Some days it's good to be a human. I'm beginning to think there's money to be made in a blog that's just about torturing squirrels.
wounded soldiers could somehow be put in a squirrel-like state
That seems like a roundabout way to describe hibernation, or suspended animation, or whatever.
The linked story is setting off my bullshit alarms. They're claiming that "The Glove" (something that chills your blood supply by chilling one hand) eliminates fatigue because fatigue is really about overheating the muscles? Maybe, but if that were the case, wouldn't just a cold bath or shower work? And if it had effects as great as what they're saying, I can't imagine that no one would have figured it out yet. Every pro athlete would be in a tank of ice cubes at every pause in play.
The application of this will save the military about a gazillion dollars. Too wounded to keep fighting? Just place 'em in hibernation until their next year-long tour. It'll save on the psychiatry bills like you just won't believe. Heck, why even bother with defined deployments? Just ice (not the mafia meaning, just, you know, ice) a soldier at sign-up, drop them in a sealed, air-conditioned chamber just under the surface of any nation that is currently high on the list of potential targets and wait for the wars to start. We can create a new front in any given conflict, anywhere in the world, in the time it takes to defrost one soldier.
4: Darpa is well known for throwing money at ideas that should be pitched as series pilots for the sci-fi channel. Unfortunately, no one on the internet is in a good position to criticize this practice.
3: Oh boy, that banner image! All things devolve toward MySpace.
Here's a more academic article about it, LB.
Also, athletes do get iced down an awful lot. My office is near the gym, and after practice I watch all the buffed out men and women walk back to their dorms with elaborate ice packs taped to various parts of their bodies.
4: The "glove" sounds like it removes heat very rapidly from the whole body by circumventing the usual constriction of surface blood vessels in response to cold. Cold showers and ice baths don't do that.
It's interesting. I don't think it would be very difficult to duplicate the gadget with some home-brew gear. There's also some interesting data on the enhancing effect of Viagra on exercise of the non-in-and-out sort.
Eh, maybe it really is that much more effective than an ice bath. I would like someone to explain to me the physics of how whatever this device is can cool your body more effectively than sticking your hand in a bucket of ice water, which seems to be the claim being made.
6: The SF authors had the ideas before ARPA, much less DARPA. See the "Martian Commando" enhancements Gully Foyle got in 1956's "The Stars My Destination". I'm sure there are others out there too.
by circumventing the usual constriction of surface blood vessels in response to cold.
Oh, is that what the vaccuum is for? Okay, I could see that might make a difference.
I think the vacuum part of it holds the blood vessels open.
First thoughts point to one of those very small air compressors sold for automobile use or a big vacuum cleaner. We're not talking about much volume and cold in various forms is easy enough to find.
13: Lizard-pwned.
12: Of course all sorts of stuff gets *imagined* very early on. It is only long afterwards that any empirical basis for believing in their feasibility is found. Sometime well before that point, DARPA funds things.
Anyone know how to install fonts in Open Office? I have a font. I downloaded it. I installed it. But I can't get Open Office to see it.
10 - How hilarious would the Olympics be if people started using Viagra as a performance-enhancing drug? Imagine all the calls to the FCC.
I would like someone to explain to me the physics of how...
That way madness lies
This "Glove" sounds like it will enable us all to meet Brock Lander's stringent fitness requirements.
Grahn and his research partner, biologist Craig Heller, started working on the Glove at Stanford in the late 1990s as part of their research on improving physical performance. Even they were astounded at how well it seemed to work. Vinh Cao, their squat, barrel-chested lab technician, used to do almost 100 pull-ups every time he worked out. Then one day he cooled himself off between sets with an early prototype. The next round of pull-ups -- his 11th -- was as strong as his first. Within six weeks, Cao was doing 180 pull-ups a session. Six weeks after that, he went from 180 to more than 600. Soon, Stanford's football trainers asked to borrow a few Gloves to cool down players in the weight room and to fight muscle cramps.
I love the "squat, barrel-chested lab technician." I can hear him lisping "Yeth, mathter," from here.
This is the first Google image hit for Vinh Cao.
Hello. My name is Will and I am an ice addict. It started twenty years ago in college. All of the cool kids in the training room where doing it. Soon, I had bags of ice strapped to my shoulders every day. I beat it for a while, but then I relapsed about 4 years ago. I'll get my 4 year pin this June.
I struggle with it every day.
Cala--quit Open Office and re-open it. That worked for me the other day.
My brother cooks a pretty mean squirrel stew.
pretty mean
That reminds me: imagine my pleasure at discovering that I'm the top hit for pretty gay.
At least you're off the first page of results for "buttsex".
Honestly, that breaks my heart, Tarrou.
You know, immediately after I posted that I realized I was coming at the issue from the wrong angle. I read 29 as being slightly sarcastic, when in hindsight it's obviously not.
in hindsight
The very best kind. No, I enjoy that kind of search engine juice. I'll tell you what I did find disturbing, though. Looking through my sitemeter hits, I discovered that somebody had clicked through to an old picture of my son and a friend via this search, thanks to the nature of the post in which the picture was linked.
Ick.
Note to all--you most likely do not want to click the link in Apo's 33 from work. Those are some key words you don't want together in your search history.
6: The SF authors had the ideas before ARPA, much less DARPA. See the "Martian Commando" enhancements Gully Foyle got in 1956's "The Stars My Destination". I'm sure there are others out there too.
