Scientists Invent Particles That Will Let You Live Without Breathing

This is all-round amazing. I can understand ethical 'playing God' type doubts in medical cases such as gene engineering and cloning... but why even raise the question here? Seems misguided, to be honest. It's like saying "CPR - why not just let them accept their fate?" or "Electric pads? Why use new invention to bring back the dead?" Why wouldn't you?!? If someone has been in a terrible accident and has stopped breathing, why wouldn't you try to keep their heart and brain healthy for as long as possible? You're misunderstanding the focus of most ethical arguments about 'playing God' here. It has always been the goal of medicine to save lives and prevent illness.
 
There is no playing God about this, Its about as much playing god as defibbing someone to bring them back to life..


Anyone who stands in the way of progress like this should be ejected into space. The reason we progress so slowly is because of idiots with the most stupid moral objections.

This is amazing and its only the start of this discovery.
 
I'm in 2 minds about this, on the one hand it'll save so many lives it will be amazing. But on the other hand is this going too far? Should people who are in these situations not accept there fate?

That seems like a pretty silly thing to say... If you have a heart attack would you like them not to bother with the Defribulator and just "accept your fate"? :p

It's an incredible breakthrough :)
 
This sounds amazing. I couldn't see it mentioned in the article, will we see this implemented in our lifetime? Is there any estimate on when it could be used. Seems like something that could be saving lives right now.
 
A lot of modern medicine is used to keep people alive for nothing more than the fact that we can. See downs syndrome, locked in syndrome etc etc. It keeps people alive who previously would have died before ever having the chance to have children, and allows the disease to be passed on.

First off neither of those conditions are hereditary, males with down syndrome are infertile with females having very low fertility.

Locked in syndrome can be caused by anything from a knock to the head to some kind of cardio vascular disease again its not hereditary even then the only way they are gonna have kids is if it happened prior to their condition or their genetic material was taken with their consent for a partner or somthing like that.

It's funny, because a valid point was made about modern medicine making us weaker, and thus having to rely on it more and more, and everyone just jumps on him. Actually argue back instead of telling him to simmer down. :rolleyes:


I'd rather be weaker and live till im 85 than dead by 40.
 
Could one possibly take the idea from the "The abyss" movie about the Oxygenated Water for extreme pressures?

I forget if that was meant to be fictional or not...
 
The thing to remember though is that people still need to remove CO2 from their bodies, not just take in O2, but an advance like this would potentially add an extra 30 minutes if not more to the survival of people in critical condition before they can be put onto one of those artificial breathing thingamibobs.
 
Whilst this is a good advance it is not quite the godsend that it is being sold as. Once of the fundamental problems of paediatric respiratory arrest is not the oxygenation issue which is equally rectified with high dosage oxygen administration via mechanical means but rather the elimination of carbon dioxide. Without that you just end up with a highly oxygenated but rather dead acidotic patient.

tldr: Makes no odds you still need to bag them quick and ventilate them quick because oxygenation is not the issue it's the removal of carbon dioxide.

Death from hypoxia normally occurs before hypercapnea in adults. It's not just about respiratory failure anyway, with artificial ventilation a person will still die if they have had a cardiac arrested because CPR doesn't provide sufficient blood flow, if the o2 carrying capacity of the blood is greatly increased with these particles then the time window for resuscitation could be greatly extended.

In fact chest compressions alone are as effective as the old style CPR, so if this injection were available a person could survive much longer without artificial ventilation.
 
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True, I'll give you that one. And I agree with him. Imo, it's incredibly selfish to have a life threatening disability and have a kid anyway just because you want one, especially if the chances of the kid picking up the same disease is high. Giving your child a lower quality of life just because you want one is something I can't really agree with.

I agree, too many people want kids cause they want them.not because they want them to have a good life.

I however never want kids lol
 
I would really love to try this, as im always swimming. Imagine the Olympics, they'd get so much quicker times!
 
It's not a lower quality of life if you cannot tell the difference.

By your thinking the poor shouldn't have children.

You jest but thats a serious point :P If you cannot support your child once you have it is it ethically right to have one? Many extremely poverty heavy places have some of the highest child birth rates, their families knowing darn well their kid will have a 1 in a million chance of a decent life (aka enough food/water of sufficient quality etc) but choose to have one anyway. On many levels i'm against that, but of course I cannot force my opinion on people.

Personally, with a genetic disease or extreme poverty on myself, i'd never have a child.
 
If you cannot support a child, it isnt simply ethically wrong to have one, it is purely selfish.

Many extremely poverty heavy places have some of the highest child birth rates

Mostly due to lack of education, little to no clue what contraception is, and / or simply wanting to have kids for cultural / religious reasons. As countries progress through the demographic transition model, death rates fall first due to improved medical care while birth rates remain high due to education levels still being low leading to a surge in population. When a country progresses to first world standards of healthcare, education, and also womens rights to education, the birth rate then begins to decrease significantly as well.

There is still far more progression yet to be made, especially in such areas as genetics and stem cell research that will further lengthen and improve the quality of life for people with some of the worst medical conditions, but these areas of research are strongly held back due to fear mongering by people who have next to no clue about them or anything to do with science in general.
 
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If you cannot support a child, it isnt simply ethically wrong to have one, it is purely selfish.



Mostly due to lack of education, little to no clue what contraception is, and / or simply wanting to have kids for cultural / religious reasons.

Any pillock knows sex without contraception = chance of a child. They know better than anyone their quality of life is poor. Thing that bugs me is when I say things like this people think i'm some kind of evil person, but really is it fair to bring a child into the world whom will starve, have nasty diseases and little chance at a good life?

Oh well. *** Please fully star out swear words **** happens eh.
 
Any pillock knows sex without contraception = chance of a child. They know better than anyone their quality of life is poor.

Yea but are they having sex to make a child, or simply because of their innate human desire to have sex?

I also have to disagree somewhat with you, people in the poorest parts of the world have NO IDEA what contraception, or even a condom is. They may know that sex = chance of child, but they lack the simplest education, as well as access to contraceptions to prevent them from ending up with making babies.
 
It's funny, because a valid point was made about modern medicine making us weaker, and thus having to rely on it more and more, and everyone just jumps on him. Actually argue back instead of telling him to simmer down. :rolleyes:

I didn't realize that we were breeding a superior master race. I thought we were aiming towards becoming one coalesced consciousness over the internet? Who is responsible for setting these ultimate objectives? In which bag of flesh does this ruling strand of DNA reside?

There is a legend, from long ago, about the old ancients, who were so 'at one' with the universe that they did not need anything, no heat for warmth, no subsistence,......since then the human race has progressively evolved away from such harmonious equilibrium by inventing tom-toms, which severely deplete our self-reliance and map reading skills. Personally, I have no memory because I am so intertwined with wikipedia on my pc.
 
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