Gilled Breathing?

Many years ago, while working at Southwest Research Institute, we studied research that had been done in this area. There was something similar to reverse osmosis for water that was tried for oxygen, but, if I remember rightly, the amount of oxygen available in water was way to limited to be of use for human breathing. Like I said, this was many years ago, and I have no idea if anything has been done recently...

I remember 35 or so years ago picking up some book on underwater exploration and seeing a picture a small animal (a mouse or a bird) in a box that was made of some sort of membrane, and the box was completely submurged in an aquarium tank. The gist of the story being that the membrane passed enough oxygen to keep the animal alive and dry. And that "soon" we'd have diving gear made using the same technology.

Being a young'un at the time and fascinated by diving, I thought that was about the coolest thing ever. But I never heard more about it either.

Maybe the lawyers down in Atlantis sued over patent infringement?

works on land but not sea.

A new device may offer hope to patients in desperate need of a lung transplant. Robert Bartlett, MD, a University of Michigan professor emeritus of surgery, and his team have developed the BioLung, an artificial lung that works with the heart's own pumping action to manage oxygen and blood flow throughout the body. Because the device uses the heart rather than mechanics to pump blood, the patient can stay active at home instead of being sedated and hooked up to a machine in the hospital. The device can even remain in place following a transplant, until the donor lungs are fully operational. 5 years

I remember seeing on TV many years ago (B&W TV) about research being done on breathing water. They showed a dog swimming underwater. They said they kept him down for 30 minutes. Of the dogs they tested, only one out of five survived being brought back to breathing air. Over the years, I've seen blurps of news about breathing water. I remember when Jaques Cousteau said he wanted to be the first human to breathe water. Our lungs can get the oxygen out of the water just like it does with air. But I'm not going to be the first to try it!!

Apparently there is quite a bit of work being done with breathing flourocarbons.

_{Results 1 - 10 of about 43,500 for breathing fluorocarbons. (0.08 seconds)}

Pretty interesting stuff.

I am a little confused about the notion that fish do not breath O2 gas from the water but rather extract the dissolved O2 from the water. Damn chemistry.

On a diving trip I was on one couple had the re-breather air systems they were using instead of the old fashioned SCUBA equipment we had. Those things are really nice and a diver can stay down for hours at certain depths. The problem I saw with the re-breathers were that they were really heavy until you got into the water and the ones the couple had were in the 10K each price range. I think it would be truly awesome if one day divers could have an apparatus that actually took breathing air from the water but I don't think there is such a device at this time. I guess in the meantime I will have to rely on my trusty tanks and regulator.