Neon Genesis Evangelion LCL invented

that's right.. an LCL-like substance exists.

I found out about it while reading about blood substitutes. There are several compounds out there that mimic the functionality of red blood cells: they carry oxygen. This is good because you don't have to match blood types, you don't have to wait for donations, and you can give it to Jehovah's Witnesses.

One is made with modified cow hemoglobin molecules. It works, but increses blood pressure slightly. But the cool bit I read relating to NGE was this:

- Discover,july 2002 issue, page 21. (emphasis added)

i find that remarkaby cool. It would be so cool to have a fish tank full of the stuff with a rat swimming around in it lol

Can't think of any practical applications for breathing it, but it's use actually in the bloodstream is a great boon. Operations that cause bloodloss can be carried out without worrying about the supply of red blood cells. Additionally, these perflubrons are smaller than red blood cells, allowing them to slip through arteries too clogged and narrow for normal (and much larger) red blood cells, thus allowing tissues supplied by those arteries to receive oxygen. Should be helpful for stroke or heart attack sufferers.

 

This info is really cool! It really does seem that using these thinner blood substitutes could go a long way in providing health benefits to some people. I'll bet the Discover article didn't mention this, but did it say how economical it was to produce these fluids? Would it be feasible on a large scale?

And the rat-as-fish image is a great one, too! rofl

Though I guess, tying back into NGE, you'd have to constantly clean, filter, and re-oxygenate the stuff (as in the episode where Eva 01 is inside an angel's Dirac space long enough for the life support to start breaking down).

 

nother advantage to oxygent, it has a shelf life of 2 years.

Now, more info on the use of perflubrons as a liquid breathing mechanism. Following is a description of an experiment made with the stuff

The movie thay are talking about is the Abyss. Watch it and watch the rat to actually see LCL in action

Yeah YK, I too thought it would have to be cleaned etc, and this excerpt makes it obvious that you're right. Have to warm it, and strip the carbon dioxide from it etc. and clean out rat poo.

 

hamsters, or rabbits

Dunno how widespread Oxygent use as a blood substitute is now. I suppose it is in testing.

The perflubrons alone, under the name Liquivent, are in limited use as a middle for liquid breathing. It is used in newborns (premature) whose lungs have collapsed. To reinflate them with air, the pressure required is too great, but Liquivent, twice as dense as water (would be hard to stay submerged in that I think Oxygent is lighter, with all the water and salt mixed in) doesn't require as much pressure to reinflate the lungs. 12 infants have undergone the treatment, of which 6 later died from causes unrelated to the treatment. At least one is now 5 years old. I guess that means it is in testing as well.

It can also be used along with a normal ventilation system in a "non pure liquibreathing" setting. Liquivent can be dripped down into one's lungs, where oxygen is absorbed from it. It then evaporates (as a form of PFC, it evaporates quickly) and is exhaled through the ventilator. This is cheaper than immersing someone in it to enable full liquibreathing.

Both are moving along it seems. Dunno which would be better for use as 'LCL." I lean towards Oxygent, because it's lighter (you could more easily stay submerged) is is a blood substitute (closer to NGE LCL I guess). Oxygent is probably a bit easier to breathe in though, as it is pure perflubrons without salt and water added to the mix.

I like the applications for divers. If they could breathe that stuff, no more getting the bends Normally, deep underwater the air they breathe has to be at very high pressure to offset the pressure from the outside. This forces nitrogen into the bodies tissues. When one ascends too fast, the nitrogen tries to bubble out, causing 'the bends.' If one were to breathe instead Perflubrons, the high pressure would not be necessary, due to the density of the liquid, and one would not have to worry about nitrogen and the bends etc.
______________
/me has been doing research

 

The liquid itself is not absorbed into the bloodstream. The liquid you breathe, and the luquid that is in your blood substituting for red blood cells, though they are the same, do not mix, only the gasses. The gasses are absorbed in the lungs from the stuff you breath, and passed to the stuff in your blood.

Not sure how they do it with newborns, but when you take an an animal out, you need to drain the stuff out. The scene in the abyss (which I now know to be real) shows the guy holding the rat upside down and all the liquid draining out. Also, as I mentioned somewhere (I think) PFCs, like perflubron evaporate very quickly, so whatever doesn't drain should just evaporate.

That's how I understand it anyway.

 

It never occurred to me that they'd actually employed real oxygenated liquid in the filming of that movie. But now, to know that what we saw happen to that rat really did happen, it's really amazing. And that was what, eight or ten years ago, right? If the technology really exists, and you can afford it, it's cooler to shoot the real thing than a CG special effect.

 

Yes, but what are the side-effects of these "LCL like substances?"

 

Oxygent when used as a blood substitute (ie in the bloodstream) causes a slightly higher incidence of strokes. That is being worked on of course, and if you are a person who will not or cannot accept a normal blood transfusion, the slightly increased stroke risk is better than the alternative.

For breathing the stuff, there are no adverse side effects, at least not when done in a controlled medical environment.

(emphasis added, from http://www.rdi.gpo.or.th/NetZine/V4N7/liquid.htm)

 

Well..I'd imagine that these so called 'blood substitutes' woudln't be able to clot would they? The smallest cut and you could just leak to death.

 

true true, they are not platelet substitutes, jusr red blood cell substitutes. Naturally you wouldn't replace all of a person's blood. They are still useful for keeping a patient alive during an operation. You can function with half your platelets i think, but not half your red blood cells.

 

Oh, okay, so is the higher incidence of strokes due to bleeds? I was initially thinking it was due to clots, the other major cause of strokes. Is that right, MO? The haemodilution increases the risk of bleeds and therefore strokes?

It must be a really horrible feeling, having your lungs filled up with fluid. I guess people will already have to be anaesthetised, or at least really heavily sedated, before they do it to them.

I think the advantage with diving would be that the liquid wouldn't contain any nitrogen to get bent with, same as using oxygen/helium mixes instead of oxygen/air. The diver will still be under just as much pressure.

I'm not sure if I'm following all this correctly!:glazed:

 

Actually, no one seems to know why there is a slightly higher incidence of strokes.. A little worrisome hehe This is all bleeding edge (sorry) it's use as a blood substitute has been studied for less time than as a breathing agent.

yes, divers would still be under pressure from the sea hehe The issue though is that the liquid is not compressible as is air. Air needs to be breathed at high pressures to offset the pressure from the outside. Otherwise it could not offset the pressure from the outside, and the chest wall would collapse. Even at depths too shallow to collapse your lungs, the air needs to be pressurized. Your diaphragm only exerts about 1.5 psi. While you can dive to tho bottom of a swimming pool without collapsing a lung, if you tried to breathe down there through a 10 foot snorkel, you could not. Your diaphragm is simply not strong enough to draw air at normal pressure into your lungs at that depth. Thus compressed air is needed, at great depths so you don't implode so to speak, and at lesser depths even, simply so you can breathe.

The problem with compressed air is that oxygen at pressures greater than 2 atmospeheres is toxic. Nitrogen under pressure is a narcotic, so people replace the nitrogen with helium at greater depths (heliox), as you noted. Nitrogen can't be completely eliminated however, due to the risk of HPNS (high pressure nervous syndrome) which is caused by helium under pressure at depths of less than 300 M. Thus, a substance called 'trimix' is used at great depths, a mix of oxygen, helium and nitrogen.

However, none of the tricks one can play with gas mixtures relieves one from worrying about high-pressure inert gases which enter the bloodstream and 'perfuse' to other tissues. It is the uptake and release of these gases which are the roots of decompression sickness ('the bends'). In other words, helium can also be absorbed into tissues. When one ascends too fast, one can get the bends from Helium. Deep divers need to decompress regardless of what inert gas they are using. The real reason people replace (mostly) nitrogen with helium at depth is Nitrogen Narcosis, the narcotic effect of nitrogen under pressure.

Quick review of the bends: You are deep down, so you need air at high pressure to offset the water pressure. This pressure forces some gas (be it nitrogen or helium) into your tissues. As you ascend, the air pressure of what you breathe must be lessened so you don't pop (or less dramatically, so you can actually exhale). The gas in your tissues is then 'drawn' to the now lower pressure and bubbles out, like soda fizzing in your tissues. Ouch.

With liquid, you don't have that problem. The liquid is not compressible, so it offsets the pressure from outside at any depth. Thus you don't have the highh air pressure forcing gasses into your tissues followed by low pressure drawing them out on ascent. It's always the same liquid at any depth. The liquid could have normal air dissolved in it, it could have nitrogen in it (not under pressure, no nitrogen narcossis) it could have normal percentages of oxygen (not under pressure, no toxicity).

Basically, you avoid the problems of high pressure gas (gas dissolving into tissue, oxygen toxicity, nitrogen narcosis, high pressure nervous syndrome etc)

 

Thanks MO!

Are they already using the breathable liquid for diving or medical purposes, or are they still just using on rats etc.?

 

warukatta

I was being lazy and not re-reading. MO, feel free not to reiterate.

 

no problem. It has been used for medicine, those babies Izzy mentioned, and also in larger trials. My post concerning it is about 2/3ds of the way down the first page. Basically, it was tested on 270 adults and children with lung damage, and saved 1/4 to 1/2 of those that were estimted to have died otherwise (ie, with all the best regular treatments) Quote and link in that post.

This bit isn't repeated at all so no worries :
it isn't used in diving yet because of a few issues not yet solved. How to circulate it? How to scrub it of carbon dioxide? How to drain it at the end of the dive? (have the guys buddies hold him upside down so it can drain out? just let it evaporate?) So it still shows promise imho, but a few practical matters eed to be worked out. Someday i bet they will be though.

Just the fact that it's breathable liquid is fascinating perhaps illogical, but I think it's cool hehe

 

I think the main problem is likely to be the psychological side. I would imagine that very few people would have the courage to deliberately experience a sensation that would initially be like drowning. There are some experiences where you really have to fight your instincts (from personal experience jumping out of a plane that is 2,500 feet off the ground is a good example) to undergo them and I think this stuff would be terrifying.

Short term sedation should overcome that problem though. Especially if they use midazolam, which has a convenient amnesiac effect which would make it easier to persuade someone to do it more than once!