Can Humans Actually Breathe Liquid? (The Bizarre Science Explained)

[00:00:00]Have you ever watched that famous scene in James Cameron's [music] 1989 movie The Abyss? The one where a diver puts on a heavy helmet, it fills up with a mysterious pink fluid, and instead of drowning, he breathes it in. Or what about the scene [music] where a rat is completely submerged in a liquid and survives? Here is the absolute craziest part about that movie. It wasn't CGI. It [music] wasn't a magic trick. That was real. There are actually liquids on Earth that you can breathe.

[00:00:33]Today, we are diving into the incredibly bizarre, seemingly impossible science of breathable liquids, what they are, why did we invent them, and will humans ever use them to explore the [music] deep ocean? Let's find out, right here on Simple Things Surprising Histories.

[00:01:01]First, we need to understand why we drown in water. Humans don't drown just because water is a liquid. We drown because water doesn't hold enough dissolved oxygen, and our lungs simply aren't designed to extract what little oxygen is there.

[00:01:18]But in the world of chemistry, there is a class of synthetic liquids called perfluorocarbons, or PFCs. They're made mostly of carbon and fluorine. To the naked eye, a PFC looks exactly like water, but chemically, it's vastly different. PFCs are incredibly dense, and they have an almost magical property. They can hold up to three times more oxygen than human blood. If you heavily oxygenated a batch of PFCs, it essentially becomes a dense, breathable atmosphere. Your lungs can extract the oxygen right out of the fluid.

[00:01:56]The story of this miracle liquid started in the 1960s with a brilliant scientist named Dr. Leland Clark. In 1966, Dr. Clark conducted a jaw-dropping experiment. He completely submerged a live mouse into a beaker of heavily oxygenated perfluorocarbon.

[00:02:14]The mouse panicked for a brief moment, but then it took a breath and another.

[00:02:20]The mouse survived for hours underwater breathing the liquid just like air.

[00:02:25]But why were scientists doing this? The answer lies in the deep ocean. When human divers go extremely deep, the pressure of the ocean compresses the gases in their lungs causing deadly conditions like the bends. Scientists realized that liquid cannot be compressed. If a diver's lungs were filled with oxygenated liquid instead of air, they would be practically immune to the crushing pressure of the deep sea.

[00:02:51]This was the exact science that inspired James Cameron to use real PFC liquid for the rat scene in The Abyss.

[00:03:00]So, if this works, why aren't deep sea divers using it today?

[00:03:04]The problem comes down to basic physics.

[00:03:07]PFC liquid is much heavier and thicker than air. Think about how easy it is to breathe right now. Now imagine your diaphragm muscles having to pump a heavy fluid in and out of your chest with every single breath. A human would become physically exhausted in a matter of minutes. You wouldn't die from a lack of oxygen. Your chest muscles would just get too tired to keep pumping the liquid leading to a dangerous buildup of carbon dioxide.

[00:03:34]But this science isn't a dead end. In recent decades, medical researchers found a beautiful life-saving use for it. Doctors have used a process called partial liquid ventilation for extremely premature babies. The heavy liquid gently opens up their fragile underdeveloped lungs, delivering oxygen directly to the tissue, and saving lives when traditional ventilators fail.

[00:03:59]From a bizarre 1960s experiment with a mouse to a Hollywood blockbuster, and now a potential lifesaver in hospitals, breathable liquids are one of the most fascinating scientific anomalies we've ever created. If you found this piece of history as surprising as I did, please hit that like button, share this video with a fellow science nerd, and make sure to subscribe to Simple Things Surprising Histories. We explore the everyday mysteries of our world one simple thing at a time. Until next time, stay curious.