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The rat sniffs the air a few times, and within a minute, his naturally twitchy movements are almost still. On a monitor that shows his rate of breathing, the lines look like a steep mountain slope, going down.
At first glance, that looks bad. We need oxygen to live. If you don't get it for several minutes -- for example, if you suffer cardiac arrest or a bad gunshot wound -- you die. But something else is going on inside this rat. He isn't dead, isn't dying. The reason why, some people think, is the future of emergency medicine.
You see, Roth thinks he's figured out the puzzle. "While it's true we need oxygen to live, it's also a toxin," he explains. Scientists are starting to understand that death isn't caused by oxygen deprivation itself, but by a chain of damaging chemical reactions that are triggered by sharply dropping oxygen levels.
The thing is, those reactions require the presence of some oxygen. Hydrogen sulfide takes the place of oxygen, preventing those reactions from taking place. No chain reaction, no cell death. The patient lives.
In the meantime, he's having fun trying to change the way we look at life itself. "With those fish, I turn off the heartbeat so they are clinically dead. But I can bring them back. So they must not have been dead, after all."
Originally posted by Swordbeast
reply to post by kiwifoot
Holy poop, that just sounds a lot like some zombie-horror in the making. Weren't the zombies in "Planet terror" also turned by poison gas?
Irrational fears aside, the scientific aspects of of this research are very interesting. If lives can truly be saved by this method, emergency responders will have a powerful tool at their disposal. Lets hope for the best and keep the "Zombie survival guide" ready just in case
Originally posted by kick Flip
reply to post by kiwifoot
I saw this on T.V. the other day. The implications of this are almost infinite. It does raise some questions about death. Just cuz it works on a rat doesnt mean it will have the same effects on humans. And what about your brain? Just cuz your heart stops does that mean your brain stops also? Scary stuff man.