Breath Detector To Help Find Earthquake Survivors

bazzalunatic writes "With all the recent earthquakes, this 'human-sniffing' device couldn't be more timely. Developed in the UK, the new machine detects the breath and sweat of survivors trapped in rubble. It's better than sniffer dogs, and could reduce the risk to them. From the article: 'The sensor technology was shown to accurately detect human-generated carbon dioxide and ammonia in air that wafted through gaps in the rubble during testing, something that previously only dogs could do, as other technologies focus more heavily on seeing or hearing a survivor.'"

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[antifoidulus]

I was going to point out the irony of referencing Dr. Who as science as it's not exactly the most credible thing in the world, but then I realized that you are a chiropractor, so Dr. Who IS more credible than you :P

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[Tsingi]

Subluxation, you keep using that word, I don not think it means what you think it means.
2

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[JoshuaZ]

You've managed to touch briefly on actually interesting, real science. Humans automatically compensate for increased CO2 by adjusting their breathing and their metabolic levels. Curiously, humans can only detect the presence of carbon dioxide in the blood but not the absence of oxygen. This has lead to deaths in high nitrogen environments or other environments where there's very little oxygen, since people have no warning sign that they aren't getting enough oxygen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_as [wikipedia.org]

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[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Incidentally, this makes inert gas inhalation a preferred suicide method among those without access to the harder anaesthetics: usually it involves helium, since you can get small tanks of that cheaply at party supply places, unlike nitrogen which is a welding/scientific/industrial thing(not controlled in any way; but fewer retail places, and many that might give you a funny look if you act like you don't know what you are doing there...)

Bag over head, open the tap to achieve continuous mild overpressure

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[timeOday]

Thanks for brightening my day, fungus dude.

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[RockDoctor]

Must be popular amongst the chemically illiterate then. I'd have gone to the camping gear store and brought a can of propane-butane mix.

Same asphyxiation effect, but with a mild degree of anaesthesia as well.

Timely?

[Jmc23]

Late seems more appropriate. Wouldn't timely suggest it was available for use during the actual earthquakes? ...or perhaps san fran is next?

Perfect...

[TheMeth0D]

...technology for skynet to use when hunting us in the future. Keep up the good work!

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[TheMeth0D]

At the rate we're going we won't have gas money for our helicopters let alone money to equip them with the latest technology... and thats probably a good thing.

Skynet on the other hand has no funding issues... money is just numbers on a computer after all.

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[a_hanso]

Or for Precrime to to use when hunting runners in the future.

Ammonia?

[Anonymous Coward]

So when a building falls on you, you are supposed to urinate in your pants so they can find you with this ammonia sniffer thing? Or is there really enough ammonia in sweat for this to detect it?

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[Talderas]

So when a building falls on you, you are supposed to urinate in your pants so they can find you with this ammonia sniffer thing? Or is there really enough ammonia in sweat for this to detect it?

Well, given the choice between pissing yourself or retaining your dignity and dying which would you choose?

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[Anonymous Coward]

So when a building falls on you, you are supposed to urinate in your pants so they can find you with this ammonia sniffer thing?

Okay now, do you really think that people trapped in rubble under collapsed buildings just hold it? Or walk down to the bathroom and use the urinals?

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[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know about the rest of you but if a building ends up falling on me i don't think pissing my pants is going to be a conscious decision I'm going to have to make, think that might just be automatic.

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[qpqp]

Can we modify it, so it can smell weed or truffles?

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[Demonoid-Penguin]

Can we modify it, so it can smell weed

Done already - ditto pollen tracking

or truffles?

Probably considered redundant and expensive now that reliable cultivation by innoculation is considered trivial (my kids sometimes work on a neighbouring truffle farm). They just work through the soil around the tree roots on a regular basis, yields are high and reliable.

It's a Tasmanian company that sells the innoculation - wild truffles aren't worth much now (and pigs are cheap).

I've been thinking about this a bit

[joshuac]

and since practically everyone nowadays carry sophisticated personal radio beacons (aka "cell phones") that periodically transmit uniquely identifiable (on a per device basis) signals, I'm surprised no one has jumped on using this as a way of sensing where the people are.

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[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Except that the cell phone doesn't give any indication that the person it's with is alive or not. That's why they're called "survivors".

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[boristdog]

Yeah, screw those 6 billion people who don't have cell phones!

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[moonbender]

Hm? World population is roughly 7 billion. I'm sure there's several billion mobile phone users out there. Wikipedia refers to "over 5 billion", but that might just be the number of active phones, number of users will be a bit lower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use [wikipedia.org]

Re:I've been thinking about this a bit

[westlake]

and since practically everyone nowadays carry sophisticated personal radio beacons (aka "cell phones")

There is the problem of battery life. Signal penetration through tons of rubble. Transponders out of service and so on.

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[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like they did after 9/11 when they brought in portable cell towers and used them to triangulate on the cell phone signals?

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[joshuac]

Yes, only in a form deployable by a first responder.

Summary Misleading

[RobinEggs]

It's better than sniffer dogs

Highly misleading. It eliminates dangers to the dogs/handlers and simplifies logistics; the article doesn't even imply that the device is more effective than dogs. It also points out that dogs are more agile and will still be more useful in areas where the machine or its human operator can't easily go (which I imagine will be a lot of places, considering that they're *digging through rubble*).

There are dogs out there that can detect cancer, for Christ sake; don't be so quick to dismiss biology in favor of technology, especially considering that a merging of the two is probably our next great frontier.

P.S. If any suspicious or sardonic person out there wants to argue that cancer dogs are some stupid myth, read the studies cited in this wikipedia article: they may be small studies, but I'm not inclined to doubt a study of a diagnostic tool showing a specificity >90% until I see a directly contrary scientific result or a damn good argument about the design of the original study.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_cancer_detection

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[drinkypoo]

You forgot something, and that something is snakebots.

Numerous labs are working on snake-shaped robots, some even have built them out of discrete modules that can detach and become smaller lengths. Now add in some sniffer modules, and suddenly you have robots that can go places dogs can't. Equip the modules with radio repeaters and now you can get a comm link even down into a collapsed building with a lot of metal in it. Come on, what year is it? Dogs, indeed. I'm allergic to dogs, so that's an extra reason

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[Hatta]

Gah. I always forget about snakebots.

of things wafting

[v1]

accurately detect human-generated carbon dioxide and ammonia in air that wafted through gaps in the rubble

I'd be willing to bet that there's a number of easier to smell things than CO2 "wafting" up out of rubble with a survivor that's been in there for days.

Lets drop the PC talk and get down to brass tacks. By day 3 any survivor is going to be quite ripe in a number of ways and their bad breath is going to be the last thing you notice.

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[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

True; but if you are looking for survivors you want something that isn't also true of a slightly squished corpse that hasn't been exerting much sphincter control of late. Carbon dioxide isn't perfect(fires and microbial respiration also generate it); but there are reasons to choose it.

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[abies]

I think that this is why 'ammonia' is mentioned. I can already see that Health&Safety instructions - "In case of being buried in the rubble, release as soon as possible".

Still, for the first n hours, to find unconcious people who are not following H&S rule, CO2 marker is probably more important.

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[Muad'Dave]

...their bad breath is going to be the last thing you notice.

Actually 48 hours of starvation can cause ketosis [wikipedia.org], which gives you fruity-smelling acetone breath and urine.

Which is cheaper?

[jomegat]

I bet dogs are a lot cheaper than snifferbots.

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[Mashiki]

Considering you can train a dog from birth to be a sniffer in under 6mo, I'd say it's going to be cheaper.

DWI

[sgt scrub]

In Texas they would pull you out then give you a ticket for Dying While Intoxicated.

More like...

[rush2049]

More like breath detector to help skynet find living humans to eradicate....

Great.....

[LoRdTAW]

They invented a bigger mosquito. Just what the world needs.

Customs Use ?

[mossy the mole]

Sounds like an improved version of the detectors used to find illegal immigrants hidden in trucks. If it works It'll probably see much more use by customs that the rescue people.

Great device..

[raymorphic]

Kudos to the team who produced this

Good.

[h5inz]

Its a nice technology for a good purpose, though still couldn't resist...- now try reading it with "earthquake" replaced by "human extermination effort" !