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From: cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Surviving Electrocution
Message-ID: <18679@csli.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 15 Apr 91 04:50:11 GMT
References: <1991Apr12.212721.519@husc3.harvard.edu> <1991Apr13.230951.525@husc3.harvard.edu>
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Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U.
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In article <1991Apr13.230951.525@husc3.harvard.edu> mason3@husc9.harvard.edu (Richard Mason) writes:
>The reason I ask about running currents through people is my idea for a
>high-acceleration launch system.

Seems I should have read the thread before posting... of course my idea won't
work.  
Let me contribute a system of my own... put a support network in the body
that reaches nearly all cells, and can be made rigid quickly.  The best 
candidate as far as I can see is the blood system.  I think it reaches 
everywhere except cartilege.  So all you have to do is either add something
to the blood that can be made very solid very quickly and then desolidified
very quickly, or else grow some structure along or in the vessel walls.  
There are fluids that solidify when a high voltage field is applied (what
a coincidence!), but they are rather un-blood-like.  And chemical changes 
would be too slow.  The structure is perhaps a better idea.  With 
nanotechnology, it should be quite easy to build.  (No smiley.)
Of course, you'd have to empty the digestive system and bladder, or risk
overloading the structure.