site; so here it is in full


Quote:A team at Boston Children’s Hospital have invented a micro-particle that can be injected into your bloodstream to oxygenate your blood – without any help being required from your lungs.
The particles are able to keep a patient alive for up to 30 minutes after respiratory failure – which is normally enough time to prevent a heart attack or brain damage due to oxygen deprivation.
Each particle contains three to four times more oxygen than each of our own red blood cells. The oxygen is stored with a cell membrane made of fat. The membrane can be made of other materials but one issue in the past was that the particles became lodged in the body’s capillaries. These fat membranes however, are much more flexible and prevent this problem from happening.
Dr. John Kheir first began looking at ways to oxygenate the blood without breathing due to a tragic experience with one of his patients, a young girl. She was suffering from pneumonia and at one point her lungs started to fill with blood. It took 25 minutes to remove the blood from her lungs, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough time to prevent a cardiac arrest, leaving the girl in a serious condition which eventually lead to her death.
Potential uses for the new technology include medical, military and private. Military uses could include covert teams being able to stay submerged for 30 minutes at a time without having to come up for air. Private sector could include rescue teams being better protected, or an oil rig crew being able to fix underwater damage without the need for scuba equipment.


This seems to echo the idea behind OA's vasculoid blood-replacement technology, but has some very intriguing aspects- including the fact that it seems relatively safe and easy to do compared to the complex vasculoid system.
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#3
Actually this could be looked at as respirocytes (aka airdust) 1.0:

http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4866b28397129

ToddSmile
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#4
(05-09-2013, 01:44 PM)Drashner1 Wrote: Actually this could be looked at as respirocytes (aka airdust) 1.0:
http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/4866b28397129

Agreed. Like OA's early respirocytes that merely provide oxygen (not the later more sophisticated models that also take up carbon dioxide) these are a very short term, emergency measure. Regardless of the oxygen provision, if carbon dioxide is not removed from the blood then there are a whole host if problems that appear in fairly short order, starting with the feeling of suffocation the user gets when blood acidity rises -- the signal, in vertebrates like humans, that some breathing needs to happen soon. Interestingly, we're not at all able to detect the oxygenation of our blood but merely the fact that carbon dioxide hasn't been cleared away. This is why people can faint and die for lack of oxygen with little or no warning if the local atmosphere doesn't provide enough, and also why an atmosphere with a lot of carbon dioxide is hazardous even if there is plenty of oxygen.
Stephen
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