back to article DARPA seeks spraycan wound-polyfilla* for injured troops

Those splendid brainboxes at DARPA* - who are to ordinary insane scientists in their dungeon laboratories as platinum-selling popsters are to teenage-saddo garage bands - have done it again. This time the wildside-walking wingnut warboffins are looking for a sort of medical equivalent of DIY spraycan sealant, which troops could …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    The one and only good thing about war

    Is the benefit to technology. "Super Glue" was invented in the Vietnam era to close wounds, if I remember right.

  2. Mark
    Thumb Up

    Warhammer 40,000

    I think somebody at DARPA has been reading some space marine novels!!! Next they will be genetically modifying soldiers so they have two hearts and the ability to regenerate from wounds that would kill a normal man in mere minutes....

  3. RainyRat
    Coat

    No Goons?

    What, no reference to "Leggo - the wonder leg grower!"? I confess to being disappointed...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmm

    That's really going to help when you have a wound the size of a dinner plate in your torso.

  5. Joe
    Thumb Up

    That's brilliant!

    How long til some South London stab victim dies due to his mates filling him to bursting with expanding wall-insulation foam?

  6. Sooty

    sounds a bit

    like that spray on dressing from when i was a kid!

  7. Mr Brush
    Boffin

    Extending existing tech?

    We already have QuikClot ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuikClot ) and HemCon ( http://www.hemcon.com/EducationCenter/HowHemConDressingsWork.aspx ), a shellfish protein based patch for rapid sealing of arterial bleeds. This will just be another delivery system for existing tech.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Sounds Awesome

    We are approaching the future then.

  9. Nick Palmer

    "They don't want much, do they?"

    Quite rightly, they want ****ing SHEDLOADS, and also quite rightly they'll be prepared to spend shedloads to get it, with the net effect that with any luck, US soldiers will actually get stuff that works, while their poor relations over here will be attempting to munge something together out of cotton wool and bent paperclips.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They're not far off already.

    A fair few years ago you could pour a bag of crystals into any open wound to stop bleeding. Took a bit of faff to clean up though, especially for a medic who hadn't come across the stuff before. So now it comes in 'teabags'. You pack them into or onto the wound and bandage it up nice and tight. Medic just pulls them out later. Very handy; the biggest killer in this sort of situation is shock through blood loss.

  11. Ash
    Joke

    Easy

    CARBON NANOTUBES!

    There's nothing they can't do.

  12. Ash
    Alert

    @Mark

    Heh! I always wanted a can of SynthSkin!

    Too bad the nearest equivalent we have is expensive rubbish: Dermabond http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_bandage

    I have used normal superglue to seal a deep cut on my finger... Worked very well. I don't recommend anyone else do it, though. It got quite warm.

    At your own risk, etc.

  13. Michael

    Time for a commercial break!

    presented by Dan Ackroyd from the SNL days...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You mean 2-octyl-cyanoacrylate...

    They already use stuff like this in hospitals and something similar was used in Vietnam (as posted by someone earlier), trouble was the original stuff was a horrible irritant.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octyl_cyanoacrylate

    Covering 2 square feet and all types of wound is the new "killer app" part of this DARPA requirement.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Nick Palmer

    Yes, but I think Lewis's point is that there is plenty of scope for invention, but normally it's incremental. DARPA, on the other hand, have asked for everything in one go.

    First up, I would suggest that compressible and non-compressible wounds should be, in the first instance, dealt with by different products, with a plan to combine the two in the future.

    But no, they sell it as though they want all or nothing, which sets the bar too high.

  16. Joe
    Flame

    @ AC 14:58

    This is DARPA, the designers should think themselves lucky there wasn't a specification that it must use frickin' lazers and be able to fly.

  17. David Haworth

    @You mean 2-octyl-cyanoacrylate...

    I take it that cyanide isn't a problem then?

  18. Tim Croydon

    Two square feet?!

    If I had an open wound two square feet I doubt I'd be in any fit state to shake the can and apply the stuff.

  19. Luis Ogando
    Paris Hilton

    Spackle?!? Really!!?

    Spackle?!? REALLY?? This is just TOO funny to pass by at this time on a Friday!!

    I can see the headline now: 'US Marine Saved By Fellow Soldier's Liberal Squirt Of Spackle'.

    Puerile I know, but, c'mon!!

    Paris - She knows what to do with Spackle (fnaar)

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    title

    They have obviously been watching Blade 3

  21. TimBiller
    Coat

    Hollywood has the answer ...

    DARPA should ask Josh Wheadon for advice. I saw this very gunk being used on a wound in "Serenity"

    Tim

  22. Lionel Baden
    Alert

    Ambidextrous

    headlines 6 months from now

    2 soldiers bled to death from losing their right arms

    because design flaws in the super spackle only allowed it to be applied by right handed people.

    Designers say it was meant o be applied with only 1 hand

  23. Nic Brough
    Coat

    @RainyRat

    >No Goons?

    >What, no reference to "Leggo - the wonder leg grower!"

    Sssh, they're keeping that quiet because they'd have to admit the invention of "Footo - the wonder boot exploder". Not to mention Scradj, which would upset all the physicists.

    <Waits for audience applause, not a sausage, exits stage left, getting coat on the way>

  24. Steve Glover
    Stop

    Alliteration

    Is nice, but it helps if the chosen words are relevant. The word "wingnut" - I don't think it means what you think it means....

  25. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    Re: Super Glue.

    Too true, too true.

    This is why when glueing two things together with cyanoacrylate the inevitable result, after the requisite "hold together for 20 seconds", is that the two parts seperate easily but both are irrevocably glued to your fingers.

    No thanks, I'm still wearing mine 'cos my hands are glued into the pockets.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I got "stitched" up with superglue

    I can confirm that UK A&E (casualty) departments do use superglue to seal up wounds, as I had a deep facial cut treated that way.

    I guess the main advantage is that it's a lot quicker than stitching and maybe it also requires slightly less dexterity. However the main advantage from my point of view was that I didn't get much of a scar, thus preserving my Adonis-like looks.

  27. Paul
    Coat

    Not an original idea,

    Biofoam, in HALO does exactly the same job.

    If its good enough for the Master Chief maybe darpa should have a look... hey wait, why not just make a 7 foot tall insurgent busting guy in a suit, possibly green, complete with frikkin' (boeing - not spartan) laser and "darpa" foam.

    Mines the mark 5, Recon armour.

  28. Fluffykins Silver badge

    What's the sound of

    one hand spraying?

  29. Skip Curry
    Paris Hilton

    RE: The One and Only Good Thing About War

    Super Glue was apparently used in Vietnam to seal wounds however, it was invented in 1942 by a gunsmith named Harry Coover who was trying to develop a clear plastic for gun sights.

    No, I dont have a vast wealth of useless knowledge, it just so happened that it was in something I was reading today.

    Paris: Cos shes been in many a sticky situation.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    right, spackle

    I recently had a forehead wound touched up with something called "Dermabond". It worked, or at least I'm not that much uglier than I was before. Having said that, the damage was not really military-grade.

    And yes, "spackle" serves the same purpose as polyfilla.

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    @The One and Only Good Thing About War

    You are so so right!

    So what we can deduce is that the powers that be are only interested in keeping us alive when they are engaged in a competition to see how many of each others people they can kill......

    I really wish I hadn't got out of bed this morning.....

  32. Gavin Jamie
    Go

    Arterial bleeds

    Arterial bleeds are the tricky bit. There is a lot of pressure behind them. 130mmHg (about 17k pascals or, to put it more clearly, 3603 Norris/nanoWales ) is a lot of pressure to deal with physically. It needs to chemically spasm the artery and even that is tricky. You would also find it tricky to apply as bleeding wound tend to be filled will blood (duh) and getting to the vessels would require a lot of swabbing.

    Two square feet - difficult to get an injury like that without something else really bad happening. Still, if it works it would be brilliant. Nose bleeds sorted with a simple spray rather than all that sitting around pinching your nose. Squirt it through the end of you gastroscope in a general splash it around way to stop your bleeding ulcer or varicies. And of course all those severe injuries in civilian life when you need stabilisation before getting to the hospital. Never mind the military - whoever does this will make a fortune in the civilian medical sector.

  33. Christoph

    @RainyRat

    But does it cure the Dreaded Lurgi?

  34. Les Matthew

    @Skip Curry

    "Paris: Cos shes been in many a sticky situation."

    Only two, apparently.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another film invented it too ...

    What was it they used in "Universal Soldier"?

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Well if they ever get this working...

    ...I'd like some around the house. Could save a fortune on emergency plumbing.

  37. Herby

    Of course this will be done by passing the task to...

    Q Section. They have ALL the neat toys.

    "Now 007, be careful with that.."

    I miss Desmond Llewelyn!

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Two square feet?

    So if you're wounded enough to have 2 square feet, will this stuff be called Doc Martin?

    Will it function as 'step-in' replacement boots?

    Going by the specs, it sounds just like builders' expanding foam... very sticky stuff that, which dries solid and covers a large area!

  39. Joe Cooper

    @film invented it

    Can you really say it was invented before if they didn't actually make it work?

    I mean... I could make up anything I want. Everyone has an imagination. If I draw a comic with a guy who can turn into a moose, and later DARPA comes up with a device that lets you turn into a moose than it's not like I invented it first.

    I just described it.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    'Flack Spackle'

    A good name would be Flack Spackle!

  41. A J Stiles
    Boffin

    Medical vs DIY superglue

    The medical version of superglue uses ethanol as a solvent. The stuff you get in pound stores uses methanol, which is poisonous in smaller doses than ethanol.

    And no, the fact that it contains a cyano- group is not much to worry about, since it's already bound tightly to something. Just don't heat it.

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