Oxygen, Poisonous?

[Quotidian---]

gas masks look so damn cool


but i think its so they didn't have to make up a million different faces for all the combine's your going to be dispatching....

 

[Lupus]

LOL good point. Haha I didn't even think of that. I change my believed reason to Quotidian's

 

[Guest]

we heard of pollution in the everyday news now, imagine what will happen to the earth in the future, the air will be full of poisonous stuff, but since human have been living in such condition for many and many generations, they are adapted to the polluted environment, therefore they can breath in the the polluted air with no trouble. However the alien from another planet don't drive gasoline car and they don't use combustion method to produce energy, therefore they don't get used to the polluted earth environment and they have to use a mask to filter out the poisonous stuff in order to breath in the fresh oxigen. Ok i know it's whole bunch of bullshit i just said.

On the first page, someone claimed that there are more CO2 than O2 in the earth atmosphere right now. Are u sure what u're saying?!!!(No need to answer this question cuz i know u're wrong) Have u heard of greenhouse effect(increase in temperature caused when the outgoing thermal radiation is blocked by CO2 or water vapor)?? luckly CO2 is way less than O2 in the air, otherwise we are cooked up. The gas composition is about 78% nitogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gas. CO2 is less than 1%. Trust me, this will be one of the exam question in ur first chem class.

 

[PvtRyan]

Originally posted by FatCombine
I know this was discussed (Or something similar) a WHILE back but just to make sure...

I've been speculating about this for awhile. About those Combine soldier gasmasks. I'm thinking that maybe it is used to filter out Oxygen since it might be harmful to breathe for them. The reason for this might be that (It's just my theory) the Human-Alien combination may have some sort of 'side-effect' which somehow caused the Lungs ( Or whatever the Combine soldiers might have. ) to reject Oxygen and rely on Co2 or some other gas in the atmosphere instead.

By the way, I wrote this thread assuming the Combine Soldiers were Hybrids.

Anyone else have any other theories about those Gasmasks? You know, what does it Filter... etc.

In that case Valve should take some biology lessons. They can't rely on CO² because it can't be used to power cells. In order to do that you need to burn fuel in the cell. Burning equals binding with oxygen. So the cells in the combine body wouldn't be able to burn the fuel in the cells and well.. they'll be dead in 5 mins.
Not to mention that CO² doesn't bind with the hemoglobin in the blood in order to even transport it to the cells.
Even if they're aliens, they still need to use oxygen to power a body like that.
But they don't need to wear gasmasks because they have to, but for prevention prolly. Lot's of military personell wear gasmasks in times of crisis (Iraq for instance) in order to protect themselves from what the enemy throws at them. In this case they don't know how the Xen will fight them, because of the fact that Xen only uses organic weapons, they might use biological warfare.
Btw, didn't some soldiers in HL1 wear gasmasks?

 

[Deadline]

Originally posted by gamevoodoo
we heard of pollution in the everyday news now, imagine what will happen to the earth in the future, the air will be full of poisonous stuff, but since human have been living in such condition for many and many generations, they are adapted to the polluted environment, therefore they can breath in the the polluted air with no trouble. However the alien from another planet don't drive gasoline car and they don't use combustion method to produce energy, therefore they don't get used to the polluted earth environment and they have to use a mask to filter out the poisonous stuff in order to breath in the fresh oxigen. Ok i know it's whole bunch of bullshit i just said.

On the first page, someone claimed that there are more CO2 than O2 in the earth atmosphere right now. Are u sure what u're saying?!!!(No need to answer this question cuz i know u're wrong) Have u heard of greenhouse effect(increase in temperature caused when the outgoing thermal radiation is blocked by CO2 or water vapor)?? luckly CO2 is way less than O2 in the air, otherwise we are cooked up. The gas composition is about 78% nitogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gas. CO2 is less than 1%. Trust me, this will be one of the exam question in ur first chem class.

Good Idea, and BTW the guy who said that already got corrected and he said he ment Nitrogen (read the entire thread). Anyway Have any of you guys read the book called The Adromeda Strain? Its AMAZING. Its about a virus that comes down to earth on a secret government satelite that crashes in a very small town in Nevada. Needless to say it kills most of the population within seconds and the rest die from insanity. Except a small baby and an old man. And there is an undergroud facility called Wildfire that is used to test new viruses and bacteria and stuff, and its armed with a thermonuclear device just incase something goes really wrong. READ IT, ITS SOOOOOOO F'ING AMAZIN

 

[PvtRyan]

Originally posted by Lyrids
I ****ed up you've done it before too. I then corrected myself. I know this stuff I just made a mistake. I'm not dumb enough to say something like what the girl said.

Even so, breathing pure nitrogen equals suicide. No man can survive without oxygen, no matter whether they're infected by aliens or not.

 

[Quotidian---]

pvtryan, what the hell are you talking about, i do it everyday

 

[Guest]

You breathe pure nitrogen? I asssume while popping cyanide, and injecting air into your neck....

 

[PvtRyan]

Originally posted by Quotidian---
pvtryan, what the hell are you talking about, i do it everyday

No shit, but in a room filled with 100% nitrogen you would be pretty dead though.
Not that the nitrogen is toxic but the absence of oxygen is toxic.

 

[3rd Impact]

Originally posted by Murray_H
Dunno where i heard it, but it was that the SAS wear gas masks to intimidate people

Heh, the Regiment's badass enough without the masks.

 

[Deadline]

Originally posted by PvtRyan
Even so, breathing pure nitrogen equals suicide. No man can survive without oxygen, no matter whether they're infected by aliens or not.

How the hell do you know what Aliens breathe? and if those soldiers are part human, maybe they have the lungs (or whatever, Gills maybe?) of the aliens. Seeing that this has never been done, no one knows if they would be able to survive or not.

 

[OCybrManO]

The human body (not just the brain) can not run without oxygen... muscles are fueled by ATP, which is produced by aerobic cellular respiration, which requires oxygen...

Though, if an alien part of the being produced ATP via anaerobic respiration it could be used to power the human muscles.

That would explain the reason they wear masks... because oxygen is actually toxic to anaerobic life forms.

 

[Nippy_Kangaroo]

maybe the combine gas masks they wear are to stop headcrabs jumping on their face and sucking out their brains and turning them into mindless zombies!!!

anyone ever thought of that?? eh, eh good eh???

 

[Deadline]

Originally posted by Nippy_Kangaroo
maybe the combine gas masks they wear are to stop headcrabs jumping on their face and sucking out their brains and turning them into mindless zombies!!!

anyone ever thought of that?? eh, eh good eh???

Yup thats it!!! I knew it was going to be something obvious... screw aerobic cellular respiration! Good Find :cheese:

 

[OCybrManO]

That would only explain a helmet... not a full gas mask.

Gas masks are uncomfortable and restrictive... you don't normally wear them unless there is something toxic in the air.
Usually, the soldiers that have them don't put them on until they think they might be in danger.

A helmet should be plenty (probably better if you get a nice hard one) to protect from a headcrab...

 

[PvtRyan]

Originally posted by Deadline
How the hell do you know what Aliens breathe? and if those soldiers are part human, maybe they have the lungs (or whatever, Gills maybe?) of the aliens. Seeing that this has never been done, no one knows if they would be able to survive or not.

Because they obviously have the fysiology of a human being, and a human being cannot survive without oxygen, no matter what the aliens changed in the body. Just because of the fact that cells cant produce energy, breathing nitrogen won't change shit about that.
There are only a few singecell lifeforms that don't need oxygen.

 

[OCybrManO]

Originally posted by PvtRyan
There are only a few singecell lifeforms that don't need oxygen.

That is because Oxygen is toxic to anaerobic (doesn't use oxygen) organisms... they can't live in very many places on Earth, since Oxygen is so common here.

 

[Epsi]

The problem with the anaerobic respiration theory is that anaerobic respiration is significantly less efficient if your food is carbohydrates. Unless the combine is feeding them something very odd or they're running off batteries somehow it makes little sense to mess up the soldier's physiology to make them less efficient unless there's another benefit.

 

[DjBourgeoisie]

http://deluded.hypermart.net/oxygen.html Rofl read this:thumbs:

 

[Lupus]

Gills, lungs, doesn't affect what gas etc. the organism requires to breathe, they are just different ways of getting oxygen out of the medium it is in. Perhaps the pollution in the air is particulary toxic. Though I have to agree that it is probably so valve didn't have to model dozens more faces for them hehe.

 

[Animal]

Originally posted by Deadline
Good Idea, and BTW the guy who said that already got corrected and he said he ment Nitrogen (read the entire thread). Anyway Have any of you guys read the book called The Adromeda Strain? Its AMAZING. Its about a virus that comes down to earth on a secret government satelite that crashes in a very small town in Nevada. Needless to say it kills most of the population within seconds and the rest die from insanity. Except a small baby and an old man. And there is an undergroud facility called Wildfire that is used to test new viruses and bacteria and stuff, and its armed with a thermonuclear device just incase something goes really wrong. READ IT, ITS SOOOOOOO F'ING AMAZIN

That book is nothing compared to some of michael crichtons other works, it's so dated now.

If you really like it that much you should watch the film adaptation, it's pretty faithful to the book.

 

[Animal]

First off, oxygen is not toxic to anaerobic lifeforms, the reason why they are so rare is because firstly, it is less efficient then aerobic respiration, and secondly, it has a harmful byproduct (lactic acid).

Also, there is no way to determine what alien physiology does, and does not require. They may have evolved in an entirely different environment where the elements are completely different from the ones we encounter. Thus they would require another means of producing energy.

There could be different types of micoorganism, which may have developed a symbiotic relationship with the alien biology, allowing them to survive off N2, or CO2, like some micoorganisms do. Or they could have been designed in such a way to take advantage of certain elements in their environment, they may even have silicon based cells. Absolutely anything, so don't go making bullshit assumptions you know nothing about.

 

[mindless_moder]

how come u guys arent questioning why there is kevlar in thier suits ? lol
its there for protection most probably from biochemical waste they anticipated to find on earth.
i really see the point of the discussion and wht i am currently wondering is not why they wear it put why at all times ?

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by FatCombine
I know this was discussed (Or something similar) a WHILE back but just to make sure...

I've been speculating about this for awhile. About those Combine soldier gasmasks. I'm thinking that maybe it is used to filter out Oxygen since it might be harmful to breathe for them. The reason for this might be that (It's just my theory) the Human-Alien combination may have some sort of 'side-effect' which somehow caused the Lungs ( Or whatever the Combine soldiers might have. ) to reject Oxygen and rely on Co2 or some other gas in the atmosphere instead.

By the way, I wrote this thread assuming the Combine Soldiers were Hybrids.

Anyone else have any other theories about those Gasmasks? You know, what does it Filter... etc.

OMG. 25 days left dude, give it a rest with the gay threads. just wait.

If oxygen was poisonous it wouldnt be called oxygen then. SWAT gets gasmasks that they wear on assignments and you dont see oxygen getting all poisonous. It's standard loadout, just incase.

In the damn barricade video you see gordon with his homie scientist fools runnin around with no masks, barney too had no masks. Think alittle before you post.

 

[mindless_moder]

"In the damn barricade video you see gordon with his homie scientist fools runnin around with no masks, barney too had no masks. Think alittle before you post."
hmm maybe u should think a lil we are talking bout the chance of oxygen being poisonous to alien life form.

 

[OCybrManO]

Originally posted by Animal
First off, oxygen is not toxic to anaerobic lifeforms, the reason why they are so rare is because firstly, it is less efficient then aerobic respiration, and secondly, it has a harmful byproduct (lactic acid).

Atmospheric Oxygen kills strictly anaerobic life forms.

Oxygen is typically more reactive than the substances used in different forms of anaerobic respiration (which is why aerobic respiration is more effective). Because of this, it blocks the process by reacting with some of the compounds involved and lowering the amount of that compound available to be used in the anaerobic respiration. If there is too much Oxygen the process will not produce a high enough yield to sustain life.

Oxygen is poisonous to anaerobic life forms in the same manner that Carbon Monoxide is to aerobic life forms.

What you might be thinking of is life forms that have the capability to perform both aerobic and anaerobic respiration... Oxygen is not harmful to them because when it is available they switch to aerobic respiration because of this reason and the fact that it is more efficient.

Unless you have a reliable source that says otherwise...

 

[PvtRyan]

Originally posted by Animal
First off, oxygen is not toxic to anaerobic lifeforms, the reason why they are so rare is because firstly, it is less efficient then aerobic respiration, and secondly, it has a harmful byproduct (lactic acid).

Also, there is no way to determine what alien physiology does, and does not require. They may have evolved in an entirely different environment where the elements are completely different from the ones we encounter. Thus they would require another means of producing energy.

There could be different types of micoorganism, which may have developed a symbiotic relationship with the alien biology, allowing them to survive off N2, or CO2, like some micoorganisms do. Or they could have been designed in such a way to take advantage of certain elements in their environment, they may even have silicon based cells. Absolutely anything, so don't go making bullshit assumptions you know nothing about.

Sure it MAY be possible, but extremely farfetched. In order to produce energy using different elements the alien "invader" would have to replace every single cell in the human body (they were or still are human) and then I doubt if the organism will function like a normal mammal could.
This theory is a wee bit more fargetched than the assumption they might use gasmasks for prevention and protection don't you agree?

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by mindless_moder
"In the damn barricade video you see gordon with his homie scientist fools runnin around with no masks, barney too had no masks. Think alittle before you post."
hmm maybe u should think a lil we are talking bout the chance of oxygen being poisonous to alien life form.

You dont know they are aliens. No one does. They dont even look alien like. I mean you got the ant lion fools lookin all crazy alien like and the head crabs and all of a sudden an alien that looks human? naw/

 

[OCybrManO]

Maybe combine refers to a combine harvester (do a google image search on "combine") and the big thing that is "eating" the city is actualy tearing the buildings down to harvest the materials.
Everything we "know" about them is speculation at this point.

 

[Game_Ender]

Originally posted by Animal
Well if we keep cutting down the rainforests etc. At the same rate this will probably be true in a few 100 years.

Over 70% of the worlds CO2 is absorbed by algea in the ocean. Rainforest don't convert a very large percentage, although we do need to stop the cutting down of rainforest in underdeveloped countries.

 

[The more on]

I think the reason why Gasmasks are scary is that they prevent you from looking at the expression of their faces. You dont know if they are looking you ugly or if ther are smiling. Imagine that a person you dont know wearing a gasmask is walking towards you...would you know how to act?

 

[SupaKoopa]

are we sure its a gas mask? maybe its just an elaborate helmet thing that, like someone said, helps keep the headcrabs off.

 

[Animal]

Originally posted by OCybrManO


Oxygen is poisonous to anaerobic life forms in the same manner that Carbon Monoxide is to aerobic life forms.

Thats completely true, i thought you meant in small quantities, like some military gas etc.

I see we meant different things...

 

[Animal]

Originally posted by PvtRyan
Sure it MAY be possible, but extremely farfetched. In order to produce energy using different elements the alien "invader" would have to replace every single cell in the human body (they were or still are human) and then I doubt if the organism will function like a normal mammal could.
This theory is a wee bit more fargetched than the assumption they might use gasmasks for prevention and protection don't you agree?

Oh, you were talking about the combine soldier guys, i thought you meant a full alien. sorry for the bullshit comment at the end

 

[Animal]

Originally posted by Game_Ender
Over 70% of the worlds CO2 is absorbed by algea in the ocean. Rainforest don't convert a very large percentage, although we do need to stop the cutting down of rainforest in underdeveloped countries.

lol, i was only joking...

 

[Animal]

Originally posted by The more on
I think the reason why Gasmasks are scary is that they prevent you from looking at the expression of their faces. You dont know if they are looking you ugly or if ther are smiling. Imagine that a person you dont know wearing a gasmask is walking towards you...would you know how to act?

It would be pretty horrible if they were smiling at you as they shot at you, it would be freaky, and with the HL2 technology it would be easily possible.

Imagine a zombie walking slowly towards you , and you could see his face (i.e. no headcrab) and he had a big smile and said something like ''come to daddy'' and you had no weapons. Man, i would crap myself.

 

[FoB_Ed]

Imagine a zombie walking slowly towards you , and you could see his face (i.e. no headcrab) and he had a big smile and said something like ''come to daddy'' and you had no weapons. Man, i would crap myself.

or if his face was frozen in an emotionless smile, like he was possessed or something, that would be really freaky :afro:

 

[FatCombine]

For those of you that said I was stupid because I said Oxygen is poisonous to alien lifeforms... No I wasn't stupid, but I know it was dumb, I wrote the first topic in 30 seconds and just slapped Oxygen in for the heck of it. If you actually read the freaking first page, you'll notice that I kind of said I just slapped it in. Then, I changed my opinion and said the Masks kept out airborne Viruses and Bacteria.

Once again, before you actually post, READ the first few freaking pages, PLEASE. Or I'll be calling you the stupid one making pointless posts.

Also, I actually did think before posting this topic.

 

[Guest]

Ya dumbasses!

 

[FatCombine]

Also, THUGENSTE1N, you didn't seem to get my point. I said It may have been poisonous to the Combine Soldiers ONLY. Since I was assuming they were half aliens.