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Every time you inhale, oxygen passes from your windpipe to your lungs and on into your bloodstream. But what if your windpipe was blocked? Getting the gas straight to your blood could save your life. Wait, put down that syringe—a large air bubble in a blood vessel can kill you. But what if the bubbles were only a few millionths of a meter in diameter?
每次呼吸時，氧氣通過氣管傳到肺部，然后進入血液。但是萬一你的氣道堵塞了怎么辦？為了救命，可以把氧氣直接輸入到血液里。等等，放下注射器——血管里如果出現一個大氣泡，則會致人死命。但是氣泡的直徑如果只有10微米會怎么樣呢？
Researchers coated tiny amounts of oxygen gas with fatty molecules to create microparticles. Suspended in solution, the microparticles formed a foam containing 50 to 90 percent oxygen. In a beaker of blood, the foam was able to quickly transfer its oxygen to the cells.
研究者先用油脂分子包圍少量的氧氣，以形成微粒。懸浮在溶液里的微粒會產生含有50%-90%氧氣的泡沫。在盛有血液的燒杯里，氣泡能迅速將氧氣輸送到細胞里。
Then the researchers tested it in animals. Normally, a blocked windpipe cuts off the blood’s supply of oxygen, leading to brain damage and death. But when rabbits with blocked windpipes received injections of the microparticles, their blood oxygen levels and heart rates remained stable. The work is in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
然后研究者在動物身上做了實驗。正常情況下，血管如果阻塞了，就會切斷氧氣供應，導致大腦損傷壞死。給氣管阻塞的兔子注射這種微粒時，它們的血液氧氣濃度和心率保持穩定。該實驗發表在《科學?轉化醫學》上。
The foam may someday buy time for human patients. So that even someone with a closed airway can breathe easy.
可能有一天，這種氣泡會為病人爭取時間。這樣，即使是那些氣道封閉的人也會很輕松地呼吸。
