DARPA seeks spraycan wound-polyfilla* for injured troops Those splendid brainboxes at DARPA* - who are to ordinary insane scientists in their dungeon laboratories as platinum-selling popsters are to teenage-saddo garage bands - have done it again. This time the wildside-walking wingnut warboffins are looking for a sort of medical equivalent of DIY spraycan sealant, which troops could …
We already have QuikClot ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuikClot ) and HemCon ( http://www.hemcon.com/EducationCenter/HowHemConDressingsWork.aspx ), a shellfish protein based patch for rapid sealing of arterial bleeds. This will just be another delivery system for existing tech.
Quite rightly, they want ****ing SHEDLOADS, and also quite rightly they'll be prepared to spend shedloads to get it, with the net effect that with any luck, US soldiers will actually get stuff that works, while their poor relations over here will be attempting to munge something together out of cotton wool and bent paperclips.
A fair few years ago you could pour a bag of crystals into any open wound to stop bleeding. Took a bit of faff to clean up though, especially for a medic who hadn't come across the stuff before. So now it comes in 'teabags'. You pack them into or onto the wound and bandage it up nice and tight. Medic just pulls them out later. Very handy; the biggest killer in this sort of situation is shock through blood loss.
Heh! I always wanted a can of SynthSkin!
Too bad the nearest equivalent we have is expensive rubbish: Dermabond http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_bandage
I have used normal superglue to seal a deep cut on my finger... Worked very well. I don't recommend anyone else do it, though. It got quite warm.
At your own risk, etc.
They already use stuff like this in hospitals and something similar was used in Vietnam (as posted by someone earlier), trouble was the original stuff was a horrible irritant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octyl_cyanoacrylate
Covering 2 square feet and all types of wound is the new "killer app" part of this DARPA requirement.
Yes, but I think Lewis's point is that there is plenty of scope for invention, but normally it's incremental. DARPA, on the other hand, have asked for everything in one go.
First up, I would suggest that compressible and non-compressible wounds should be, in the first instance, dealt with by different products, with a plan to combine the two in the future.
But no, they sell it as though they want all or nothing, which sets the bar too high.
>No Goons?
>What, no reference to "Leggo - the wonder leg grower!"
Sssh, they're keeping that quiet because they'd have to admit the invention of "Footo - the wonder boot exploder". Not to mention Scradj, which would upset all the physicists.
<Waits for audience applause, not a sausage, exits stage left, getting coat on the way>
Too true, too true.
This is why when glueing two things together with cyanoacrylate the inevitable result, after the requisite "hold together for 20 seconds", is that the two parts seperate easily but both are irrevocably glued to your fingers.
No thanks, I'm still wearing mine 'cos my hands are glued into the pockets.
I can confirm that UK A&E (casualty) departments do use superglue to seal up wounds, as I had a deep facial cut treated that way.
I guess the main advantage is that it's a lot quicker than stitching and maybe it also requires slightly less dexterity. However the main advantage from my point of view was that I didn't get much of a scar, thus preserving my Adonis-like looks.
Biofoam, in HALO does exactly the same job.
If its good enough for the Master Chief maybe darpa should have a look... hey wait, why not just make a 7 foot tall insurgent busting guy in a suit, possibly green, complete with frikkin' (boeing - not spartan) laser and "darpa" foam.
Mines the mark 5, Recon armour.
Super Glue was apparently used in Vietnam to seal wounds however, it was invented in 1942 by a gunsmith named Harry Coover who was trying to develop a clear plastic for gun sights.
No, I dont have a vast wealth of useless knowledge, it just so happened that it was in something I was reading today.
Paris: Cos shes been in many a sticky situation.
You are so so right!
So what we can deduce is that the powers that be are only interested in keeping us alive when they are engaged in a competition to see how many of each others people they can kill......
I really wish I hadn't got out of bed this morning.....
Arterial bleeds are the tricky bit. There is a lot of pressure behind them. 130mmHg (about 17k pascals or, to put it more clearly, 3603 Norris/nanoWales ) is a lot of pressure to deal with physically. It needs to chemically spasm the artery and even that is tricky. You would also find it tricky to apply as bleeding wound tend to be filled will blood (duh) and getting to the vessels would require a lot of swabbing.
Two square feet - difficult to get an injury like that without something else really bad happening. Still, if it works it would be brilliant. Nose bleeds sorted with a simple spray rather than all that sitting around pinching your nose. Squirt it through the end of you gastroscope in a general splash it around way to stop your bleeding ulcer or varicies. And of course all those severe injuries in civilian life when you need stabilisation before getting to the hospital. Never mind the military - whoever does this will make a fortune in the civilian medical sector.
Can you really say it was invented before if they didn't actually make it work?
I mean... I could make up anything I want. Everyone has an imagination. If I draw a comic with a guy who can turn into a moose, and later DARPA comes up with a device that lets you turn into a moose than it's not like I invented it first.
I just described it.
The medical version of superglue uses ethanol as a solvent. The stuff you get in pound stores uses methanol, which is poisonous in smaller doses than ethanol.
And no, the fact that it contains a cyano- group is not much to worry about, since it's already bound tightly to something. Just don't heat it.
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