OT Don't read this (was Re: Altair MBL source)

Then we'd die from all that carbon dioxide and from accumulation of (as Eric mentioned) heavy minor components like argon. The killer gases kill not because of their weight, but their chemical effect on the body (mustard gases are corrosive, carbon monoxide binds tightly to haemoglobin, etc.). If you're cycling air normally, heavier air components don't stay. You have a certain "dead" capacity that is not routinely exchanged with breaths but even this is not a fixed, unchanging airspace with a constant composition. Inhaling a 100% argon atmosphere kills you because there's no oxygen in it, not because the argon itself does something. But if you got out into room air, you'd exchange out the argon (assuming you were still breathing), since the argon is inert and doesn't react with your tissues. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The faster we go, the rounder we get. -- The Grateful Dead, on relativity --