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"LIKE A FISH UNDER WATER"new way to breath under water without oxygen tanks

isracast.com — An Israeli Inventor has developed a breathing apparatus that will allow breathing underwater without the assistance of compressed air tanks. This new invention will use the relatively small amounts of air that already exist in water to supply oxygen to both scuba divers and submarines. The invention has already captured the interest of most major

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  • sipple, on 10/12/2007, -9/+107this would be amazing to have, you could be like a fishy
    • matthewaaron, on 10/12/2007, -138/+22Actually, you need more than just oxygen to function properly. You can actually get sick from breathing pure oxygen for extended periods of time. This device would need a supply of nitrogen and other trace gases to combine with the oxygen to be totally effective.
    • quomen, on 10/12/2007, -14/+225They discovered this a while ago..
      Look up Gillyweed.
    • JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -3/+46Now the bottleneck will become the battery. Perhaps energy could be captured from moving water and/or the movements of the diver and pumped into the batteries?
    • matthewaaron, on 10/12/2007, -64/+21Never mind... I read further this device uses dissolved air and doesn't actually separate the oxygen from the hydrogen... so it does not become toxic at depth.

      This is completely different from previously discovered technologies that extract the oxygen molecule from h20.
    • olddirtycr, on 10/12/2007, -10/+93Matt, RTFA.

      "Bodner: Well I have, a few people do not understand the concept, they assume that I separate oxygen from the water and they say correctly that it is toxic below a depth of seven meters and then they ask some technical questions. In this case I want to say again, the device can extract air from the water. It is dissolved air which contains oxygen and nitrogen and so on. It does not extract oxygen from hydrogen."

      And to the 3 people who dugg you up, RTFA.
    • bcasper1, on 10/12/2007, -17/+4didnt bond have something that let him get oxygen from water? wasn't it in octopussy?
    • matthewaaron, on 10/12/2007, -32/+12olddirtycr,

      Exactly what my comment right before your comment says... personally I don't consider the Q&A section part of the article, but nevertheless I found that information.

      RMFC
    • CAvenger, on 10/12/2007, -7/+137This is unconfortable and humiliating! Now, if they could put it the form of a suppository...
    • Parasocks, on 10/12/2007, -35/+13Jews 1 - Palestinians 0
    • GeorgeStone, on 10/12/2007, -10/+44How dare you all digg CAvenger down. That was a Futurama quote!
    • slicedoranges, on 10/12/2007, -3/+37Is it really that hard to spell "breathe"?
    • answer42, on 10/12/2007, -5/+53@cacoe

      Thank you, oh wise and venerable Digg historian. Now I know I shouldn't read the article, even though it seems interesting and I've never seen it before. But thanks to you, now I know it has been on Digg before, so I can safely ignore it. Whew, that was a close one!
    • Asianwaste, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25With this, I can fulfill my dream and live among the dolphins.
    • appetite, on 10/12/2007, -8/+18this is one of many reasons we shouldn't let iran nuke israel.
    • weister42, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4It pulls oxygen from sea water, so if a lot of people start using them wouldn't the body of water be oxygen-deprived and harm the environment?
    • andburn1, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3@matthewaraon - it does, you idiot. It doesn't separate oxygen from hydrogen, it separates air from water - the air that's already mixed with the water. The air is the same as the air in Earth's atmosphere that we breathe everyday.

      Edit: uhh, my bad. He realized, and got told by someone else. But still - RTFA.
    • OdepiTy, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2dugg cuz he is probably Jewish
    • wang1011, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3"didnt bond have something that let him get oxygen from water? wasn't it in octopussy?"

      Thunderball! And the Rock had something similar to take away the bubbles (rebreather?)
    • manageMyRights, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Would you still need to decompress and follow standard dive tables? I know it is taking oxygen with trace gases, but you are still under pressure so I'm not sure.
    • ADDHITMAN, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0matt please dont kill my dream (in response to ur first comment, i didnt have time to read the rest)
  • zupeanut, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1Actually, this technology has been around for a couple years at least. :) It's still pretty damned cool though.
  • MrSidnet, on 10/12/2007, -33/+3nice CAPS
  • Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+35*Fidgets around* I wish more research was put into higher energy density. If we were able to store a lot more energy in a small space, we could easily have electric cars that wouldn't need to be recharged for thousands of miles, a scuba system that would never run out of air, and millions of electronic devices out there would be able to run for hundreds of times longer than normal. Think of the possibilities...
    • Gir53457, on 10/12/2007, -3/+60I could watch an entire movie on an iPod before it dies!
    • jon61575, on 10/12/2007, -31/+3I can watch an entire movie on my iPod before it dies. I've watched a 2 1/2 hour movie and two 1/2 hour TV shows and it didn't run out of juice.
    • KJSatz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Wow Jon I envy your technical expertise.
    • Futurepower, on 10/12/2007, -11/+2BE CAREFUL!!! There are many "inventions" coming from Israel lately that are really FRAUDULENT attempts to get investor money. I don't know about this one; I am only commenting in general.
    • ISVDamocles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This is exactly what Lithium Ion does. It has the highest energy density for a rechargeable battery (both in volume and in mass, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Density ), but this density comes at a price of, well, laptop batteries exploding, for instance.

      Now obviously the tech will mature more, or be supplanted by a more stable and approximately as capable battery form in the future, but another way to improve the performance of our electronics is to make them more efficient at using electron flow. An obvious example is the reduction in power consumption between CRTs and LCDs, or the semiconductor industry's continual reduction in size of the MOSFETs they produce (smaller distance to travel, less resistance to electron flow and a smaller energy band-gap for the electrons to cross [get too close to the thermal voltage and you won't be able to tell if the electron flow is intentional or not, though...]).

      For the purpose of performing a physical action (such as extracting air dissolved in water), though, there are very calculable limits on how much energy is required, and there's no way to get below this limit, which would drive the continuing research into more tightly compacting energy.
    • Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Lithium Ion energy density is quite limited, things like ultracapacitors and hydrogen powered nanoturbines will quickly beat it in terms of energy density. When I say truely dense energy storage, I'm talking like a battery that can run a laptop for 100 hours.
  • Switchnig, on 10/12/2007, -10/+91Codename: JEWBA
    • scrimaxinc, on 10/12/2007, -7/+22If laughing at that joke is wrong......i don't wanna be right.
    • KnytFyre, on 10/12/2007, -29/+5If not getting that joke is wrong....well, then I'm wrong! Anyone care to explain?
    • Julolidine, on 10/12/2007, -8/+31@knytfyre Jew + SCUBA= JEWBA
    • knuckles, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15It's funny because the word "jew" conjugates the verb in many mashups like this or when it's used as is. The more common ones are "how are jew?", "I love jew", "jewbaka" and so on. Might not read as funny as it sounds so I apologize to anyone offended by my post.
  • nyadney, on 10/12/2007, -13/+7O_O


    next thing you know they invent hpyerdrive and lightsabers
  • floridiot2, on 10/12/2007, -8/+29Solid Snake already has this technology.
    • sophiaperennis, on 10/12/2007, -17/+10Is that the name of a porn actor?
    • andburn1, on 10/12/2007, -11/+3***** y'all haters - that was hilarious, sophia.
  • moofree, on 10/12/2007, -14/+2Exciting. I can't wait for the patent to expire. :D

    This will be put to good use in submarine vehicles.
  • iStunT, on 10/12/2007, -29/+2wow pretty awesome... i hope it looks like the one in star wars... how ***** crazy would that be/... but i dont think this is going to work.. like the 3rd or second guy said, you cant just breathe pure oxygen, you need other things mixed with it like nitrogen. We actually only breathe in like 5 percent oxygen from the air..
    • somnus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Like someone said above, RTFA. It extracts dissolved *air*. It does not seperate H2O into Hydrogen and Oxygen.
    • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+95%? lmao, it's damn near 30%.
      And as has already been pointed out, this system (assuming it's all working) extracts dissolved air, air being mostly a mix of Nitrogen and Oxygen, in breathable proportions. There is no seperation of hydrogen and oxygen, and we breathe out the nitrogen we breathe in, and since it's also a rebreather (closed system as they call it) it doesn't even need to harvest more nitrogen.
      If this device does work as advertised, then it should be perfectly safe.
  • agent96, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12This reminds me of "The Abyss".
  • ArchieAndrews, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2FTA: " Well I have, a few people do not understand the concept, they assume that I separate oxygen from the water and they say correctly that it is toxic below a depth of seven meters and then they ask some technical questions. In this case I want to say again, the device can extract air from the water. It is dissolved air which contains oxygen and nitrogen and so on. It does not extract oxygen from hydrogen."

    Can someone explain what he is saying here because my pea-brain won't grok it. How does one even attempt to extract oxygen from hydrogen? Isn't that just a nonsense statement?
    • nreynolds, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9he means seperating oxygen from H2O. but that's not what he's doing, he's just getting dissolved air from the water some other way.
    • ArchieAndrews, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I get it now. I don't think he meant what I read it as.
    • moofree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Yeah, how does one extract oxygen from hydrogen?
      I think he meant he's not seperating water into hydrogen and oxygen.
    • scubajim, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think he meant water. I think it is a typo or a misstatement.

      On a nuclear submarine they have plenty of electrical power so they use electrolysis to separate Hydrogen and Oxygen from water. It is rather simple (they do it in basic high school chemistry class all the time), just run a current through water. Best if you add a little Sulfuric
      Acid (a drop or two) and DC current will allow you to collect O2 at one electrode and H2 at the other. (water being H2O)

    • majortom1981, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6He is stating that his device Does not do electrolisys.

      Think of soda. How it has co2 in it. Now basically using the soda example his machine would basically take in the co2 bubbles without taking in the air.

      So all his machine is doing is taking out the air from the water (not the o2)

      Think of his machine as artificial gills.
    • S1ngular1ty1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Electrolysis uses electricity to break down the bonds between the Hydrogen and Oxygen atoms in H20 to give you Oxygen that you can breathe. His machine doesn't do this. His machine uses a pump to spin water in a centrifuge to separate the air from the water.

      This isn't a new idea. Just a new application of an old idea. There are devices used on air lines in factories all over the world to separate water from air so the air lines stay dry. They work on the same principle. The water-air mixture is spun in a centrifuge at high velocity (by the air flow). The heavier water molecules fall to the bottom of the filter because of gravity and the lighter air molecules float and continue in the air line thus separating the air from the water.


      http://www.walkerfiltration.com/water_separators.asp?id=3&doc=18
  • sceebacny, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Now I can sing with my Underwater Friends and not taste vodka.
    /Please know where this is from.
  • scubajim, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7It is a good idea. However closed scuba systems are not for your usual recreational diver. They are a lot more complex to use, a LOT more training. If you don't use closed scuba often you increase your risk. It takes training to use a closed scuba system and a lot more can go wrong. (eg you can't easily detect CO2 build up so you have to monitor it. Same with O2 build up. At depth O2 can be toxic to the central nervous system. An accumulation of one or the other is quite possible in a closed system.) Military uses abound.
  • thomas, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4Dude, look at the date this was posted it is really old.
    • GoldYoshi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15So that means it's even more advanced by now!
  • aMammoth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You don't need the other gases in the air because air is dissolved in the water, not just oxygen.
  • luet, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4"Bodner: Well I have, a few people do not understand the concept, they assume that I separate oxygen from the water and they say correctly that it is toxic below a depth of seven meters and then they ask some technical questions. In this case I want to say again, the device can extract air from the water. It is dissolved air which contains oxygen and nitrogen and so on. It does not extract oxygen from hydrogen."

    I believe you have been owned mattthewaaron
  • GTPilot, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Dec. 14, 2005
    • noliberalbull, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5exactly what I was thinking... I actually remember reading this exact article back then. Its still cool though
  • ArchieAndrews, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Can anyone with more knowledge than me comment on whether or not this affects bottom time vis a vis absorbed Nitrogen (the bends)? I assume the gas is still compressed as you descend?
    • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yes, there is no way to stop the gas from being compressed as you go down, so if you go too deep you will end up narc'd (Nitrogen narcosis, which is like drunk, but deep underwater where that is good and dangerous), and if you come up too fast the same nitrogen dissolved in your blood, which is dropping in pressure, will start to form bubbles (like when you open your "soda"), and bubbles in your blood stream is bad. Painful, and if not fixed fairly quickly fatal. (The Benz) Of course at the right depths you don't need to worry about Nitrogen Narcosis (you don't get much until at least 20 metres underwater) so you can maintain shallow dives until the battery runs out. If you want to have an indefinitely maintained dive deeper than 30 metres you'll probably want to get some kind of pressure reducing device, such as a submarine. (which as mentioned can use the same technology, and unlike electrolysis, you won't need to have a nuclear reactor on board to use it for a useful period of time)
    • ...---..., on 10/12/2007, -1/+3AS far as the bends - you would be under the exact same limitations as using compressed air. Even compressed air is decompressed at the first stage regulator - the valve on the tank - and you breathe it in at the pressure of the water at the depth you are at. So, any air you breathe at depth will still give you the same amount of nitrogen loading - compressed air feed or this device. The problem with the bends is that the nitrogen that has accumulated in your system will expand as the pressure drops - as you ascend. As long as it is actually air that you are breathing - then the same principle will always apply.

      The thing that gives me the creeps about this device is that it is electric - and that it depends on motors and moving parts - and as good as any system is - things fail. Now, I know that you could always have an emergency air supply like a pony bottle. But, the pony bottles that are out there are not actually enough air to allow to to safely ascend. It's just enough for you to get to the surface quick - certainly not enough to make a 3 minute safety stop at 20 feet. So, it sounds like a very cool idea - but it would take an awful lot of real world use & perfection before I would dare to trust my life with it.

      Until then, I'm sticking to my steel 80ft3 tanks!
    • celotil, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0@...---...

      So ideally, the device should develop to the point where the motion of the diver creates a current strong enough to power a motor which has one, at most two, moving parts.

      I was going to say the simple act of breathing itself might power the device but if there isn't any positive pressure in the mouthpiece then the diver's lungs cannot counter the pressure put upon them by the ocean. For an example of this, take a snorkel and try to breathe while floating vertically in water. It's a lot harder than breathing through the same snorkel while floating on your stomach, and basically impossible below three feet/one metre.

      Alternatively, if that liquid stuff that can be used as a breathing medium ever comes down to regular prices maybe there could be a rebreather built small enough to emulate the devices on Star Wars that is powered by the simple act of breathing. Bag of stuff under your suit to breath in as you go under water, rebreather in the mouth with a membrane for allowing air transference between the stuff and water, and woohoo, fishy city here I come!
  • ryanscott, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6didn't they use that type of thing in star wars when going down with jar jar to his underwater colony thing?
  • sparkysko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The efficiency of this would decrease as the temperature of the water increases. Warm water (around 98F) will have no oxygen dissolved in it. Cold water will have alot.
    • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Um, the warmer the water is the MORE you can dissolve in it. Why do you think you mix jelly (or jello for you americans) in warm to hot water? Because you can get more to dissolve. You can even test this at home, get some nice hot water, (don't burn yourself, and if you do, don't blame me) and dissolve as much salt as you can in it, once you can't dissolve any more salt, strain the salt that didn't dissolve, and you have a super-saturated solution. Now let it cool. When it gets back to room temperature (or fridge temperature if you want to take it further) you should notice there are salt crystals formed on the sides of the container you kept the solution in.
    • ryancxx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1^^ ....go back to grade 9.
    • Xanadude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2dacheetah: It may not have occurred to you that gases behave differently then jelly.
    • glmory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, gases behave different than solids when they are dissolved. I know for example a lot of cold water fish will do poorly in warmer water because(among other things) it doesn't have enough air for them.
  • despr8t, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Why does the media always say that they breathed from oxygen tanks...
    Scuba divers, firefighters (with SCBA) etc breathe from tanks of compressed air..... not pure oxygen.
    They prove they are idiots at every turn.
    • Tourney3p0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yeah, and the furniture store called my desk a computer desk when I clearly have enough room to fit a phone and a lamp.

      Use common sense.
  • sharigan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3my dream to be Namor has finally come true!
  • HillerMylife, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1This makes my Open Diver certification feel less special.
  • bergfly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah, bottom time will still be nitrogen restricted. If you don't get enough air into the lungs to inflate them then your can't breath, and if you get enough air into them then you are breathing at ambient pressure, hence bottom time issues. Of course if you turn this into a computerised closed system you could get some stupid bottom time numbers........ but you would need to seperate the oxygen and nitrogen, which would make for a well bulky system
    • glmory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually the nitrogen levels from breathing compressed air will simply level off with longer bottom time. People have lived in pressurized underwater labs for weeks if not months. However it will take an absurd amount of time to come up to be sure it doesn't cause issues.
  • funnyman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For all the people asking how it works, why on earth would he tell his secret, possibly worth millions, to some reporter? He has explained the concept which was hard enough for you noobs out there to understand anyway
  • mitrovarr, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I don't know how practical this will be. The fact is, the human body uses a lot of oxygen, and water really doesn't contain very much by volume. You'd have to have an extremely efficient mechanism to separate the oxygen out of the water, and you'd have to run a ton of water through it. By that time, you have power requirements that necessitate a power source so large you might as well just carry a scuba tank.
    • AstralAutomaton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Did you even read the whole thing? It wouldn't have to be really efficient, you're dropping the pressure in the water, air bubbles come out, and you breathe the air. The closed system will recycle any unused oxygen from your breath. He said 200 liters a minute would support a human using a closed diving system, and that a rate like that would definitely be achievable. They also explain you can power the whole process for 3 hours with a rechargeable lithium battery. Sound practical to me.
    • CircleFusion, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Perhaps this technology could be used in tandem with other technology (that hasn't even been developed yet) to provide a successful solution for underwater breathing. Who knows.
    • glmory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the thing is a whale shark for example uses a huge amount of oxygen as well, and they are able to get it out of the water with comparatively small lungs.... I do however think this system is probably a bigger deal for submarines than divers for the simple reason that current technology is pretty good...
  • tuzziel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Isracast.com still holds under global digg, wow, those Israeli servers are tough
  • bjohns, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I liked the roll-over sound effects on the image. It helped explain how the JEWBA system works.
    • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2lmao. I didn't even notice them the first time. Such useless noises.
  • jsimonson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'll be living in the sea with the sea people. This is the way life was meant to beeee...sea people, sea people and meeee.
    • Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"...there'll be no accusations, just friendly crustaceans, under the sea!"
  • lobbster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As a scuba diver, this looks cool. but also dangourus. the amount of deaths using re breather is huge. and this is even more complex. (if you not a scuba diver don't argue)
    • tylerni7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Let me start by saying I am a SCUBA diver, so I'm allowed to debate. Now, while re-breathers and other closed breathing systems are a lot harder to use, they aren't made for the public. Only the government would get to use this technology because of price and restrictions. I think it's pretty safe to assume that the government can handle the training, too.
    • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There are rebreathers sold to the public.
  • futureundead, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Anyone notice the 2000 LPM listing for water input? That's almost 9 gallons/second. To move 9 gallons/second requires a serious water pump, one that isn't going to be powered by a 1 pound lithium ion battery for an hour.
    • Sargasso_C, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yes, that's 2 tons of water per minute. It should also serve as a nice alternative propulsion system.
    • dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Notice how they said that it was totally impractical to pump 2500L/m? That was the requirement for an open system at a 10m. Which took into account the amount of air that you need if you want every outgoing breath to be wasted like in a normal SCUBA system. Hence the fact that they are using a closed system with a CO2 scrubber (optional) to reuse the air you breathe out. That way you only need the 200L/m of water flow to provide enough oxygen, since regardless of depth the human body uses the same amount of oxygen. Pumping 200 litres of water per minute (less than a galon a second) through a reasonably large pump isn't hard, and could be maintained for a while using a decent quality Li-ION battery. And that's assuming a ½ a percent dissolved air in the water, which is pessimistic, they say earlier that most of the time it's closer to 1.5%, which would only need 66L/m.
      With these flow rates the device sure as hell won't be cheap, but it is still feasible.
    • Wolfghost, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1RTFA - A closed system (re-breather) would need 200 LPM at all depths. The open system would be variable starting at 1250 LPM at the surface and increasing with depth.

      dacheetah beat me to it with a better explanation.
  • UndeadZmobie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"The invention has already captured the interest of most major..." MOST MAJOR WHAT? Don't leave me hanging like that!
  • strangewill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sounds like it would be really weird for divers that are use to having a tank strapped to their back... Like unsafe, but I always thought about this theory (as many other probably have) glad to see it come to life. :D
  • LastExile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I have had this same idea for so long but i had no clue how you could do it. my idea for something like this would be so much smaller.
    so i guess i still have a chance.
  • neio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Kick ass, I would invest in this discovery.
  • Lane, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1if you take the oxygen out of water how the hell is this not leaving just hydrogen and salt, wtf?
    • KJSatz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Reading?!

      "Bodner: Well I have, a few people do not understand the concept, they assume that I separate oxygen from the water and they say correctly that it is toxic below a depth of seven meters and then they ask some technical questions. In this case I want to say again, the device can extract air from the water. It is dissolved air which contains oxygen and nitrogen and so on. It does not extract oxygen from hydrogen."
  • penguinshome, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3cool. now we need to find the famed "leopard shark".
  • rnwen2750, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Harry Potter had no problem with this. Old news. ;)
    • andburn1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Last time I chewed "Gillyweed," I thought I might be able to breathe underwater too. Then I found out I couldn't - I had water in my ears for weeks.
    • widoka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2you'd have water in your ears regardless...but maybe i missed the point
  • NipGrip, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Wasn't this invented by the chick in Real Genius, the "Rebreather"?
  • djames82, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0With a modified suit (So you won't be crushed beneath the ocean's density) - it's feasible that you can use this technology and walk from Florida to....anywhere around the world.
    • andburn1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You mean swim - you try walking on the ground with your whole body underwater. And also, no you couldnt. The problems with eating, sleeping, power consumption, navagation... you know what, you try it. Tell me how it goes.
  • funkytommyman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1now instead of having to lug an oxygen tank around, you lug a battery around
  • Futurepower, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4AGAIN, BE VERY CAREFUL. There are many "investor opportunities" coming from
    Israel lately. See this link:
    http://slashdot.org/search.pl?tid=&query=IsraCast&author=&sort=1&op=stories

    FRAUD ALERT -- FRAUD ALERT -- FRAUD ALERT -- FRAUD ALERT

    It is possible this is a fraudulent attempt to get investor money. (It is not
    known whether the story describes a good invention, or not; this comment is
    not directed at this particular investment opportunity.)
    • widoka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1First of all...we don't need two comments about this from you. Secondly, I'm pretty sure I can speak for the vast majority of us when I say that we aren't reading this article with the intent of investing in this technology. So thanks for trying to protect us, but really...we don't need it.
  • dlamblin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I'm thinking that IsraCast is a PR firm for inventors.

    I'm also thinking that because of that they present as journalism some very skewed reports.

    1) This is not a system that does anything, it's a lab model.
    2) If you're looking for Scuba alternatives there are so many that the word "rebreather" will autocomplete in google.
    3) No-one would trust this system, that has never been used in the sea, because it has a battery that lasts 1hour. what if the sea water shorts it out? you'd have no air and a chemical fire on your hands.
    4) I don't care how it will work, I want to hear it does work practically and constantly.
    5) You can't get air out of water fast enough. You must drop the liquid pressure to get air out, then magically increase that pressure to match the oceans pressure (which is where it was before) for your puny lung muscles to be able to pull it in, and you'll need enough to actually fill your lungs at that high pressure. To process that much water you'd be operating some kind of jet turbine, which is inconvenient for a diver, bulky, and a power drain.
    6) You can get more time diving using Scuba than this system even claims to in it's own wildest dreams.
    7) Scuba is a lot safer.

    the closing statement is a direct call for investment.

    The "journalist" is willingly avoiding any of these hard questions, focuses only on the fantastic possibilities, and isn't citing any independent fact finding outside of asking the guy who wants the money. This is because the "journalist" is effectively a paid for marketer.
  • HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've been seeing stuff like this since the early 80s at least. There's no way this attracted the attention of any major SCUBA compaines that didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

    I'm not saying it can't be made to work, but it wasn't determined to be feasible the last 5 times it came around...

    There isn't much dissolved oxygen in water, and it goes down rapidly once you get more than 30 feet or something below the surface. That why the number of fish is lower down there. Fish also have the benefit of being cold-blooded, so their oxygen needs go down (somewhat) as the temperature drops down there.

    BTW, you can create a system like this with a gas permeable membrane and osmosis. You obviously want to make it go faster than normal osmosis, but the principle is pretty straightforward.
  • 1smartguy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0If it works, this atheist bows down to Jews. So many accomplishments for so few Jews. What in their culture causes them to achieve so much. I want those gills for Christmas.
  • macstevie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hope when I get my scuba gear I could get this
  • neoweapon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hmm, according to a physics lecture, a compressed air tank is good because it allows a regulated pressure in the lungs and if divers are planning to go deep, this is a good idea. So if you don't have a compressed air tank your lungs will collapse and you will die because your lungs will not be able to fight against the pressure as you go deeper.... I don't know how his device achieves this pressurized air flow into the lungs.
  • N3tw0rk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Your time under water is now subject to battery life, instead of the capacity of air tanks.

    Let's say your battery is defective (probably made by sony), and your machine stops. Your air supply just stopped in an instant. Good luck getting back to the surface in time.
  • MHarrison, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2digg me down if I'm totally wrong, maybe i miss understood something in my PADI course(which was a while ago and i don't dive much) but I thought there were other restrictions on bottom time in addition to air supply. Like if you go down to like 20 meters and your down there for more than 45 min you need like decompression or something.. So with the "JEWBA" I don't know if you could stay down there for that much longer. I dunno its been a while I could be really wrong.
    Also, without the weight of the tank wouldn't you need a serious weight belt for buoyancy?
    Otherwise sounds like a sick invention.
  • uceboyx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this should be used as an emergency gear.
    I'll stick with rebreather.
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