I have watched it 8 times for sure. And every time she did it solely for entertainment purposes and an interesting plot with amazing acting, which, according to the testimony of the film crew, greatly exhausted the performers of the main roles.

And the last time I realized that this film is something more.

Throughout the film, we are told about breathing in liquid. What we started in the womb can continue. The main thing is the situation.

All 7 views for me the film was just a fantasy, a game of the imagination of the screenwriter or director. In one scene, a mouse is shown breathing a special liquid. In the other, Bada (Ed Harris' character) is in a spacesuit filled with this same liquid. He is sent to a depth where no one has been, filling his lungs with "special water", because the oxygen in the human body at such depths has nothing to do.

Having developed scuba gear about sixty years ago, the Frenchman Jacques Yves Cousteau introduced the term "water" and "lungs" into its name. However, the very technology of completely filling the lungs with water (in the form of a water-salt solution) became known from the publication of Kylstra J. "A Mouse Like a Fish" - the first in liquid breathing, which talks about such an idea of ​​​​rescuing submariners. He was the first to conduct descents to a depth of 1000 m on land mammals (mice) and showed that the transition to liquid breathing completely prevents death from decompression gas formation. In the USSR, this was confirmed during artificial lung ventilation (ALV) with the liquid of dogs under conditions of imitation of diving descents of 1000 m.

The entire liquid breathing system is based on the perfluorocarbon formula. Perflubron is a clear, oily liquid of low density. It contains more oxygen than air. Since this liquid is inert, it does not harm the lungs. Since it has a very low boiling point, it is quickly and easily removed from the lungs;

There are few manufacturers of these liquids on the world market, since their development is a by-product of "nuclear projects". Medical quality liquids are known only from a few world companies: DuPont (USA), ICI and F2 (Great Britain), Elf-Atochem (France). Perfluorocarbon liquids, technologically developed at the St. Petersburg Institute of Applied Chemistry, are now leaders in medicine and cosmetology;

In Russia, seriously and without chuckles in the smoking room, they thought about the topic of free ascent through a special system of liquid breathing after;

Since the formation of the Russian Federation, the development of a liquid breathing method for rescuing submariners, as well as the preparation of volunteer tests in 2007, has been and is being carried out without grants, at the expense of AVF in cooperation with St. Petersburg State Medical University. I.P. Pavlov and other organizations;

At present, a special deep-sea diving apparatus exists as a project within the framework of the author's concept of the rapid rescue of submariners. It is based on the unique properties of fast and resistant (to pressure) liquid-breathing divers;

Arnold Lande, a former surgeon and now retired American inventor, filed a patent for a diving suit equipped with a cylinder of a special oxygen-enriched liquid. The so-called “liquid air” is supplied from the cylinder to the diver’s helmet, fills the entire space around the head, displaces air from the lungs, nasopharynx and ears, saturating the human lungs with enough oxygen. In turn, carbon dioxide, which is released during breathing, goes out with the help of a kind of gills attached to the diver's femoral vein. That is, the breathing process itself becomes simply not needed - oxygen enters the blood through the lungs, and carbon dioxide is removed directly from the blood. True, how this most incompressible liquid will be supplied from the cylinder is not yet entirely clear ...;

There is information that experiments on breathing in liquids are being carried out with might and main. And in Russia as well;

In the film "The Abyss", of course, none of the actors breathed "special water". And in one of the scenes, a small but very memorable jamb was even allowed, when Bud descends to the depth, a treacherous bubble comes out of his mouth, .. which should not be in conditions of liquid breathing;

Actor Ed Harris, who played one of the main roles, the role of Bud, somehow had to pull over on the way from the set due to an attack of involuntary crying .. So exhausting was the process of making the film. Cameron demanded exceptional credibility.

Watch movies. Breathe freely and pull over the side of the road just to take pictures of butterflies.

Thank you for the open access to some data Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Ph.D.A. V. Filippenko.

Scientific research does not stop for a day, progress is on, giving mankind more and more new discoveries. Hundreds of scientists and their assistants are working in the field of studying living beings and synthesizing unusual substances. Entire departments are experimenting, testing various theories, and sometimes the discoveries amaze the imagination - after all, what could only be dreamed of can become a reality. They develop ideas, and questions about freezing a person in a cryochamber with subsequent thawing in a century or about the ability to breathe liquid are not just a fantastic story for them. Their hard work can make these fantasies come true.

Scientists have long been concerned about the question: can a person breathe liquid?

Does a person need liquid breathing

No efforts, no time, no money are spared for such research. And one of these questions that have been worrying the most enlightened minds for decades is as follows - is liquid breathing possible for a person? Will the lungs be able to absorb oxygen not from a special liquid? For those who doubt the real need for this type of breathing, we can give at least 3 promising areas where it will serve a person in good stead. If, of course, they can implement it.

• The first direction is diving to great depths. As you know, when diving, the diver experiences the pressure of the aquatic environment, which is 800 times denser than air. And it increases by 1 atmosphere every 10 meters of depth. Such a sharp increase in pressure is fraught with a very unpleasant effect - the gases dissolved in the blood begin to boil in the form of bubbles. This phenomenon is called "caisson sickness", it often affects those who are actively involved. Also, when swimming in deep waters, there is a risk of getting oxygen or nitrogen poisoning, since in such conditions these gases that are vital to us become very toxic. In order to somehow fight this, they use either special breathing mixtures or rigid spacesuits that maintain a pressure of 1 atmosphere inside themselves. But if liquid breathing were possible, it would become the third, easiest solution to the problem, because the respiratory liquid does not saturate the body with nitrogen and inert gases, and there is no need for long decompression.
• The second way of application is medicine. The use of breathing fluids in it could save the lives of premature babies, because their bronchi are underdeveloped and ventilators can easily damage them. As you know, in the womb, the lungs of the embryo are filled with liquid and by the time of birth, it accumulates pulmonary surfactant - a mixture of substances that does not allow tissues to stick together when breathing air. But with an early birth, breathing requires too much strength from the baby and this can be fatal.

History has a precedent for the use of total fluid ventilation, and it dates back to 1989. It was applied by T. Shaffer, who worked as a pediatrician at Temple University (USA), saving premature babies from death. Alas, the attempt was unsuccessful, three small patients did not survive, but it is worth mentioning that the deaths were caused by other causes, and not by the liquid breathing method itself.

Since then, fully ventilated human lungs have not dared, but in the 90s, patients with severe inflammation were subjected to partial liquid ventilation. In this case, the lungs are only partially filled. Alas, the effectiveness of the method was controversial, since conventional air ventilation worked just as well.

• Application in astronautics. With the current level of technology, an astronaut experiences g-forces up to 10 g during flight. After this threshold, it is impossible to maintain not only working capacity, but also consciousness. Yes, and the load on the body is uneven, and along the fulcrum, which can be excluded when immersed in a liquid, the pressure will spread equally to all points of the body. This principle underlies the design of the rigid Libelle spacesuit, filled with water and allowing the limit to be increased to 15-20 g, and even then because of the limitation of the density of human tissues. And if the astronaut is not only immersed in liquid, but his lungs are also filled with it, then it will be possible for him to easily endure extreme overloads far beyond the 20 g mark. Not infinite, of course, but the threshold will be very high if one condition is met - the liquid in the lungs and around the body must be equal in density to water.

The origin and development of liquid breathing

The very first experiments date back to the 60s of the last century. The first to test the emerging technology of liquid breathing were laboratory mice and rats, forced to breathe not air, but a saline solution, which was under a pressure of 160 atmospheres. And they breathed! But there was a problem that prevented them from surviving in such an environment for a long time - the liquid did not allow carbon dioxide to be removed.

But the experiments didn't stop there. Further, research began on organic substances whose hydrogen atoms were replaced by fluorine atoms - the so-called perfluorocarbons. The results were much better than those of the ancient and primitive liquid, because perfluorocarbon is inert, not absorbed by the body, and perfectly dissolves oxygen and hydrogen. But it was far from perfection and research in this direction continued.

Now the best achievement in this area is perflubron (commercial name - "Liquivent"). The properties of this liquid are amazing:

1. The alveoli open better when this fluid enters the lungs and gas exchange improves.
2. This liquid can carry 2 times more oxygen compared to air.
3. The low boiling point allows it to be removed from the lungs by evaporation.

But our lungs are not designed for completely liquid breathing. If you fill them completely with perflubron, you will need a membrane oxygenator, a heating element and air ventilation. And do not forget that this mixture is 2 times thicker than water. Therefore, mixed ventilation is used, in which the lungs are filled with liquid only by 40%.

But why can't we breathe liquid? All because of carbon dioxide, which is very poorly removed in a liquid medium. A person weighing 70 kg must drive 5 liters of the mixture through himself every minute, and this is in a calm state. Therefore, although our lungs are technically capable of extracting oxygen from liquids, they are too weak. So one can only hope for future research.

water like air

In order to finally proudly announce to the world - "Now a person can breathe underwater!" - scientists sometimes developed amazing devices. So, in 1976, biochemists from America created a miracle device capable of regenerating oxygen from water and providing it to a diver. With sufficient battery capacity, a diver could stay and breathe at depth almost indefinitely.

It all started with the fact that scientists began research based on the fact that hemoglobin delivers air equally well from both the gills and the lungs. They used their own venous blood mixed with polyurethane - it was immersed in water and this liquid absorbed oxygen, which is generously dissolved in water. Further, the blood was replaced with a special material, and as a result, a device was obtained that acted like the usual gills of any fish. The fate of the invention is this: it was acquired by a certain company, having spent 1 million dollars on it, and since then nothing has been heard about the device. And, of course, he did not go on sale.

But this is not the main goal of scientists. Their dream is not a breathing device, they want to teach the person himself to breathe liquid. And attempts to realize this dream have not been abandoned so far. So, one of the research institutes in Russia, for example, conducted tests on liquid breathing on a volunteer with a congenital pathology - the absence of the larynx. And this meant that he simply did not have the reaction of the body to the liquid, in which the smallest drop of water on the bronchi is accompanied by compression of the pharyngeal ring and suffocation. Since he simply did not have this muscle, the experiment was successful. Fluid was poured into his lungs, which he stirred throughout the experiment with the help of abdominal movements, after which it was calmly and safely pumped out. Characteristically, the salt composition of the fluid corresponded to the salt composition of the blood. This can be considered a success, and scientists claim that they will soon find a method of liquid breathing available to people without pathologies.

So myth or reality?

Despite the stubbornness of a person who passionately wants to conquer all possible habitats, nature itself still decides where to live. Alas, no matter how much time is spent on research, no matter how many millions are spent, it is unlikely that a person is destined to breathe under water as well as on land. People and marine life, of course, have a lot in common, but there are still much more differences. An amphibian man would not have endured the conditions of the ocean, and if he had managed to adapt, then the road back to land would have been closed to him. And as with scuba divers, amphibious people would go to the beach in water suits. And therefore, no matter what enthusiasts say, the verdict of scientists is still firm and disappointing - a long life of a person under water is impossible, it is unreasonable to go against mother nature in this regard, and all attempts at liquid breathing are doomed to failure.

But do not despair. Although the bottom of the sea will never become our home, we have all the mechanisms of the body and technical capabilities in order to be frequent guests on it. So is it worth it to be sad? After all, these environments have already been conquered by man to a certain extent, and now the abysses of outer space lie before him.

And for now, we can say with confidence that the depths of the ocean will be an excellent workplace for us. But perseverance can lead to a very thin line of real breathing under water, one has only to work on solving this problem. And what will be the answer to the question of whether to change land civilization to underwater, depends only on the person himself.

Recently, the Scientific and Technical Council of the State Foundation for Advanced Study approved a “project to create a technology for rescuing submariners by free ascent using the liquid breathing method,” which should be implemented by the Moscow Institute of Occupational Medicine (at the time of writing, the institute’s management was unavailable for comment). "Attic" decided to figure out what is hidden behind the mysterious phrase "liquid breath".

Liquid breathing is most impressively shown in James Cameron's The Abyss.

True, in this form, experiments on humans have never been carried out. But in general, scientists are not much inferior to Cameron in terms of the study of this issue.

mice like fish

The first to show that mammals, in principle, can obtain oxygen not from a mixture of gases, but from a liquid, was Johannes Kylstra from the Duke University Medical Center (USA). Together with colleagues, in 1962 he published the work "Mice as fish" (Of mice as fish) in the journal Transactions of American Society for Artificial Internal Organs.

Kilstra and his colleagues immersed mice in saline. In order to dissolve enough oxygen for breathing in it, the researchers "driven" the gas into a liquid under pressure up to 160 atmospheres - as at a depth of 1.5 kilometers. The mice in these experiments survived, but not for very long: there was enough oxygen in the liquid, but the very process of breathing, drawing in and pushing the liquid out of the lungs required too much effort.

"Substance Joe"

It became clear that it was necessary to choose a liquid in which oxygen would dissolve much better than in water. Two types of liquids had the required properties: silicone oils and liquid perfluorocarbons. After experiments by Leland Clark, a biochemist at the University of Alabama School of Medicine, in the mid-1960s, it was found that both types of fluids could be used to deliver oxygen to the lungs. In the experiments, mice and cats were completely immersed in both perfluorocarbons and silicone oils. However, the latter turned out to be toxic - the experimental animals died shortly after the experiment. But perfluorocarbons turned out to be quite suitable for use.

Perfluorocarbons were first synthesized during the Manhattan Atomic Bomb Project: scientists were looking for substances that would not break down when interacting with uranium compounds, and they were code-named "Joe's stuff". They are very suitable for liquid breathing: "Joe's substances" do not interact with living tissues and perfectly dissolve gases, including oxygen and carbon dioxide at atmospheric pressure and normal temperature of the human body.

Kilstra and his colleagues have been researching liquid breathing technology in search of a technology that would allow people to dive and float to the surface without fear of developing bends. Rapid ascent from great depths with a supply of compressed gas is very dangerous: gases dissolve better in liquids under pressure, so as the diver ascends, the gases dissolved in the blood, in particular nitrogen, form bubbles that damage the blood vessels. The result can be sad, even fatal.

In 1977, Kilstra submitted an opinion to the US Department of the Navy, in which he wrote that, according to his calculations, a healthy person could receive the required amount of oxygen using perfluorocarbons, and, accordingly, they could potentially be used instead of compressed gas. The scientist pointed out that such an opportunity opens up new prospects for rescuing submariners from large ones.

Experiments on humans

In practice, the technique of liquid breathing, by then called liquid ventilation of the lungs, was applied to humans only once, in 1989. Then Thomas Shaffer, a pediatrician at Temple University School of Medicine (USA), and his colleagues used this method to save premature babies. The lungs of the fetus in the womb are filled with fluid, and when a person is born and begins to breathe air, a mixture of substances called pulmonary surfactant does not allow the lung tissues to stick together for the rest of their lives. In premature babies, it does not have time to accumulate in the right amount, and breathing requires very great efforts, which is fraught with death. At that time, however, liquid ventilation of the infants did not save: all three patients soon died, but this sad fact was attributed to other reasons, and not to the imperfection of the method.

More experiments on total liquid ventilation of the lungs, as this technology is called in a scientific way, have not been conducted on humans. However, in the 1990s, researchers modified the method and experimented with partial fluid ventilation, in which the lungs are not completely filled with fluid, on patients with severe lung inflammation. The first results looked encouraging, but in the end it did not reach clinical application - it turned out that ordinary ventilation of the lungs with air works just as well.

Fiction Patent

Researchers have now returned to the idea of ​​using full fluid ventilation. However, the fantastic picture of a diving suit in which a person will breathe liquid instead of a special mixture of gases is far from reality, although it excites the imagination of the public and the minds of inventors.

So, in 2008, retired American surgeon Arnold Lande patented a diving suit using liquid ventilation technology. Instead of compressed gas, he proposed the use of perfluorocarbons, and the excess of carbon dioxide that would be formed in the blood should be removed using artificial gills “stuck” directly into the diver’s femoral vein. The invention gained some notoriety after a publication wrote about it. The Independent.

According to Philippe Micheau, a liquid ventilation specialist at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada, Lande's project looks dubious. “In our experiments (Michot and his colleagues conduct experiments on lambs and rabbits with healthy and damaged lungs - approx. "Attic") on total liquid breathing, the animals are under anesthesia and do not move. Therefore, we can organize normal gas exchange: delivery of oxygen and removal of carbon dioxide. For people during physical activity, such as swimming and diving, the delivery of oxygen and the removal of carbon dioxide will be a problem, since the production of carbon dioxide in such conditions is higher than normal, ”commented Michaud. The scientist also noted that the technology of fixing "artificial gills" in the femoral vein is unknown to him.

The main problem of "liquid breathing"

Moreover, Michaud considers the very idea of ​​"liquid breathing" doubtful, since human muscles are not adapted for "breathing" with liquid, but an effective system of pumps that would help pump and pump fluid out of a person's lungs when he moves and does some work, has not yet been developed.

“I must conclude that at the current stage of technological development it is impossible to develop a diving suit using the liquid ventilation method,” the researcher believes.

However, the application of this technology continues to be explored for other, more realistic purposes. For example, to help the drowned, to wash the lungs in case of various diseases, or to quickly lower the body temperature (it is used in cases of resuscitation during cardiac arrest in adults and newborns with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage).

This is probably a cliche in science fiction: some viscous substance enters a suit or capsule very quickly, and the main character suddenly discovers for himself how quickly he loses the rest of the air from his own lungs, and his insides are filled with an unusual liquid of a shade from lymph to blood . In the end, he even panics, but takes a few instinctive sips, or rather sighs, and is surprised to find that he can breathe this exotic mixture as if he were breathing ordinary air.

Are we so far from realizing the idea of ​​liquid breathing? Is it possible to breathe liquid mixture, and is there a real need for this?
There are three promising ways to use this technology: medicine, diving to great depths and astronautics.

The pressure on the body of a diver increases with every ten meters by one atmosphere. Due to a sharp decrease in pressure, decompression sickness can begin, with the manifestations of which the gases dissolved in the blood begin to boil with bubbles. Also, at high pressure, oxygen and narcotic nitrogen poisoning is possible. All this is fought with the use of special respiratory mixtures, but they do not give any guarantees, but only reduce the likelihood of unpleasant consequences. Of course, you can use diving suits that maintain pressure on the diver's body and his breathing mixture to exactly one atmosphere, but they, in turn, are large, bulky, make movement difficult, and also very expensive.

Liquid breathing could provide a third solution to this problem while maintaining the mobility of elastic wetsuits and the low risks of rigid suits. Breathing fluid, unlike expensive breathing mixtures, does not saturate the body with helium or nitrogen, so there is also no need for slow decompression to avoid decompression sickness.

In medicine, liquid breathing can be used in the treatment of premature babies in order to avoid damage to the underdeveloped bronchi of the lungs by pressure, volume and oxygen concentration in the air of ventilators. Selection and testing of various mixtures to ensure the survival of a premature fetus began already in the 90s. It is possible to use a liquid mixture with complete stops or partial respiratory insufficiencies.

Space flight is associated with large overloads, and liquids distribute pressure evenly. If a person is immersed in a liquid, then during overloads, the pressure will go to his entire body, and not specific supports (chair backs, seat belts). This principle was used to create the Libelle g-suit, which is a rigid spacesuit filled with water, which allows the pilot to remain conscious and efficient even at g-forces above 10 g.

This method is limited by the density difference between human body tissue and the immersion fluid used, so the limit is 15-20g. But you can go further and fill the lungs with a liquid close in density to water. An astronaut completely immersed in liquid and breathing liquid will feel relatively little the effect of extremely high g-forces, since the forces in the liquid are distributed evenly in all directions, but the effect will still be due to the different density of his body tissues. The limit will still remain, but it will be high.

The first experiments on liquid breathing were carried out in the 60s of the last century on laboratory mice and rats, which were forced to inhale a saline solution with a high content of dissolved oxygen. This primitive mixture allowed the animals to survive for a certain amount of time, but it could not remove carbon dioxide, so the lungs of the animals were irreparably damaged.

Later, work began with perfluorocarbons, and their first results were much better than those of the brine experiments. Perfluorocarbons are organic substances in which all hydrogen atoms are replaced by fluorine atoms. Perfluorocarbon compounds have the ability to dissolve both oxygen and carbon dioxide, they are very inert, colorless, transparent, cannot cause damage to lung tissue and are not absorbed by the body.

Since then, breathing fluids have been improved, the most advanced solution to date is called perflubron or "Liquivent" (commercial name). This oil-like transparent liquid with a density twice that of water has many useful qualities: it can carry twice as much oxygen as ordinary air, has a low boiling point, so after use, its final removal from the lungs is carried out by evaporation. The alveoli under the influence of this liquid open better, and the substance gets access to their contents, this improves the exchange of gases.

The lungs can fill completely with fluid, which will require a membrane oxygenator, a heating element, and forced ventilation. But in clinical practice, most often they do not do this, but use liquid breathing in combination with conventional gas ventilation, filling the lungs with perflubron only partially, approximately 40% of the total volume.

Frame from the movie The Abyss, 1989

What prevents us from using liquid breathing? The breathing fluid is viscous and poorly removes carbon dioxide, so forced ventilation of the lungs will be required. To remove carbon dioxide from a typical person weighing 70 kilograms would require a flow of 5 liters per minute or more, and this is a lot given the high viscosity of liquids. With physical exertion, the amount of required flow will only increase, and it is unlikely that a person will be able to move 10 liters of fluid per minute. Our lungs are simply not designed to breathe liquid and are not able to pump such volumes on their own.

Using the positive traits of breathing fluid in aviation and astronautics may also forever remain a dream - the fluid in the lungs for a g-suit must have the density of water, and perflubron is twice as heavy.

Yes, our lungs are technically capable of "breathing" a certain oxygen-rich mixture, but unfortunately we can only do so for a few minutes at the moment, as our lungs are not strong enough to circulate the breathing mixture for extended periods of time. The situation may change in the future, it remains only to turn our hopes to researchers in this field.

Ichthyanders among us. Russian scientists have begun testing the technology of liquid breathing in submariners. Experiments are currently being carried out on dogs. The record for breathing in liquid is already 30 minutes. How miracles from novels and films are brought to life, the correspondent of Vesti FM Sergey Gololobov found out.

observation of the experiment. Dachshunds are immersed in a bath of liquid face down. Surprisingly, the dog did not choke, but began to breathe that same liquid. Swallowing it convulsively, jerkily. But she was breathing. After 15 minutes, they pulled her out. The dog was lethargic, more likely from hypothermia, but, most importantly, alive. And after a while, she returned to her usual playful mood. Miracle. Something similar was shown in the famous Hollywood movie "Abyss" in 1989. There, some additives were poured into a flask with water, and a white rat was launched there. And everything is filmed naturally. And the rat actually breathed supposedly under water.

And the trick of this episode from the movie "The Abyss" is that the rat did not breathe water as such, but some kind of special liquid. It is on this that the technology of liquid breathing is based. Perfluorocarbon compounds are considered to be the most suitable substances for this purpose. They dissolve oxygen and carbon dioxide well in themselves and do not harm the body. That is, living beings do not inhale water, but those same liquid carbons. Why do people need it, said a pulmonologist, head of the scientific topic on liquid breathing since the eighties. Andrey Filippenko.

“This is needed to save the submariners. At high pressure, if they have liquid in their lungs, if they extract oxygen from this liquid, then they will be able to get out at great depth, and quickly, without any decompression problem, rise to the surface.

It is known that the exit from great depths takes hours for divers and submariners. If you rise to the surface quickly, then you will be overtaken by decompression sickness. Nitrogen bubbles that enter the bloodstream with the respiratory mixture boil due to a sharp pressure drop and destroy blood vessels. If you use the device with a special breathing fluid, these problems will not arise, explains Andrey Filippenko.

“The fluorocarbon liquid is a carrier, so to speak, of nitrogen-oxygen, that is, a carrier. But unlike nitrogen, which passes into the tissue of the body at high pressure, at depth, and because of this, bending sickness occurs, this is not the case here. That is, there is no reason for decompression sickness. There is no supersaturation with inert gas of the body. That is, there is no fundamental reason for the bubbles.”

Experiments on liquid breathing have been actively conducted since the 60s in the Soviet Union and the USA. But the matter did not go further than experiments with animals. After the collapse of the Union, our scientific search in this direction came to naught. But very powerful developments remained. And now it was decided to use them in a new way, he says Andrey Filippenko.

“Great groundwork in the technology of liquid breathing, and in liquids. And plus we still have the consequences of these liquids. Because all fluorocarbons injected into the blood, and we have been using such a substance for 25 years, exit through the lungs. That is, we also know the consequences of the influence on the body of the introduction of perfluorocarbons into it. The Americans or the French, the British do not have such data.

Recently, Russian scientists created a special capsule for dogs, which was immersed in a pressurized hydro chamber. And now dogs can breathe without health consequences for more than half an hour at a depth of up to half a kilometer. And soon it is planned to move on to experiments on humans. The worst thing is, of course, to force yourself to inhale the liquid, the president of the Confederation of Underwater Activities of Russia reflects. Valentin Stashevsky:

“When you inhale water, it's just a nightmare. This means the first way to drown. So it was for all historical previous events. You choke as soon as water enters the respiratory tract and so on.

Nevertheless, those who want to actually become drowned, but at the same time start breathing like an amphibian man, well, or Sadko, we have, notes Andrey Filippenko.

“There are volunteers. But let's clarify right away that only those people who understand very well what can happen can be volunteers here. That is, it can actually be only those doctors who have done a lot of liquid breathing. These are the ones on our team. And not alone. You just need to organize everything properly.”

Now work on liquid breathing has been transferred to the Research Institute of Occupational Medicine. The main goal of the research is to create a special suit that will be useful not only for submariners, but also for pilots and astronauts. But, we repeat, we are talking about breathing special liquids. Breathe directly with water, like an ichthyander, while it is not available to a person.