Engineering And Medicine In Extreme Environments

This book brings together in-depth information on a wide array of bio-engineering topics and their application to enhance human health, performance, comfort, and survival in extreme environments. Contributions from biomedical engineering, information systems, medicine and physiology, and medical engineering are presented in relation to a broad range of harsh and extreme environmental scenarios, including underwater, terrestrial (both natural and man-made), and space travel. Physicians, engineers, and scientists, as well as researchers and graduate students, will find the book to be an invaluable resource. Details effects of extreme environments on human physiology; Presents human-environment interaction in different scenarios; Overview of engineering challenges and problems in extreme environments.

Human Physiology in Extreme Environments, Second Edition, offers evidence on how human biology and physiology is affected by extreme environments, also highlighting technological innovations that allow us to adapt and regulate environments. Covering a broad range of extreme environments, including high altitude, underwater, tropical climates, desert climates, arctic climates and space travel, the book also includes case studies that can be used to illustrate practical application. Graduate students, medical students and researchers will find this to be an interesting, informative and useful resource for human physiology, environmental physiology and medical studies. Includes coverage of current global challenges and their consequences on human physiology and performance Presents human physiological challenges in extreme environments Provides an excellent source of information on paleontological and anthropological aspects Offers practical medical and scientific uses of current concepts

Anesthesiologist, intensive care expert, and NASA adviser Kevin Fong explores how physical extremes push human limits and spawn incredible medical breakthroughs Little more than one hundred years ago, maps of the world still boasted white space: places where no human had ever trod. Within a few short decades the most hostile of the world’s environments had all been conquered. Likewise, in the twentieth century, medicine transformed human life. Doctors took what was routinely fatal and made it survivable. As modernity brought us ever more into different kinds of extremis, doctors pushed the bounds of medical advances and human endurance. Extreme exploration challenged the body in ways that only the vanguard of science could answer. Doctors, scientists, and explorers all share a defining trait: they push on in the face of grim odds. Because of their extreme exploration we not only understand our physiology better; we have also made enormous strides in the science of healing. Drawing on his own experience as an anesthesiologist, intensive care expert, and NASA adviser, Dr. Kevin Fong examines how cuttingedge medicine pushes the envelope of human survival by studying the human body’s response when tested by physical extremes. Extreme Medicine explores different limits of endurance and the lens each offers on one of the systems of the body. The challenges of Arctic exploration created opportunities for breakthroughs in open heart surgery; battlefield doctors pioneered techniques for skin grafts, heart surgery, and trauma care; underwater and outer space exploration have revolutionized our understanding of breathing, gravity, and much more. Avant-garde medicine is fundamentally changing our ideas about the nature of life and death. Through astonishing accounts of extraordinary events and pioneering medicine, Fong illustrates the sheer audacity of medical practice at extreme limits, where human life is balanced on a knife’s edge. Extreme Medicine is a gripping debut about the science of healing, but also about exploration in its broadest sense—and about how, by probing the very limits of our biology, we may ultimately return with a better appreciation of how our bodies work, of what life is, and what it means to be human.

"Published in Great Britain under the title Extremes: life, death and the limits of the human body by Hodder & Stoughton. First published in the United States of America by The Penguin Press, 2014."--Title page verso.

One of the major challenges in materials science today is developing materials that can survive and function in extreme environments, such as the high-radiation environments found in a fission or fusion reactor or the ultra-high temperature experienced by a hypervelocity vessel or a spacecraft traveling through Earths atmosphere on its return to the planets surface. What is needed to discover such materials was the topic of a 2-day workshop held at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on October 5-6, 2022. That workshop, titled Materials in Extreme Environments: New Monitoring Tools and Data-Driven Approaches, brought together an international collection of experts on the testing and measurement of materials in extreme environments and on discovering and developing new materials. This Proceedings of a Workshop recaps the presentations and discussions that took place during the 2 days of the workshop.

POLYMERS AND ADDITVES IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS Uniquely catalogs polymers and additives for uses in extreme applications such as in high or low pressure, high or low temperature, deep water and other special applications. The book includes chapters on aqueous environments including polymeric membranes for water purification and wastewater treatment; extreme pressure environments such as oils and lubricants for combustion engines as well as materials used for deep drilling such as surfactants, scale inhibitors, foaming agents, defoamers, propellants, fracturing fluids; extreme temperatures is subdivided in high and low temperature applications including gasketing materials, fuel tank sealants, expulsion bladders, fuel cell materials, and on the other hand, cold weather articles and thermoregulatory textiles; electrical applications include solar cell devices, triboelectric generators, fuel cell applications, electrochromic materials and batteries; medical applications include polymers for contact lenses, materials for tissue engineering, sophisticated drug delivery systems; aerospace applications include outer space applications such as low temperature and pressure, also cosmic rays, outgassing, and atomic erosion, as well as materials for electrostactic dissipative coatings and space suits; a final chapter detailing materials that are used in other extreme environments, such as adhesives, and polymeric concrete materials. Audience Materials and polymer scientists working in manufacturing and plastics, civil and mechanical engineers in various industries such as automotive, aircraft, space, marine and shipping, electronics, construction, electrical, etc. will find this book essential. The book will also serve the needs of engineers and specialists who have only a passing contact with polymers and additives in industrial setting need to know more.

Environmental engineers support the well-being of people and the planet in areas where the two intersect. Over the decades the field has improved countless lives through innovative systems for delivering water, treating waste, and preventing and remediating pollution in air, water, and soil. These achievements are a testament to the multidisciplinary, pragmatic, systems-oriented approach that characterizes environmental engineering. Environmental Engineering for the 21st Century: Addressing Grand Challenges outlines the crucial role for environmental engineers in this period of dramatic growth and change. The report identifies five pressing challenges of the 21st century that environmental engineers are uniquely poised to help advance: sustainably supply food, water, and energy; curb climate change and adapt to its impacts; design a future without pollution and waste; create efficient, healthy, resilient cities; and foster informed decisions and actions.

The extreme microbiomes are those microorganisms thriving under extreme conditions where no other living being will have any chance to survive. The extreme habitats are those presenting high temperatures (thermophiles), low temperature (psychrophiles), hypersaline environments (halophiles), low and high pH (Acidophiles/alkaliphiles), high pressure (Piezophiles) are distributed worldwide. The extreme habitats have proved to offer a unique reservoir of genetic diversity and biological source of extremophiles. The extremophilic microbial diversity and their biotechnological potential use in agricultural and industrial applications will be a milestone for future needs. Extremophiles and their cell components, therefore, are expected to play an important role in the chemical, food, pharmaceutical, paper and textile industries as well as environmental biotechnology.