5 ms·
Air bubbles in the blood are lethal. Is that not a problem? Do the machines need to be reclaimed after they do their thing?
by Jeff_Brown 3y ago
Air bubbles in the blood are lethal. Is that not a problem? Do the machines need to be reclaimed after they do their thing?
- Retric 3y agoIt only takes 2-3 cubic centimeters of air in the blood to kill someone but this is several orders of magnitude smaller. These things are 0.02mm ( 0.0008 inches) wide, ~1/100 millionth of a cubic centimeter, individual bubbles or even fairly large numbers of bubbles of that size aren’t a significant issue.
- ohgodplsno 3y agoAir bubbles are typically not lethal until over 150cc of air. That's a massive amount, that will not be reached by those machines.
- deskamess 3y agoLet say one of those rockets dropped its air bubble somehow. How does the body get rid of it? Or does it?
- programmer_dude 3y agoI think the air will escape through the lungs eventually.
- dymk 3y agoGas perfusion into the surrounding tissues and liquids, probably
- Lalabadie 3y agoIf your question is about the air: It does! The blood carries a ton of cells that can pick up air components. Red blood cells (more specifically, their hemoglobin) bind to the O2 and CO2. Your vessels also feed into your body's plasma, which can act as a circulating reservoir for yet-to-be-collected CO2. The major component in atmospheric air, nitrogen (N2), is already abundant in the blood too, so it isn't an issue. If I remember correctly, our bodies are generally in equilibrium with the outside air in terms of N2 partial pressure. Admittedly, a small air bubble in the blood bypasses a lot of the specialized membranes our alveoli use to make their gas exchange, but blood itself can manage a bit of air just fine. If you're asking about the nanorobot, however: The article says it's not yet biodegradable to the degree they want to make it.
- alvarezbjm-hn 3y agoKeep in mind that dissolved oxigen in blood is negligible in comparison to oxygen bound to hemoglobin. In addition, a bubble shows surface tension. This is exactly the problem of divers who surface too fast: the excess of air dissolved in the blood due to higher pressure aggregates into bubbles. EDIT: By excess of air I mean Nitrogen. We don't have proteins to bind gaseous Nitrogen.
- warent 3y agoI remember learning about this in EMT training. That a tiny air bubble in an IV line is lethal is a popular myth. Actually apparently IV lines have air in them all the time, the body is not that fragile
- jcims 3y agoI’ve seen hundreds of bubbles go into the same person over the course of a couple years of infusions and no issues.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- IE6 3y agocompletely anecdotal experience but I had surgery recently and commented on the air in the anesthesia line and the anesthesiologist commented that it only happens in the movies, source: guy who lived
- afterburner 3y ago"alright, he's out, now fix that bubble!"
- xp84 3y agoCan you double check that amount? That is a considerable volume of air, about 3 golf balls. I don’t understand how anyone could ever end up with that much air inside their body without a hand pump or an air compressor. Also another comment next to yours said 2-3cc.
- rootusrootus 3y agoDr. Google leads me to believe there may be a distinction between air in arteries, and air in veins. The former may be lethal at around 5cc, but the latter may be considerably more tolerant.
- TheSpiceIsLife 3y agoNot all blood is the same. This only applies to veinous blood. You do not want arterial blood to be messed with generally at all, as far as I understand.
- dist-epoch 3y ago> Do the machines need to be reclaimed after they do their thing There are mechanisms to expel so called "foreign bodies", through the details are important (how long until they are detected, ...)
- mysterydip 3y agoDoes that mean eventually antibodies could be produced that match these machines?
- dmbche 3y agoMy understanding is that these machines are made to not interact with the immune system, since that could cause massive problems - I imagine they expect them to disintegrate in inert pieces that the body can treat as normal waste, like dead cells and the like.
- dist-epoch 3y agoI don't think antibodies can bind to simple materials like these robots seem to be made of.
- cududa 3y agoThe article said they currently aren’t biodegradable. I assume they eventually kill the mice.