Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dkbrk 718 days ago
Even more relevantly, Nitrogen is an anaesthetic. Even, apparently, at the partial pressure found in air [0].

[0]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1130736/

1 comments

Nitrogen is narcotic at higher partial pressures. This is something they teach during SCUBA diving training: If your dive buddy starts acting loopy when you get around 100ft deep, it's time to go up.

> It is caused by the anesthetic effect of certain gases at high partial pressure... Narcosis produces a state similar to drunkenness (alcohol intoxication), or nitrous oxide inhalation.

> Except for helium and probably neon, all gases that can be breathed have a narcotic effect, although widely varying in degree. The effect is consistently greater for gases with a higher lipid solubility, and although the mechanism of this phenomenon is still not fully clear, there is good evidence that the two properties are mechanistically related.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_narcosis