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The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

#161

Post by mnw21cam »

genewitch wrote: post #62
jerf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We’re basically continuously narked, we’re just so used to it we don’t even know." Just because one direction on the gradient means that we respond in a way that looks like a narcotic does not mean that the other direction will respond in the opposite manner. I'm sure the nootropics folks would have discovered being super not high by now if it were as easy as breathing a mixture that doesn't have nitrogen in it.

as siblings commented, pure oxygen gets you high. a couple of breaths of pure oxygen will relieve pain and induce euphoria. I am not entirely clear on the definition of "narcotic" so i may be being redundant. My issue, though, is i can't find a way to safely generate oxygen for a decent price. I know electrolysis works, but these atomic sieves look safer. They're also difficult to acquire without a prescription, at l…

One of the easiest ways to separate oxygen from nitrogen is to cool it down. Oxygen will condense at around 90K, while nitrogen will stay gaseous until 77K. You need some fairly serious energy input to do this, but it'll be safer than doing electrolysis.

Re: The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

#162

Post by scotty79 »

bibanez wrote: post #155
extraduder_ire wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Except for helium, no other gas exists which does not have some form narcotic effect at higher pressures. According to something mentioned in passing in a Scott Manley (amateur space youtuber) video about deep-sea diving: at high enough pressures you'll get similar effects from helium. It's thought that you can avoid this by subbing out the helium for hydrogen, but nobody so far has been insane enough to try. I assu…

I only have high school level chemistry, but if Helium is a noble gas it doesn't bond and so it can't have a narcotic effect, because it doesn't affect the chemistry of the brain

I wonder if you could use argon instead then.

And yet, argon is more narcotic than nitrogen:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_narcosis

Re: The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

#163

Post by mnw21cam »

sideshowb wrote: post #59
eastbound wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also be the sheer concentration of CO2. I work in a forest: 400ppm in the office every morning. Back at home, in the city, 5km away: 580ppm minimum all day long. Maybe cities make people stupid :D

Probably not in my case, haven't measured co2 but I am lucky to live in a small village.

It's incredible how quickly CO2 can build up inside a room. I'm also in a small village, and CO2 is 420ppm-ish outside. In my home office right now with the window open but no through flow, it's 1800ppm. If I close the window, it'll head off the scale of my CO2 monitor, above 5000ppm. Now that definitely is in the realm of cognitive impairment. I need some better ventilation.

Re: The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

#164

Post by lostlogin »

13of40 wrote: post #99
dekhn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason I'd ever buy everclear (95% ethanol) is for cleaning optics.

Fun fact: Vodka is usually distilled to a high purity close to everclear using a reflux still, then diluted with water to get down to 40%.

If the very elaborate still in a neighbours garage is anything to go by, gin, limoncello and various others can be made this way too. 10+ bubble plates and away he goes.

Re: The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

#166

Post by scotty79 »

hliyan wrote: post #147
Luc wrote: post #23

[1975]. Funny concluding paragraph: "Both theories of anesthetic action and the evidence cited in this report suggest that the nitrogen concentration in atmospheric air causes a measurable performance decrement in man, that the "nitrogen blanket" effect suggested by Miles[10] is a real phenomenon, and that human history has proceeded under partial narcosis. Perhaps this explains the current state of world affairs"

I hope this does not catch on. I worry about body hackers trying to live in a hermetically sealed homes with oxygen-noble-gas atmospheres.

When this news hits the internet I'll be very sorry that I didn't start to hoard helium when I had this idea few years ago.

Re: The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

#167

Post by scotty79 »

gumby wrote: post #74

While anesthesia isn't particularly well understood, the thing that weirds me out is not the neurological mysteries, but that noble gasses like Xenon are anesthetics!

Well, chemistry is not the only game in town. Physics can do things to bodies too.

Re: The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

#168

Post by sideshowb »

mnw21cam wrote: post #163
sideshowb wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not in my case, haven't measured co2 but I am lucky to live in a small village.

It's incredible how quickly CO2 can build up inside a room. I'm also in a small village, and CO2 is 420ppm-ish outside. In my home office right now with the window open but no through flow, it's 1800ppm. If I close the window, it'll head off the scale of my CO2 monitor, above 5000ppm. Now that definitely is in the realm of cognitive impairment. I need some better ventilation.

Fair. My appropriate point of comparison (if I wasn't currently nitrogen drunk) should in fact have been mountains <1000m. Which I also love, but they don't have that clear headed altitude feeling.

Re: The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

#169

Post by tonyarkles »

eru wrote: post #108
p1necone wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't being underwater make you slower just due to the extra resistance of water vs air?

Just being submerged in the water is probably what they mean by 'at the surface'. The resistance shouldn't change much whether you are 30cm in the water or 30m.

Yeah, apologies, we did the first round about 6 feet below the surface. For me, at least, the resistance wouldn't have made a huge difference anyway; while some people suffer from nitrogen narcosis and don't realize it, I definitely felt mentally "slow" while doing the test at depth. It was frustrating knowing that, 15 minutes earlier, the task felt easy but at depth it felt really mentally challenging. While I was only about 20% slower, the qualitative mental effort was drastically higher.

Re: The anesthetic effect of air at atmospheric pressure

#170

Post by todd8 »

My first, brief, dive to 135 feet (41m) was in 1976 off the coast of Cozumel. I was in a group led by a dive master and we quickly descended, swam through a large ring shaped coral structure at around 135ft, and started our ascent. More accurately, all but one of use started our ascent.

Back then, of course, we had to rely on the Navy dive tables for maximum safe bottom time (just 10 min from entry at the surface to start of final assent), and we still added about 5 minutes at 15 feet as a safety stop before exiting the water. These limits, determined by the Navy for Navy divers are intended to prevent decompression sickness (the "bends").

Unrelated to the bends is another hazard, nitrogen narcosis that can interfere with clear thinking. It usually starts to affect people at around 150 feet and I barely noticed it at 135ft. However one diver in the group was affected and after passing through the coral archway continued to swim down the wall of coral toward the bottom at least 100ft deeper. The dive leader had to chase this diver, catch him, and then go though a real decompression stop or two with him on the way up.

Now days, sport divers can explore these depths more safely by using a mix of nitrogen and oxygen called Nitrox which is a 65/35 percent mix of Nitrogen/Oxygen vs the atmospheric proportions of 78/21 percent. This lowers the partial pressure of Nitrogen while diving and thus allows safe diving at greater depths and duration for sport divers.

If the research described by the featured article is true, this suggest a simple performance enhancer. Perhaps in the future, SAT exams will have to outlaw the use of Nitrox SCUBA tanks in the exam room.

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