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Shrimp Bandages Clot Blood Faster
dwbryson writes "A new bandage technology uses ground up shrimp shells to instantly clot blood when applied to an open wound. These new bandages were developed and are being produced exclusively for the military (at $100 for a 4x4" square), but the company who makes them is hoping to mass market them to general consumers."
"Bleeding is the single largest cause of death on the battlefield," says Jim Hensel, President and CEO of HemCon.
Oh... I thought it was bullets or bombs.
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
Will the only doctor qualified to use these be Doctor Zoidberg?
They go great with some nice melted butter.
I was all excited to see the headline, thinking that it was finally within our reach, and then I saw that it was the same article (over two years old) that I read long ago.
There are two uses for bandages: one is primary treatment of minor skin wounds, and the other is stabilizing a major wound until real treatment can be given to it. At $100, this is too pricey for a first-aid kit unless you're in a really high-risk situation for major trauma -- the only place outside of the military which strikes me as obvious is a construction site. Its not the sort of thing you can justify putting in the school room first aid kit. There's no real reason to give them to hospitals, since anyone requiring wound healing urgently enough to go to a hospital likely has other problems and has other, more HMO-approved solutions (like regular bandages, which work just fine at preventing you from bleeding to death when administered properly and not overwhelmed by the trauma).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I believe this technology originated in Thailand can someone confirm/prove?
Also, wonder what the patnet situation is.
Doesn't this seem kind of morbid to anyone? I know we eat the little guys, but grind them up to use as bandages?
These were talked about in Popular Science a long time ago in a Best of Whats New issue.
Well, they won't have the cow, they'll treat it nicely. Or something.
Do you have ESP?
do they have a tofu shrimp bandage we can use?
nature loves variety::society hates it get your variety at http://www.monkeypantz.net
Sounds a little fishy to me.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
As someone who has been on blood thinners (due to a blood clot in my leg) for the past two years, exessive bleeding is always danger if I get cut. Bandages like these could literally be a lifesaver. I hope they make it to civilian applications soon.
This is really old news, and while I think its still interesting does it really merit discussing something that was covered (in detail) in news reports and documentaries - if I remember correctly - back in like 2002?
-rt
Do I die a slow, fearful death from blood loss, or a slow bloated death from shellfish allergies. I'll be heading to Walgreens to get one of those cheap "I'm allergic to ..." medical tags just in case they start using them in Ambulances any time soon.
Given what you said about the cost it seems like something ideal for the back of an ambulance. Pricy, but urban ERs see a lot of major trama, I belive that is were battlefield surgeons frequently train. Then again you are talking about using a pricy item in a situation where people are less likely to be able to pay....
The article states that eventually we might see this being used for internal injuries, ie. the lungs or spleen. However, this is not something we need in the future, we need it now. Bullets don't just stop with the top few layers of dermis, they penetrate and cause nasty bodily injury to organs or whatever else may be in the path of the round. This is what costs lives, not Ye Olde Flesh Wound. The "through and through" shots are not the ones where people bleed out, unless a large bloodpath is nicked. This might also be useful in a size somewhat larger than four by four inches. I'm sure there will continue to be advances, I just have a feeling the production costs are rather prohibitive since they're wanting $100 per application. Unfortunately, bullets are much cheaper.
The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
sadly, three of the shrimp who volunteered for the bandage testing developed infections and died from their wounds...
...with the bullet-proof bacon wrap the military is developing. War may be hell, but BAM!, you're going to eat better than in the past.
I know that you've been able to buy a powder that does the same thing, I think called Insta-clot, for a while now. I read about it in use by our military - one soldier was shot through the neck, and his comrades applied Insta-clot along with other first-aid measures, and survived. I bought some for my dad, who is on blood thinners and is somewhat accident-prone. He hasn't had to use it yet, but that's a corollary to Murphy's Law: if it can't go wrong anymore, it won't.
I wonder if it's the same chemistry.
I'm sure that wouldn't go over that well.
Well, he survived the bullet wound, but died of an alergic reaction to the ground up shrimp on the band-aid they used.
Man, I would hate to have to write that letter explaining why your family member is dead.
Xyst
There's, um, shrimp kebabs, shrimp gumbo, pan fried, deep fried, stir fried, blood clot shrimp, shrimp sandwich... That's about it.
you insensitive clod!
I'm allergic to shrimp, you insensitive clod/clot!
Next time I cut myself, I'm going to rub myself with shrimp.
If it doesn't clot blood... I am sure I will smell lovely as I'm wheeled into the ER.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
I wonder what the vegans in the crowd have to say about this.
The news from the fine 2003 article has been posted here before:
4 4&tid=126
2 8/1834222&tid=191&tid=14
from 2003
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/31/20572
from 2004
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/
Wow! Talking about the Six Million Dollar Man!
But how to soften the financial blow those things are bound to cause.
I can just imagine...
Soldier: "Medic!!!"Medic: "Here, let me wrap that wound..."
Soldier: "Hey, why are those 4x4s all red?"
Medic: "Er...well...with all the cut backs and stuff...we...ummm...have to reuse these things. Hey, they cost 100 smackers you know!"
Oh! Better yet...
"Hey, nice party, Marg.""Thanks Ralph."
"But Marg, what are those funny looking things around the shrimp cocktail?"
"Oh, those. Well, when Johnny came back from Iraq..."
Hey, just some suggestions. Those are tax dollars. We should have some say how they are used. Right?
The company freely admits that the bandage is composed of a very ubiquitous shrimp-derived compound and vinegar. So why $100 a bandage? Either because:
1 - Their product is difficult to manufacture
2 - They give money back to the Wild Shrimp Rights Society
3 - They have a patent
4 - Their customer is the military, and they don't care paying up the wazoo for that sort of thing, because their money is free (i.e. yours, the taxpayer's)
Two of these four possibilities seem correct to me...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Another example of military technology that could serve well for normal civilians.
But this is pretty old news as the article is dated 03.25.03
A new bandage technology uses ground up shrimp shells to instantly clot blood when applied to an open wound.
... With the added bonus that your wounds will be delicious.
Hospitals are going to need some of those plastic cones which are used to stop dogs licking their sores.
At last, a serendipitous discovery that moves medicine forward. And to think, it was discovered by accident during during one of those Saturday night brawls in the kitchen at the "Red Lobster" in Hackensack.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
the article says the bandage chemically binds to the blood and skin. That must really be a B*t** to get off.
This is a good example of how Slashdot is going down the pooper. The exact same article, the one that's ~1 year older seems so much more well done then this one. Not to be a troll, just pointing out the obvious. This is a good moment for the editors to reconcider where they're headed with post quality. But then again, this is /., so probably not.
Okay, maybe that last line was a little bit trolish
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
PETA will have the cow: as footwear. Next time they gather, look to see how many of those waco's are wearing leather shoes.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It's not the ground up shrimp, but it does the same thing, and you can already buy it from wilderness survival places.
I have one in the car, because that is where my major risk for serious trama is. I don't know if lots of EMT's have it, but I figure, why take the chance?
http://www.quikclot.com/
the folks who are allergic to the iodine content in shellfish?
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
And I won't charge you $100 per 4x4 patch for that info.
Save the shrimp for the MRE.
$100 4x4 for military, eh?
Certainly this will mean $150 for general consumers, $200 for elderly folks, and $700 for poor nations.
Sigh...
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sautee it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.
No, Bubba, now there's Shrimp Band-Aids.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Screw pork bellies! At $100 for a 4"X4" square shrimp shells are the hot thing to invest in.
I'm pretty sure that they have been using these things in Iraq for a while.
what sig?
would be fun to apply leech first, then this ground shrimp-shell thing, then leech again.
Good timepass, I guess.
with allergies to shellfish.
Just a thought.
Years ago, in a GitS album, Masamune Shirow presented such a bandage, or maybe was it an Apple Seed album ? Definitely have to revise my classics.
The non sci-fi part of the remark is that Shirow made reference, for this bandage and some others first-aid kit/tools, to a book, "the human body defeated", or something like that.
A pity I do not have my GitS album accessible rigth now...
I wonder how this will affect those allergic to seafood or shellfish? I know a few people that that are deathly allergic to shrimp, would the military one be able to use this on those that have been screened? Could it cause more harm that good? The technology sounds very interesting though.
Bubba: There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it. No, wait, there's SHRIMP BANDAGES!
Makes you wonder about eating them.
nt
They hope to mass market them to the general public. Naturally, at $100 for a 4x4 inch sqaure, some people would rather bleed to death.
"Come on, I can save you!"
"No, it's too expensive! Let me die!"
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
How palatable are these things as compared to MRE's?
There'll be no lacerations,
Just friendly crustaceans
Under the sea.
Jurisprudence Fetishist Gets Off On A Technicality --theonion.com
guns don't kill people
bullet holes kill people
"Throw another shrimp on the booboo" is a common saying there.
What's wrong with cayenne pepper? Also clots blood instantly .. also prevents scarring ..
the cuter they are, the better they taste
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
My wife is deathly allergic to shellfish... even a drop of oil flicked off a lobster claw cracking open across the table will give her huge hives if it hits her skin.
Obviously she wears a Medical Alert bracelet for this... what are the effects of this bandage on allergies? Since it goes directly on a wound/into the blood, I'd assume it could be near-instantly fatal to some.
mindslip
Because there's a world beyond sitting in front of your monitor posting useless rants to slashdot.
MPU +5 TRVTH
In related news researchers pointed out that is has long been noted that a babel fish inserted in your ear will enable to you to understand other languages. They are seeking a govt subsidy to determine the effects of inserting shellfish into other orifices.
The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
Most people are willing to pay $100 if their car breaks down for a tow. Is $100 that much for something to save your life? That's half a days salary at a decent job. Equipping every active US soldier with one of these would cost maybe $10M. Not a big deal in the defense world.
they want their articles back
Interesting stuff, chitosan. It's a family of oligosaccarides, not a single chemical, and until recently was mostly consider a waste product. Leately though, it's apparently become some sort of fad diet aid as well, one of those alleged 'fat blockers' that are probably total BS. It also used as an emulsifier (an additive which keeps different liquid parts of the food from separating), as a livestock feed. In addition to the clotting action, it supposedly has some anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, though how much so isn't said.
While it is mostly derived from seafood shell left from food processing, it can also be extracted from certain fungi, which actually produce it in much larger quantities. This means that it probably will be cheaper in the long run to synthesize it industrially using the fungi rather than harvesting it from shellfish, though unless the market for (or populations of) shrimp and crab suddenly nosedives, they'll probably keep doing that as well (they have to do something with the shells, after all).
Wonder if these would work in a spray form as well, it would probably be more cost-effective to just spray enough that the blood clots and then apply a regular bandage. Not sure how it affects people with shellfish allergies, maybe the army won't recruit people with those?
"This is what costs lives, not Ye Olde Flesh Wound."
Infection.
...chitosan interacts with our blood cells because its molecules carry a positive charge. "The outer membrane of a red blood cell has a negative charge," he explains, "and opposite charges attract. The red cell is attracted to the positively-charged chitosan, and when it touches, it fuses and forms a blood clot."
;)
Positive/negative charge, or the fact the blood is flowing out of a wound?
Red blood cells (RBCs) clumping is not a clot - it is the existence of the enzyme Thrombin, which turns Fibrinogen into Fibrin to create the mesh strands that stop RBCs from passing. RBCs don't bind to anything. I wish the article had a little more science on how chitosan works - blood clotting is senior year biology.
As for cost of the bandages - it's called "return on investment". The cost to produce will be high until mass amounts can be produced (which a military contract will help); eventually the price will come down because they know a consumer isn't going to pay $100 for a bandaid.
Since the article is recycled, allow me to recycle my post from the last time this exact same subject was discussed on slashdot.
Read about some of the reasons why meds are so expensive [yarchive.net].
Apologies for the length of this quote from the above link, but I think it's worth reading (Steve Harris MD on medical costs and litigation):
"...You [Steve's correspondent] were complaining about the cost of American medical care not long ago. You are clueless as to the connection here. Drugs cost more here. Medicine costs more here. A lawyer costs more here. An artitect costs more here. Each of these things has reasons. Until you step away from medicine and see the big picture, you'll never figure it out...
T&K.
Political language
There is no price that is too much for human life.
That's the first thing I wondered, as I'm one of those deathly allergic to shrimp.
Am I going to have to get a med-alert bracelet that says SHRIMP in huge letters now?
Why couldn't we have military supplies that kill soldiers faster ? Why the hell do we need to shoot everyone anyway ? The only advantage I see about wars is that it kills lots of retarded apes, otherwise it's all just a power trip that leads nowhere.
Police are for security. Armies are for destruction. There's a huuuuge difference.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
applied Insta-Clot, and they survived?
correct.
From the article:
"It's the second most abundant substance on the planet."
Flamebait?
The AC has a good point.
I don't even know where to begin here, let's go line by line:
.50 BMG (used by .50cal sniper rifles and machineguns) is really capable of knocking a man over, especially not a charging one. Here is a list of the most common types of modern rifle ammunition and their kinetic energy - I'll leave the math as an exercise to the reader, but none of these would knock a 150lb. man running at 10mph over backwards, or even begin to. Bear in mind that unlike M855 (5.56x45mm) most of the higher-power rounds pass through the target completely without imparting the lion's share of their kinetic energy. Knockdown is due to tissue trauma and pain, if anything, and is rarely a factor when shooting an opponent.
I'm not sure I believe that - the rounds currently deployed to the US Army for their M16s are intended to tear an opponent apart, since an opponent who dies instantly can't continue to fight injured, or worse, charge and set off a bomb.
No, M855 - used by the M16A2 and up (A3, A4), is built to shatter after passing 4" of flesh, and does this quite well provided the weapon firing the round has a 16" barrel. Weapons with shorter barrels have less time over which to induce force upon the projectile thus resulting in a lower muzzle velocity and less fragmentation. This is one of the complaints about the M4 (14") and Colt Commando (11")
Here is an image of what M855 does within a gel block that has the same consistency as muscle tissue:
M855 wound cross-section
They're also built to knock the target off their feet to prevent a charging enemy.
Again this is incorrect. No round short of
M-16 rounds are nasty - they have a hollowed out section on one side so that upon a collision, they drastically change shape. This causes them to travel through the body with an increased angular velocity spinning the way though the targets internals
This is vaguely correct but misleading. The small ring in the side of an M855 bullet that exists where the bullet protrodues from the neck of the cartridge does induce a tumbling motion, but upon yawing 90 degrees within the flesh of the target the bullet typically shatters with at less 50% of the bullet mass fragmenting. There reason for this is not to spin the bullet through the target's internals, but rather to create a larger internal surface area to the wound itself, in order to maximize bleeding. The tissue trauma and kinetic energy doctrines of wound theory are largely ignore by 5.56x45mm largely because of the desire to incapacitate rather than kill targets precisely because each soldier wounded means two people busied (the soldier and a doctor/nurse/rescuer). The bullet that most closely describes what you're saying is the 5.45x39mm round fired in the AK-74, the successor to the AK-47. The Afghans in the 80s referred to them as 'poison bullets' for this reason.
If you've ever seen a target dummy shot with an M-16 round, the hole going in is the size you'd expect it to be - you can fit your hand in the hole on the other side. People who get shot in the arms with an M-16 will lose the arm, go into shock (and thus completely exit the battle) and almost certainly die shortly thereafter.
This is, again, garbage. The large holes are due to fragmentation, not tumbling, and the shock is induced by the maximized blood loss, not straight tissue trauma. I don't know who told you the above but they don't know the first thing about wound theory.
Keep in mind that the United States and European armies are the only military forces that don't use disposable regiments and therefor have large support structures for injured troops. The Chinese army is beginning to move this direction, but historically have no problem with wars of attrition.
That's true enough. Chinese firearms have historically been utter shit.
--Ryvar
* (they have to do something with the shells, after all)* In Soviet Florida, they pave the roads with them.
Shrimp farming in America and even more in Australia and Indonesian is a multimillion dollar industry. Those huge Tiger prawns you can get at Red Lobster are raised in freshwater (yes) ponds all over the world. Why and how can anyone get by with patenting powdered shrimp shells when it is a natural substance well distributed. And who would be stupid enough (besides uncle Sam) to pay $100 for something you can get as a byproduct of a great meal purchased at $7 a pound wholesale?
But, maybe a sticky patch with liquid pepper that won't burn it's way back into the bloodstream and piss off the injured (umm, adding insult to injury...) should be the way forward.
There should be a public outcry against a $100 4"x4" patch. That's just too much money. Just as we paid $2,000 or more for milspec toilet seats, hammers and coffee pots, I imagine we'll be "bled to death" over simple taping gauze pads that could be pre-soaked in other liquid agents. I heard that urine works, too. Maybe every one could carry his/her own extra canteen to capture (and refresh or replenish) their own several ounces of urine.
However, if a bullet leaks several canteens and then urine is in short supply, there' be a literal "pissing contest" to prevent or delay excessive bleeding.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Shrimp farming in America and even more in Australia and Indonesian is a multimillion dollar industry.
....
Thailand, too -- huge business. Serious pollution problems in many of these sites, dense-packed farms breed diseases and parasites, generate lots of nasty wastewater (and require lots of fresh water, which in some places is scarce and expensive). To which add the heavy use of antibiotics
Shimp Farm Pollution
-kgj
-kgj
I dont know much about peta's conduct, but the CFC has been ID'd as a front group for the food, alcohol and tobacco industries.
US Humane Society: http://www.hsus.org/about_us/about_hsus_programs_a nd_services/eye_on_the_opposition/center_for_consu mer_freedom.html
The USTPO seems to have made a mess of things. The following patents appear to patent Chitosan in essentially the same way.
9 0,344
5,773,033
6,162,241
6,124,273
6,547,806
6,8
6,897,348
Are there lawsuits ahead?
So what we have here is a lawyer's dream and perhaps the reason why the 4"X4" pads cost $100US each.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
The http://www.petakillsanimals.com/ site is operated by the self-titled "Center for Consumer Freedom", which, according to their own web site, is "a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers" (emphasis mine). See http://www.consumerfreedom.com/about.cfm.
While I think PETA consists mainly of radical nutcases, linking to a corporate mouth-piece in an attempt to discredit them isn't exactly fair and objective, either.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
now if only they'd start charging $100 each for the BULLETS that cause the wounds, like Chris Rock suggested, THEN we'd be getting somewhere!
Considering that both sides happen to HAVE them and just not use them... I know for a fact that the Russians had some rather ugly, in violation of the Rules, ammo- there was a bunch of ammo that got over here by accident through ammo sales from Russia for SKS and AKM rifles, intended for hunting. The damned things were steel core, hollow point rounds designed to penetrate body armor.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Not only is the litigation off-the-deep-end crazy here, but drugs that are necessary but less profitable than things like Viagra sometimes simply disappear off the market.
Take Eflornithine, the best drug available for treating Sleeping Sickness. Obviously, Sleeping Sickness is not a big problem in the US, where we all have lots of money to buy drugs. It's a problem in Africa, where they don't. So what did Aventis, the manufacturer do? They stopped making it in 1995. It took SIX YEARS for the WHO to manage to talk Aventis into letting someone else manufacture it in 2001.
To recap: a drug company SAT ON A VITAL DRUG for SIX YEARS because they didn't find it "profitable enough," yet wouldn't let anybody else manufacture it to save lives.
The other drugs for treating Sleeping Sickness are nearly as bad as the disease. A huge fraction of the people treated with melarsoprol die when it causes reactive encephalopathy (convulsions, coma, etc...) and those that live often have brain damage.
Of course, the second Aventis discovered (recently) that the drug can be used to remove unwanted facial hair in women (now THERE is a profitable use for a drug!) they cranked right back up into production. Saving lives? Not profitable enough-- we won't make it. Facial hair removal? Crank up the factories!!
It appears since this fiasco that Aventis has cleaned up their act and is donating $5M a year worth of the drug to Doctors Without Borders-- but how many died unnecessarily?
And on the litigation front, I know an EM resident who is being sued by the sons of a patient (all three are lawyers). They are upset because the hospital wanted to move the woman, whose condition was stable, out of the ICU and into long-term hospice care. These assholes are why your medical costs are so high.
Sorry for the rant-- this stuff makes me incredibly angry.
fta:
It's only the shells and you may only be allergic to the meat.
Chitosan can be taken as dietary fibre supplement. With the warning:
I read that as a "cover our ass" warning and it's safe for shellfish allergic people to eat. If it's okay to eat it could be okay to put on severely hemorrhaging woundsMaybe somebody should ask the company (info@hemcon.com) their thoughts before hastily running out to Walgreens.
It also looks like these bandages will be super cheap to make once the patent runs out.
I call bullshit on the in-article explination as to how it works...
"Gregory, who co-founded HemCon, says chitosan interacts with our blood cells because its molecules carry a positive charge. "The outer membrane of a red blood cell has a negative charge," he explains, "and opposite charges attract. The red cell is attracted to the positively-charged chitosan, and when it touches, it fuses and forms a blood clot.""
First.. I do not believe that the outer membrance of a red blood cell has a "charge" nor does this chitosan.. something tells me this CEO has a poor understanding of how his product works, and the simplification that had been made to him by the scientists working on it obviously got oversimplified in his head. Molecules simply do not exist sitting in a bandage with a positive charge.
Does anyone know how this really works in more detail? I have a suspicion it has something to do with matching polarities of ends of molecules or something like that.. but it seems very unclear from the description why the bandage works. I mean, if it works as described, then any negatively "charged" (whatever that means) substance should work in the same manner.
Sigh.. is it too much to ask for a real scientific explination ?
...the US doesn't believe any war it is in is goverened by the Geneva Convention (unless Americans are captured, but that's somehow different)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
How much would you charge per week to drive some cases of coke to soldiers for Haliburton, knowing that chances are you'll be dead within a year of working there.
Personally, I'd accept $10,000/wk, but only with a military or mercenary escort.
You have to pay a lot to get someone to be a supply line for the military, because you might as well have a gigantic "bomb me please" sign on all sides written in Arabic.
The real path to male liberation
Insightful?
Obviously someone is moderating under the influence of some serious designer drugs while wearing their aluminum foil deflector beanie... [Or perhaps those fumes are really strong...] ;)
Seriously, now. Who actually thinks we need to be worried about the vast political power of PETA?
If I recall correctly, these blood-clotting bandages also come in a powder form, but in both cases the reaction of the chitosan and your blood/plasma is significantly exothermic, so if you're not careful you can burn someone in their wound with the clotter. Ouch.
The sea called...they are running out of shrimps!
How much would you charge per week to drive some cases of coke to soldiers for Haliburton, knowing that chances are you'll be dead within a year of working there.
Chance are actually *very* good you will be alive in year. In fact, chances are very good that if you worked there for ten years you would be alive at the end.
It's a hell of a lot more dangerous than driving soda around Boston, but the odds are strongly in your favor of surviving.
One of the more interesting things I've seen out of this war was the unveiling of some absolutely brutally honest product reviews from the Marines.
Put simply -- this ain't the first clotting agent thats been developed, but oh boy does QuikClot apparently fail. Story here:
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/000458.html
and the PDF (which rocks) is here:
http://www.sftt.org/PDF/article05122003a.pdf
--Dan
They need to make a Kosher version of these bandages.
Excess bandages may be disposed of by chilling and serving with a nice cocktail sauce
Platelets are activated by exposure to injured tissue. In massive bleeding, the plug gets washed out before it can fully form. Chitosan biochemically activates platelets all along its surface (by binding to the gp2b/IIIa receptor, if you care). Also, chitosan becomes extremely sticky when mixed with blood. Another poster mentioned that these bandages must be difficult to get off. This is actually true, particularly with the powdered variant that hardens into a concrete-like mass that has to be surgically removed from the wound bed. The reaction is also exothermic, which leads to the occasional burn.
You are correct that charge has little to do with it. There are many important interactions at the cell surface, however, that are dominated by charge; the cellular environment is in aqueous solution, not a solid, and so is the bandage once it gets bled on.
Bubba: Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sautee it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich, shrimp bandages... That- that's about it.
sorry, had corn flakes this morning.
is it wrong for Jewish people to use this type of bandage?
I'm not sure I believe that - the rounds currently deployed to the US Army for their M16s are intended to tear an opponent apart, since an opponent who dies instantly can't continue to fight injured, or worse, charge and set off a bomb. They're also built to knock the target off their feet to prevent a charging enemy
OK, the rounds used in the average M16 rifle are a 5.56x45mm (.223 calibre) ball. Ball means solid, no magic hollowpoint, no poison, no voodoo, it's an upscaled .22 bullet, you can buy similar ammo at any gun store.
As far as the M16 knocking someone off their feet have you ever heard of a little thing called "Newton's third law of motion" you know, that one that says something like "every action has an equal and opposite reaction". OK, if you fire a bullet at someone that has enough power to knock them off their feet then guess what: you as the shooter will also be knocked off your feet. MV=MV and in all of my years of firing M-16s, (and M-60s and M-2s, and M-85s, M-240s and M68E2s) I never noticed any magic inertialess compensators that eliminated the recoil.
The recoil on the M-16 is pretty minimal compared to that of a rifle firing a heavier cartridge such as the 7.62x51 (.308) or 7.62x63 (30.06). If I spend a few hours at the range blasting away at targets with my .308 Vepr, or my Ruger .44 magnum carbine or my .308 M77 Mark II I'll end up with a bruised shoulder. On the other hand I can fire an M-16 all day long (and have done so) without any damage.
M-16 rounds are nasty - they have a hollowed out section on one side so that upon a collision, they drastically change shape. This causes them to travel through the body with an increased angular velocity spinning the way though the targets internals. If you've ever seen a target dummy shot with an M-16 round, the hole going in is the size you'd expect it to be - you can fit your hand in the hole on the other side. People who get shot in the arms with an M-16 will lose the arm, go into shock (and thus completely exit the battle) and almost certainly die shortly thereafter.
Dude, it's a fucking ball round, despite what you might have read somewhere on the internet the US Army was not able to duplicate any magic bullet technology that might have been used in the Kennedy assassination to produce a wonder bullet. IF they had we probably would have won the Vietnam war. "Wow Sarge, I fired ten rounds through my M16 and killed 300 VC and wounded 250 others!." "Yep, that's the magic bullet technology son, we'll be in Hanoi by Christmas. God bless the magic bullet!". I've blasted plenty of things with standard M16 ammo and haven't noticed any magical spinning mushroom effect. I've met and served with a bunch of Vietnam vets who hated the M16 not because of the early design problems (lack of a forward assist, standard barrel and chamber not chrome plated) but because the round didn't have any stopping power, that whole MV=MV thing again, it doesn't hurt you as much when you fire your M16, guess what, that means it doesn't hurt the enemy as much when it hits him. "Damn you Sir Isaac Newton!". Shotguns and Tommy guns were very highly thought of because someone hit with a shotgun or with a .45 round fired from a short distance generally stops what they're doing (trying to kill you) and focuses on something else (bleeding).
The big advantage of the M16 is that it's a lot lighter than an M14 or an M1, it's shorter, so less likely to get caught on things when you're charging through the brush, and you can carry more ammo for it. Given that a lot of the shooting you do in the military isn't aimed at the other guy as much as it is fired at him to keep his head down (so he can't shoot at you) this is a useful feature.
I suggest you stop watching crap
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
... but I guess you didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, because you just re-posted pretty much a dupe with the Bubba quote.
Most people are willing to pay $100 if their car breaks down for a tow.
Of course they'll spend the money when they are actually faced with the need. The question is whether people will pay $100 to pre-place a tow in their glove box when they don't need it. Chuckle.
Equipping active soldiers with them probably works, but to get them out to household medicine cabinets you probably need to slash the cost to $25 tops, prefferably $10.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I could start doing this. at the rate my shrimp molt in my fishtank I could become a supplier!
Which one are you talking about? There are four Geneva Conventions.
Did you by chance mean to refer to the Hague Conventions instead? Because one of them is what prohibits the use of expanding or mushrooming ammunition, contrary to what you see in the movies. In addition, the Hague Convention of 1899 also prohibits air bombardment and the use of chemical weapons.
Since we've been bombing people from the air since we've been able to get into the air, I'm not sure that the "treaty prevents us from using hollow points" theory holds any water. And when you consider that the reason militaries use FMJ ammo is that the solid tip prevents feeding errors and jamming, the treaty notion starts to look even weaker. Makes for good TV, though!
A little research now and then, is cherised by the wisest men...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
There are medication that might help you too.
As someone who has had blood clots in his limbs before and put on the blood-thinner cumadin (sp?) I would suggest a lifelong change in diet ( grapeseed oil, ginkgo biliboa, and FISH FISH FISH ) will prevent most bloodclots. The most important is changing from red meat and chicken to fish and soy as all red meat and chicken has fat that raises your change of clot.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I agree completely. Stopping power is about inertia and heavy bullets with a very large profile when viewed from the front. Energy transference is total when a bullet is halted within the target, so too high a velocity can be problematic (of course, low velocity makes for terrible in-flight ballistics). .45ACP is *wonderful* for this purpose, and certainly deserves the 'man-stopper' nickname. It makes for the perfect self-defense handgun round (since you're not likely to be facing people with ballistic vests). As an additional benefit, as the only mainstream naturally sub-sonic round it is wonderful when accompanied by a large silencer. You can use standard ammunition without worrying about the sonic crack, whereas most other rounds have to use a low-power version to be effectively silenced.
--Ryvar
What about people with allergies to shellfish, etc. Some people are deadly allergic to these things, and on the battlefield if a man is unconcious and bleeding profusely, how is someone to know? I mean I can't imaging all the medics having every soldier's medical history being immediatley acessible.
0x68ADA2CC
You're talking about the labor. That is whole seperate line item. The $40 per case of soda is just for the case of soda. That doesn't count what they're charging for labor, which is even more.
You're a fool for defending their actions. The government is sucking up everyone's money, and instead of putting it back into the American society, they're putting it in the pockets of big oil. You're a fool if you don't see that. You're also a fool if you think a $600 tax refund is anywhere close to a substantial amount of money. They've made everyone so broke, that they think they're getting a big prize, what a joke.
"HemCon bandage becomes adhesive and sticks to the wet wound site, sealing and stabilizing it." ...how the hell do you get it off after yer done with it, if it sticks more as it gets wet?
Buying a bandage is a preventative measure, a tow is not. When your car breaks down you can pay for a tow, when about to die from blood loss, you can't just saunter on down to the drug store and buy some bandages.
"introducing patch manager"
While no political group like PETA is above suspicion or critisim, either for matters of policy for the actions of it's members, readers should be aware the 'petakillsanimals.com' is in fact funded by commercial special interest groups in order to spread what can best be described as FUD.
It is run by a professional Washington lobbiest (and lawyer) named Richard Berman, and funded by companies that sell and produce animal products. They have been outed by the Washington Post, as well as by special interest groups on the other side of the fence.
To quote the Post:
The group was founded about 10 years ago with tobacco-company and restaurant money to fight smoking curbs in restaurants. Back then, the group called itself Guest Choice Network. But it changed its name in 2001, as it shifted its focus to food and beverage issues, raised by concerns about obesity, mad cow disease and genetically modified products.
The group in question has access to vast sums of money, clearly enough to cover the errection of billboards in Times Square to advertise the site, not to mention being able to afford the services of Mr Berman. It seems fairly clear it's rather more money than PETA have access to (dispite them being more of the most profile chariable organisations in the US). If this is in doubt, it's worth pointing out that a cheif founder of Berman's group is the worlds largest tabbaco company, the notorious multi billion dollar Philip Morris.
Bizzare that people should feel the need to defend a fake 'grass roots' campaign run by a special interest food, alchohol and tobbacoo lobbyist and lawyer, but it takes all sorts.
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With regard to the article, I thought the military have had this sort of thing for decades. IIRC early versions going back at least to the Vietnam war and were in use up until fairly recently (if not still in use today - which I would think they they probably are) basically used treated bandages with 'supeglue' to hold people together at least till they reached a medevac point.
I can only imagine the reason why the use of this sort of bandage might not be more mainstream, is that it's it's not as useful in a civilian urban enviornment where most people are within reach of emergency services and hospitals, making the need for this sort of 'stop gap' approach somewhat redundant.
Though the specific element aimed at speeding clotting could be useful (assming it doesn't kill you if your allergic to shellfish, or cause a blood clot which travels to your arteries and then kills you) I can't see actual ground up shrimp being a very economic way to meet demand, and have to think it would be far cheaper to synthasize a similar compound in the long run.
It seemed like a big gripe there was blood pushing the clotting agent out of the way.
I know that some attempts to deal with bleeding use adhesive (like SuperGlue) instead of attempting to produce clotting. I wonder if it's reasonable to just dump a blob of fast-setting-on-water-contact glop on a wound, or if blockage of arteries would be too much of a risk.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Next time I cut myself, I'm going to rub myself with shrimp. If it doesn't clot blood... I am sure I will smell lovely as I'm wheeled into the ER.
"My God! Dr. Whitby! Can you smell that? This man has clearly been attacked by a claw shrimp!"
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Speaking of which, I have an old email that I think I'll quote here:
BEGIN:
I was reading a page about Medal of Honor recipients (there are only
about 100 living MoH recipients today) that described what they did to
earn the thing. It was sufficiently impressive that I wanted to pass
on the three most impressive that I read about (of the 101st
Airborne). These people, are to put it bluntly, insanely badass --
this is pretty clearly not a medal given out lightly:
[World War II]
Joe E. Mann
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company H, 502d
Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. Place and date: Best,
Holland, 18 September 1944. Entered service at: Seattle, Wash. Birth:
Rearden, Wash. G.O. No.: 73, 30 August 1945. Citation: He
distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry above and beyond the
call of duty. On 18 September 1944, in the vicinity of Best., Holland,
his platoon, attempting to seize the bridge across the Wilhelmina
Canal, was surrounded and isolated by an enemy force greatly superior
in personnel and firepower. Acting as lead scout, Pfc. Mann boldly
crept to within rocket-launcher range of an enemy artillery position
and, in the face of heavy enemy fire, destroyed an 88mm. gun and an
ammunition dump. Completely disregarding the great danger involved, he
remained in his exposed position, and, with his M-1 rifle, killed the
enemy one by one until he was wounded 4 times. Taken to a covered
position, he insisted on returning to a forward position to stand
guard during the night. On the following morning the enemy launched a
concerted attack and advanced to within a few yards of the position,
throwing hand grenades as they approached. One of these landed within
a few feet of Pfc. Mann. Unable to raise his arms, which were bandaged
to his body, he yelled "grenade" and threw his body over the grenade,
and as it exploded, died. His outstanding gallantry above and beyond
the call of duty and his magnificent conduct were an everlasting
inspiration to his comrades for whom he gave his life.
[Vietnam]
Michale John Fitzmaurice
Rank and organization: Specialist Fourth Class, U.S. Army, Troop D, 2d
Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 101st Airborne Division. Place and date: Khe
Sanh, Republic of Vietnam, 23 March 1971. Entered service at:
Jamestown, N. Dak. Born: 9 March 1950, Jamestown, N. Dak . Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his
life above and beyond the call of duty. Sp4c. Fitzmaurice, 3d Platoon,
Troop D, distinguished himself at Khe Sanh. Sp4c. Fitzmaurice and 3
fellow soldiers were occupying a bunker when a company of North
Vietnamese sappers infiltrated the area. At the onset of the attack
Sp4c. Fitzmaurice observed 3 explosive charges which had been thrown
into the bunker by the enemy. Realizing the imminent danger to his
comrades, and with complete disregard for his personal safety, he
hurled 2 of the charges out of the bunker. He then threw his flak vest
and himself over the remaining charge. By this courageous act he
absorbed the blast and shielded his fellow-soldiers. Although
suffering from serious multiple wounds and partial loss of sight, he
charged out of the bunker, and engaged the enemy until his rifle was
damaged by the blast of an enemy hand grenade. While in search of
another weapon, Sp4c. Fitzmaurice encountered and overcame an enemy
sapper in hand-to-hand combat. Having obtained another weapon, he
returned to his original fighting position and inflicted additional
casualties on the attacking enemy. Although seriously wounded,
Sp4c. Fitzmaurice refused to be medically evacuated, preferring to
remain at his post. Sp4c. Fitzmaurice's extraordinary heroism in
action at the risk of his life contributed significantly to the
successful defense of the position and resulted in saving the lives of
a number of his fellow soldiers. These ac
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
How does a post that doesn't say anything at all definiative get modded "Informative"?
My other first post is car post.
BDU = Battle Dress Uniform
My other first post is car post.
In order to improve accuracy, most guns today are of the 'rifled' variety. This means that there are grooves on the inside that force the bullet to spin as it travels through the barrel. This stabilizes the bullet, making sure it doesn't tumble during the flight, which wrecks accuracy as forces on the bullet are no longer consistant. The rate of the grooving is refered to as "Twist Rate" which is generally referred to as "1 in x", which means 1 rotation in x inches.
.22), there are arguements that against the unarmoured targets being encountered in the desert, the current M855 is less effective than the old M193 ball
Old style M16's have an unusually slow twist rate in it's rifling(1 in 12). It was designed to fire a light 55 grain bullet. This means that the light round was barely stabilized. New M16A2's have a 1 in 7 twist, needed to stabilize the heavier M855 5.56mm round.
Especially in the older style, within certain ranges, the rounds had a tendency to loose stability when it hit something, such as a body, and begin to tumble, then fragment. This is the increased damage that you refer to.
As for the parent -
the rounds currently deployed to the US Army for their M16s are intended to tear an opponent apart, since an opponent who dies instantly can't continue to fight injured, or worse, charge and set off a bomb.
While many troops are clamoring for a more effective round(IE something larger than a
They're also built to knock the target off their feet to prevent a charging enemy.
I'll refer you to mythbusters on this one. I'll just point out that a 5.56 round has less momentum than a thrown softball.
M-16 rounds are nasty - they have a hollowed out section on one side so that upon a collision, they drastically change shape.
Absolutely, utterly false. If you have a 'hollowed out section' on one side, the bullet is no longer symetric, and accuracy is lost. Remember, the M-16 is considered good against point targets(IE people), with aimed fire out to 300 yards.
People who get shot in the arms with an M-16 will lose the arm, go into shock (and thus completely exit the battle) and almost certainly die shortly thereafter.
Nope, Nope, and Nope. While you certainly can have 'golden BB's'*, they're fairly rare. Many terrorists and insurgents in the region don't go down until they have six to twelve rounds put into them. There are people to have taken six to the chest and survived. Death afterwards is generally the result of lack of competent medical care afterwards allowing them to bleed to death.
*A shot that does far more damage than you'd expect from round size and general shot placement.
I don't read AC A human right
That's the hague conventions, and we never signed either, we aren't bound by anything. The 5.56mm rounds fired from a M16, M249, or M4 are far more devestating than a hollowpoint, at ranges up to about 150m they tumble and fragment, producing horrific wounds with tons of blood loss. The 5.56mm round is one of the most lethal rifle rounds in existance provided it has enough velocity to tumble and fragment.
I'm curious as to whether people who are allergic to shellfish would be affected by these bandages.
Your ad hominem argument is inadequate, and would get you marked down in the lowest level logic class. The pages are pretty good.
Yeah, fake grassroots campaigns suck. That doesn't make everything they say a lie, and when they use easily validated facts it's pretty simple to evaluate them. I'm impressed with how much good information they have, and how little idle speculation there is on the site, considering that it is produced by a fundamentally dishonest (crypto-lobbyist) organization.
Are the quoted news articles real? I know that the quote "A cow is a pig is a dog is a boy" is real. I also know that the PETA-philes do market aggressively to children. Their involvement (at the highest levels, as well as financially) with arsonists is a matter of police record. The organization does value all animal life equally with human life, and proudly does very real damage to important medical research (I have personal knowledge of this.) Meanwhile they pretend that they just want to improve the conditions of our animals and eliminate "needless" cruelty. What is not said often is that any use of animals is needless cruelty. PETA's dishonesty is exploitative and contemptible.
As an organization, they are despicable, but most of their members are kind people who recognize that a child is more important than a rat. Ironically, children are the easiest to sway because can be frightened with gore. The adults are offered gruesome pictures of apparently pointless research. Vegetarians are told they are morally superior. PETA appeals to all sorts.
In this case, it's fortunate that somebody stands to lose money from PETA's actions, because PETA is a scary organization.
People are more important than animals. The moral sense that makes this so also means that we must not abuse our power over animals.
Further regarding morality and humanness: It is sociopathic to equate a rat's life with a child's. Anyone who truly feels no more anguish over the death of a rat than a child is fundamentally broken as a person.
I'm not exaggerating: It's sociopathic to equate animal life with human life. I don't mean that it isn't important to question humanity's relationship to animals. It isn't wrong to wonder if or why we should not eat animals, but if a person does not intuitively feel that a person matters more than an animal, I certainly wouldn't want them around anyone I care about.
Imagine hearing this: "There was a fire in the classroom, but fortunately I got the rat out of there in time. It was awful that my student burned to death, but I could only get one out, rat or child. I chose the rat because I know him better."
PETA is run by sociopaths, while most of PETA's members are simply opposed to needless cruelty.
Two anecdotes:
I remember a conversation with a man who came from a logging family. In what seemed to be a repentant reaction, he had concluded that trees were more important than people. I find that easier to swallow somehow.
Perhaps I am prejudiced by my experiences. Long ago, I uprooted my life and moved to a new city for a girl. I loaded a 24' moving truck with her stuff and drove it 500 miles. At the end of that very long day (or rather the beginning of the next) I arrived at our new home. We'd been apart for a few weeks, and when she opened the door and saw me standing there with a cat carrier in each hand she exclaimed with joy-
"My Kitties!"
and took the carriers from me.
Nah, that's not why I hate PETA, its just a silly story now. My relationship with that girl was doomed anyway, and they were really nice cats.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Your ad hominem argument is inadequate, and would get you marked down in the lowest level logic class. The pages are pretty good.
I found it sensationalist and intentionaly misleading myself (having compared the charges with the evidence), YMMV.
For example, because I really ought to give an example to back this up:
While the figures for the number of animals put down is very distasteful, the figures given are in line with other large animal welfare groups in terms of percentage of animals put down.
It's true the figures much smaller for some groups - specifically for smaller groups - this is in part due to disparities in scale, and in greater part due to the fact that smaller groups often simply refuse to take animals when they are at capacity. Many of these groups have a policy of never putting healthy animals down, which is the driving force for them being set up in the first place (because they are aware this is what will happen if the animals end up at a larger shelter).
It's would seem entirely incorrect for this site to claim 'hypocrisy', as they do, on the grounds that PETA put animals that cannot be homed down, at the same time campaigning about the way animals are treated within the meat industry. The two actions do not seem incongruous.
However, I was not, and am not interested in, engaging in avocation with regard to PETA, I'm merely attempting to giving accurate and complete information and to put the information given in context.
Somewhat separately, with regard to the following:
Ironically, children are the easiest to sway because can be frightened with gore.
Personally, if the information and images are entirely accurate (and accurately represented, in a non sensationalist and objective way - especially with children), then I have no problem with this whatsoever. If we can't justify our actions as a society to our own children, it does seem to raise the issue that perhaps it is our actions that are questionable.