And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
April 17, 2009 1:46 AM   Subscribe

 
The best part is how they keep zooming in slowly.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:51 AM on April 17, 2009


They're not zooming in slowly, it's slowly crawling towards you.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:13 AM on April 17, 2009 [17 favorites]


*GASP*
posted by Rhaomi at 2:19 AM on April 17, 2009 [2 favorites]


*sigh*

*sigh*

*sigh*
posted by chillmost at 2:31 AM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


<homer>It's drinking the water!</homer>
posted by Rhomboid at 2:51 AM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


Needs a doctorwho tag, btw.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:52 AM on April 17, 2009


The use of this technique could significantly expand lung donor SCREAMING IN TERROR.
posted by orme at 3:14 AM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


This is what happens when you anger the in vitro fir tree.
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:08 AM on April 17, 2009 [3 favorites]


"Lungs, I only do lungs."

"If you could only breathe what I've breathed with your lungs."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:08 AM on April 17, 2009 [4 favorites]


Amazing, but creepy to watch an organ breathe independent of a body! That video reminds me of the aliens from Mars Attacks.
posted by hooray at 4:54 AM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


I would have given ten bucks to the wag who painted a smiley face on the lung so that the grin got bigger and smaller, bigger and smaller...
posted by digsrus at 5:08 AM on April 17, 2009


I've been looking for a video of a human vivisection - can anybody point me in the right direction?
posted by koeselitz at 5:08 AM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


koeselitz: previously.
posted by orthogonality at 5:18 AM on April 17, 2009


I'm confused, are they sort of inflating it by pumping in the oxygen at intervals? Because I thought the diaphragm was responsible for creating negative pressure in the lungs and causing air to be drawn in.
posted by sixswitch at 5:29 AM on April 17, 2009


I would totally glue googly eyes on that.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 5:38 AM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'm confused, are they sort of inflating it by pumping in the oxygen at intervals?

I would expect that they're pumping the air out of the the plastic chamber and that makes the lungs expand. I think that's the same principle as an "iron lung" machine.
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:49 AM on April 17, 2009


Until they attach it to the Japanese-baby-learning robot, I'm only about 40% impressed. I mean, c'mon, I've seen this in like how many movies?
posted by From Bklyn at 6:01 AM on April 17, 2009


I'm confused, are they sort of inflating it by pumping in the oxygen at intervals? Because I thought the diaphragm was responsible for creating negative pressure in the lungs and causing air to be drawn in.

You are right that normal ventilation is based on negative pressure (although in adults the intercostal muscles actually contribute more than the diaphragm); what they are doing here is based on mechanical ventilation, which is typically positive pressure. As you might expect this can disrupt normal physiology in a number of ways, but it is generally well-tolerated. In the setup described in the article, I would think one of the biggest concerns would be avoiding barotrauma without the chest wall to contain the lungs and help prevent over-inflation.
posted by TedW at 6:03 AM on April 17, 2009


I would expect that they're pumping the air out of the the plastic chamber and that makes the lungs expand. I think that's the same principle as an "iron lung" machine

That's a good idea, but I was able to access the original article from The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation and they state "Lungs are ventilated with a standard ICU-type ventilator (7) (Servo-I, Maquet Critical Care, Solna, Sweden)", which is a positive-pressure ventilator. They probably did this because that is a widely available ventilator and physicians are much more familiar with that mode of ventilation than the handful of negative pressure machines out there. It has been 20 years since I have seen a patient in an iron lung, if that gives you any idea of how rarely they are used.

The abstract is here, but it appears the full version is not available to non-subscribers.
posted by TedW at 6:16 AM on April 17, 2009


Keep your buy-bull quotes out of my science, thanks.
posted by kldickson at 6:31 AM on April 17, 2009


Lighten up, Francis kldickson.

(And I'm an atheist.)
posted by IAmBroom at 6:52 AM on April 17, 2009


That is so pacifying. They should make DVDs of dismembered, breathing lungs to play in the background at family celebrations and on quiet Thursday evenings at home.
posted by nosila at 7:35 AM on April 17, 2009 [3 favorites]


I have a strong urge to watch "Re-Animator" now.
posted by Drainage! at 7:43 AM on April 17, 2009


Science is Creepy.
posted by JeffK at 7:43 AM on April 17, 2009


Previously.
posted by Ratio at 7:45 AM on April 17, 2009


You can inflate lungs by filling them with air, when I was in highschool we had a guest speaker to convince us not to smoke. She brought in two preserved pig lungs, and had us pump them full of air with a foot pump. One was, uh, distressed, and meant to look like the lung of a smoker, all black and burnt looking. It would only inflate a little bit. On the other hand, the regular pig lung inflated just like in the video.

She didn't have it in any kind of bubble like that, and actually it wasn't very creepy or strange to watch (although describing it here -- in the context of that video -- actually does make it sound creepy or strange, it really wasn't. It seemed pretty ordinary)
posted by delmoi at 8:06 AM on April 17, 2009


this is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen on Metafilter. Look at how much the lung expands! Almost twice it's size! That's awesome.

This post makes me want to go to the gym and think about that video while I'm on the tread.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 8:31 AM on April 17, 2009 [1 favorite]


Neato!
posted by NikitaNikita at 9:23 AM on April 17, 2009


Oops, suddenly I'm singing "It's my lung in a bubble" to the tune of Dick in a Box.
posted by NikitaNikita at 9:24 AM on April 17, 2009


Odd, I came across a ex-vivo lung just the other day (self link, nsfw, probably regrettable).
posted by stonepharisee at 3:08 PM on April 17, 2009


*Sound alert on that last link* Double sorry.
posted by stonepharisee at 3:09 PM on April 17, 2009


Awesome video. It IS strangely calming, while at the same time a mild thrill to see it happening. How is that possible?

Science, and lungs, are cool.
posted by darkstar at 3:26 PM on April 17, 2009


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