Interesting Links for 14-06-2013

[andrewducker]

• Scan predicts whether therapy or meds will best lift depression
  (tags: neuroscience psychology depression )
• Who are the most popular Dr Who companions/villains of all time?
  (tags: poll drwho )
• Supreme Court blocks patenting of genomic DNA
  (tags: law genetics win patents )
• The House of Commons continues to behave like spoiled six-year-olds
  (tags:

Comments

[steer]

That nigerian cook thing is pretty amazing. For two days it would have to be quite a large air bubble -- you breathe about 25 l/minute... you can breathe the same air 2-3 times before there's not enough oxygen to sustain you (more at depth in fact so maybe 4-5 times) -- guess 10,000 litre bubble (21m x 21m x21m). Also he was deep enough to need 60 hours of recompression treatment -- from elsewhere he was at 30m! Pretty damned scary. If he'd have swum to the surface (perfectly possible on a lungful of air from 30m if you breathe out so your lungs don't burst) he would have almost certainly died from decompression illness even after only one or two hours underwater at 30m.

I think actually it's likely that the thinning air saved his life -- if he had been breathing normal 21% oxygen air for 2 days at that depth he'd have suffered oxygen toxicity for sure (almost 10 times the safe dose if he were breathing ordinary surface air the same time). Quite a thing: 10m deeper, probably even 5 and he'd have certainly been dead from oxygen toxicity. 10m shallower and the bubble would likely have run out of oxygen quicke -- the bubble would contain fewer molecules oxygen as it was under less pressure. The carbon dioxide build up would give an extremely unpleasant suffocating feeling.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/nigeria-sailor-survive-air-pocket