How Physics Saved Two Million Premature Babies
This video is in collaboration with Bill and Melinda Gates. You can check out the Gates Annual Letter here: http://b-gat.es/2lhhtmJ. Doctors beat back a disease that was killing tens of thousands...
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Hi, this is Emily from MinuteEarth, in a special collaboration with Bill and Melinda Gates.Until a few decades ago, almost half the babies born more than six weeks premature died withina few hours or days, due to a mysterious ailment now known as Respiratory Distress Syndrome.Tens of thousands of babies died each year, in the United States alone, from what turnedout to be a basic physics problem.That problem happens deep in the lungs, in tiny air sacs called alveoli, which exchangecarbon dioxide for oxygen.In healthy babies, the alveoli are like perfectly inflated mini-balloons.But in the lungs of preemies with RDS, doctors found that many of the mini-balloons had eitherpermanently collapsed or stretched way out, interrupting the gas exchange and causingthe babies...
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Hi, this is Emily from MinuteEarth, in a special collaboration with Bill and Melinda Gates.Until a few decades ago, almost half the babies born more than six weeks premature died withina few hours or days, due to a mysterious ailment now known as Respiratory Distress Syndrome.Tens of thousands of babies died each year, in the United States alone, from what turnedout to be a basic physics problem.That problem happens deep in the lungs, in tiny air sacs called alveoli, which exchangecarbon dioxide for oxygen.In healthy babies, the alveoli are like perfectly inflated mini-balloons.But in the lungs of preemies with RDS, doctors found that many of the mini-balloons had eitherpermanently collapsed or stretched way out, interrupting the gas exchange and causingthe babies...
