LisaLiel

Eg if a person was inside a small room and steam was vented in, but by the time it got into the room it wasn't hot enough to burn the person of course.

Wait, I just found out that they do those.

Are steam rooms dangerous?

What happens to the water in the lungs from the condensed steam? It's got to go somewhere

So I woke up and saw this article

http://www.inquisitr.com/1895409/rajeshwari-karnan-mother-claims-burned-son-spontaneously-combusted-and-its-not-the-first-time/

And also the case of a 'Frank Baker', who starred in a documentary on the Science Channel. He claims to have survived and that a doctor concluded his skin had burnt from the inside out.

I've also heard tales of how people's skin feels hot, and emits smoke, leaving blisters behind.

What do you think? This runs contrary to what my biology professor taught me - that high heat destroys the proteins which run metabolism at a temperature much below the temperature needed to ignite the epidermis.

Some people blame reactive chemicals being produced, this too runs contrary to a scientific journal which involved an experiment with an enzyme that produces hydrogen peroxide. The enzyme was given a lot of the substrate it uses, and watched what happened. The enzyme rapidly produced hydrogen peroxide but then denatured when the concentration reached 2 or 3 percent.

So what's going on here?

For example a faulty/mutated nerve, that when stimulated allowed itself to flood with positive charged ions with no means of getting rid of them due to mutated ion channels. Or the neuron only has these channels which pump in positive ions and nothing else.

Possibly, but I'm wondering if you could drown from such a humid environment.

There are 'steam baths' that pump steam into a small room heated to around 110-120 degrees, (f) the humidity is 100 percent. I'm not sure how long the sessions are however.

I know steam is used to drown/suffocate bugs.

I recall reading on an internet forum a few years ago about a woman who enjoyed taking hot showers for long periods of time. She took a shower and closed the windows and the door. When she was found an autopsy showed her lungs were filled with water.

Steam/mist condenses, so is it possible to drown because of steam/mist?

He is a doctor who thinks he's made a breakthrough about the cause of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). He believes that damage to the inner ear means that the infants have difficulty breathing, and die in their sleep because the inner ear is responsible for detecting carbon dioxide in the blood and in the air, so they do not wake up when they are having problems breathing.

In short, Dr. Reubens is implying that the reflex to breathe you get when you hold your breath, is due to your ears. Not your brain.

It was Dr. Reubens who is postulating this theory (inner ear damage) as a cause of SIDS - it is not my theory, I personally do not believe his theory but I am open to opinions and discussion concerning his theory and experiment.

For example if they hold their breath, would they still get the urge to breathe as a result of the excess carbon dioxide in their blood as a result of holding their breath? Dr. Reubens proclaims that the ears are very important for breathing, and are responsible for this reflex. In particular, deaf people with damaged inner ears - and hence no balance, etc.

I read an 1800's book about a man who had hypnotised a girl into stopping her heart (her breathing stopped also) and dying on cue.

Well you can't really book an appointment just to ask a question here that's why I'm asking on these kinds of sites.

You still haven't provided evidence that the other chemoreceptors in the brain (besides from the ones in the inner ear) are inactive in babies.

The study focused on infants but that doesn't mean this could not affect adults too.

Please provide evidence that central (brainstem) and peripheral chemoreceptors are inactive in babies.

There are carotid chemoreceptors and also central chemoreceptors in the brain.

But according to the article, if the inner ear is destroyed, then for some reason the other chemoreceptors in the brain don't count and there won't be any response to increased CO2.

The aorta isn't responsible for waking someone up when carbon dioxide levels get high.

thoughts?

I'm hoping so

I read some journals which say that chemoreceptors in the brain are active in a fetus

So if thats the case it would imply the inner ears are still required

I ask because this article is really bothering me since my bro had meningitis a few weeks ago and he has inner ear damage. He's 15.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/01/inner-ear-damge-linked-to-breathing-difficulty-in-mammals/1#.VSsNUvnF98E

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/01/inner-ear-damge-linked-to-breathing-difficulty-in-mammals/1#.VSr7j_nF98F

http://m.oxfordmedicine.com/mobile/view/10.1093/med/9780198566342.001.0001/med-9780198566342-chapter-8

I'm going to assume that they did not get any arteries as it seems unlikely in the places that the girl said the wounds were.

Is it known if human saliva would contain anti-coagulating factors? Vampire bat saliva does, but I'm not sure about human saliva.

What if they sucked the blood via those wounds? Since this happened in 1879 I'll assume they did it via the mouth

or would their saliva have caused it to clot anyway?

Just because we can't get a person who is engulfed in flames into a lab (that'd be a major health and occupational hazard, I'm guessing) doesn't mean SHC doesn't exist or we should dismiss all cases of it just because nobody has had it happen to them while under laboratory watch.

If you noticed the thread title, it is discussing the possibility. This is the only real way to talk about SHC because the evidence well, burns away, but that doesn't automatically make a good excuse to say with complete confidence it doesn't happen. That is a lazy way to go into a debate or discussion, especially when we have consistent testimonials throughout the decades of this exact same thing.

So, what happened to Frank Baker? Is anyone here a doctor? The documentary was on the Science Channel a few years ago, and it also made the news. A doctor diagnosed him with partial spontaneous combustion.

There's a reason why we self-regulate our core temperature within tight bounds of about 3^oC tops: our enzymes are quite temperature-sensitive and will denature leading to our very likely demise above that. Cremation requires 1500^oF for about two hours to ignite and consume a body. It is also between 50-75% water, so I think we can safely say these stories are without scientific foundation.

True, the body is about 50-75% water, but in Frank's case, he mentions that it was his skin cells that had set him alight. The surface of the skin isn't wet, and can certainly ignite if it gets hot enough.

The brain controls body temperature like a thermostat. The article implied the man thought he was freezing, so his brain was convinced of it, and turned the 'thermostat' down, and the man became hypothermic.

See: Lewis Pugh

''there is no physiological mechanism for a person to freeze themselves to death, with or without thoughts. ''

The nocebo effect is well known and scientists still have no idea how it works.

Body temperature is controlled by the brain.

People are known to, in a hypnotised state who dream of being burnt by something, develop burn blisters on their skin.