I find this amazing, I just hope it can be applied to humans!
Scientists hope work with poison gas can be a
lifesaver
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.
VIDEO
Read the full article for a better understanding, I can't quote the whole thing as much as I want to.
It would be a huge tool for medics, being able to suspend the patient's body, without killing the patient, then 'switching' the body back on after
medical attention.
I wonder how long it can be safely done for?
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."
Very true.
[edit on 15-10-2009 by kiwifoot]
