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Comment by nlh | Hacker News Reader

...who would be able to breathe underwater for 30 minutes at a time without coming above for air.

This seems like a loose interpretation of "breathe". But leads to a question I had -- assuming the injection described in the article works properly, what would the result of inhaling water be? I can't imagine it's very comfortable, but assuming the person's oxygen is handled by this injection, would the body adjust?

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According to Wikipedia [1], water in the lungs has some nasty effects aside from just oxygen deprivation. Lungs have such a huge internal surface area to allow things to diffuse in and out of the bloodstream, including water. Unless you were breathing an isotonic saline solution, your blood would quickly become either too thick or too dilute to support life.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning#Pathophysiology

See also the film "The Abyss" in which a rat is submerged in an oxygenated fluid, thus breathing the liquid. This technique is used for some military diving.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing)

> See also the film "The Abyss" in which a rat is submerged in an oxygenated fluid ...

And then a person, if the events in the film can be taken as reflecting reality.

Except during filming a real rat really was submerged in oxygenated fluid.

> Except during filming a real rat really was submerged in oxygenated fluid.

Yes, and even though I thought they might have gotten actor Ed Harris to also breathe the liquid, this account -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abyss -- says he didn't.

Interestingly, the mouse scene had to be edited out for the version shown in Great Britain, on the ground that it constituted animal cruelty, something the British ... umm ... feel rather strongly about ... wait, let me try again ... about which the British feel rather strongly? Anyway, the mouse scene was something ... wait for it ... up with which the British refused to put. :)

It's not used because the available oxygen density from the liquid is too low - a rat might survive as its volume is smaller but I am not sure of any long term research, or even anything other than a rat that might have held its breath.

The abyss was making it up.

According to this NYT article[1] the rat was indeed submerged in the movie (the scene wasn't faked). The article also states that it's been tested successfully on numerous animals - and even one human (although apparently they almost died in the process).

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/06/movies/film-the-abyss-a-fo...

Yes that is the exact reason you can't fully use the method on humans. You could partially flood the lungs and that would help in some cased but not for diving.

>> what would the result of inhaling water be? drowning? you have many reflexes built into you to prevent you being okay with liquid inhalation.

THe point is they wouldn't need to exhale or inhale. They just hold their breath for a long time

The breath reflex is controlled (in most people) by CO2 which is unaffected by this. You would not be able to hold your breath.

You could perhaps inhale and exhale a small amount of gas through a CO2 scrubber?

There is an oxygen reflex as well, but it's not as powerful as the CO2 reflex.

You can't inhale water easily, there's a reflexive response to water hitting the face that prevents it.

This is true. It's a very unnatural experience, however it is possible to breath a liquid that can function as a transfer fluid for oxygen instead. Whether that's entirely safe is another matter.

http://chemistrydaily.com/chemistry/Liquid_breathing

no doubt. lots of other folks have raised questions about how to deal with the metabolic acidosis that would result.

I remember reading that they'd kept mice alive and supposedly healthy on the liquid oxygen, but haven't heard much about it beyond that.

Yes, it was in the news and I saw it on TV a few times. That was the work of Dr. Leland Clark : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leland_Clark

The reason we haven't heard much about it since is, unfortunately, he passed away in 2005. I don't know how far the current research has progressed without him, but I hope we can see more activity in the future carried on by his successors.

His product is still available though: http://www.oxycyte.com

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