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135-449: Invented by Jack Kevorkian , who used this device and called it a "Thanatron" or death machine after the Greek daemon , Thanatos . It worked by pushing a button to deliver the euthanizing drugs mechanically through an IV . It had three canisters mounted on a metal frame. Each bottle had a syringe that connected to a single IV line in the person's arm. One contained saline , one contained

270-583: A cascade method, Swiss chemist and physicist Raoul Pierre Pictet evaporated liquid sulfur dioxide in order to liquefy carbon dioxide, which in turn was evaporated to cool oxygen gas enough to liquefy it. He sent a telegram on December 22, 1877, to the French Academy of Sciences in Paris announcing his discovery of liquid oxygen . Just two days later, French physicist Louis Paul Cailletet announced his own method of liquefying molecular oxygen. Only

405-460: A mistrial . The trials helped Kevorkian gain public support for his cause. After Oakland County prosecutor Richard Thompson lost a primary election to a Republican challenger, Thompson attributed the loss in part to the declining public support for the prosecution of Kevorkian and its associated legal expenses. In the November 22, 1998, broadcast of CBS News ' 60 Minutes , Kevorkian allowed

540-572: A "euphoric death". Nitschke planned to release the open source plans for the Sarco by 2019. A suicide booth is a fictional machine for committing suicide . Suicide booths appear in numerous fictional settings, one of which is the American animated series Futurama . Compulsory self-execution booths were also featured in an episode of the original Star Trek TV series entitled " A Taste of Armageddon ". The concept can be found as early as 1893. When

675-730: A 2010 interview with Sanjay Gupta , Kevorkian stated an objection to the status of assisted suicide in Oregon , Washington , and Montana . At that time, only in those three states was assisted suicide legal in the United States, and then only for terminally ill patients. To Gupta, Kevorkian stated, "What difference does it make if someone is terminal? We are all terminal." In his view, a patient had to be suffering but did not have to be terminally ill to be assisted in committing suicide. However, he also said in that same interview that he declined four out of every five assisted suicide requests, on

810-446: A booth on every corner where you could get a Martini and a medal. In the world of Futurama , Stop-and-Drop suicide booths resemble phone booths and cost one quarter per use. The booths have at least three modes of death: "quick and painless", "slow and horrible", and "clumsy bludgeoning" though, it is also implied that "electrocution, with a side order of poison" exists, and that the eyes can be scooped out for an extra charge. After

945-505: A civilized and a nonviolent way of resolving our conflicts that weighs the law and adheres to the law. We have the means and the methods to protest the laws with which we disagree. You can criticize the law, you can write or lecture about the law, you can speak to the media or petition the voters. Kevorkian was sent to a prison in Coldwater, Michigan , to serve his sentence. After his conviction (and subsequent losses on appeal), Kevorkian

1080-634: A colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the chemical formula O 2 . Dioxygen gas currently constitutes 20.95% molar fraction of the Earth's atmosphere , though this has changed considerably over long periods of time in Earth's history . Oxygen makes up almost half of the Earth's crust in the form of various oxides such as water , carbon dioxide , iron oxides and silicates . All eukaryotic organisms , including plants , animals , fungi , algae and most protists , need oxygen for cellular respiration , which extracts chemical energy by

1215-649: A complete medical record for his patients, with at least three autopsies of suicides Kevorkian had assisted with showing the person who committed suicide to have no physical sign of disease. Rebecca Badger, a patient of Kevorkian's and a mentally troubled drug abuser, had been mistakenly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The report also stated that Janet Adkins, Kevorkian's first euthanasia patient, had been chosen without Kevorkian ever speaking to her, only with her husband, and that when Kevorkian first met Adkins two days before her assisted suicide he "made no real effort to discover whether Ms. Adkins wished to end her life," as

1350-569: A doctor to give a lethal injection, he preferred that the patient be in control of the administration of the drugs. Reducing the role of a physician also allowed a patient to be alone with their family during the euthanasia process. The machine was used, legally, while the Australian Northern Territory 's Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 was in effect; the act was eventually nullified by legislation of

1485-434: A few drops of the liquid were produced in each case and no meaningful analysis could be conducted. Oxygen was liquefied in a stable state for the first time on March 29, 1883, by Polish scientists from Jagiellonian University , Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski . In 1891 Scottish chemist James Dewar was able to produce enough liquid oxygen for study. The first commercially viable process for producing liquid oxygen

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1620-423: A lethal dose of medications and die?" 2. "Are you certain you understand that if you proceed and press the “Yes” button on the next screen that you will die?" 3." In 15 seconds you will be given a lethal injection… press “Yes” to proceed." After answering affirmatively to all of the questions, a lethal injection of barbiturates was triggered. In an interview Nitschke said that, even if it had been legal for

1755-481: A light sky-blue color caused by absorption in the red (in contrast with the blue color of the sky, which is due to Rayleigh scattering of blue light). High-purity liquid O 2 is usually obtained by the fractional distillation of liquefied air. Liquid oxygen may also be condensed from air using liquid nitrogen as a coolant. Liquid oxygen is a highly reactive substance and must be segregated from combustible materials. The spectroscopy of molecular oxygen

1890-564: A major role in absorbing energy from singlet oxygen and converting it to the unexcited ground state before it can cause harm to tissues. The common allotrope of elemental oxygen on Earth is called dioxygen , O 2 , the major part of the Earth's atmospheric oxygen (see Occurrence ). O 2 has a bond length of 121  pm and a bond energy of 498  kJ/mol . O 2 is used by complex forms of life, such as animals, in cellular respiration . Other aspects of O 2 are covered in

2025-416: A means of feeling that they're back in control of this issue is actually a way of prolonging life. It may seem paradoxical, but what we find is when people feel that they're back in control, they're less likely to do desperate things." The basic principle of autoeuthanasia by anoxia was first described in the book Final Exit by Derek Humphry in 1991. The original methodology was devised, using helium, by

2160-533: A medical historian at the University of Michigan , said that Kevorkian "was a major historical figure in modern medicine". The Catholic Church in Detroit said Kevorkian left behind a "deadly legacy" that denied scores of people their right to "dignified, natural" deaths. Philip Nitschke , founder and director of right-to-die organization Exit International , said that Kevorkian "moved the debate forward in ways

2295-535: A mode of death is selected and executed, the machine cheerfully says, "You are now dead. Thank you for using Stop-and-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008", or in Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs , "You are now dead, please take your receipt", and at this time many untaken receipts are shown. The first appearance of a suicide booth in Futurama is in " Space Pilot 3000 ", in which

2430-438: A part of air that he called spiritus nitroaereus . In one experiment, he found that placing either a mouse or a lit candle in a closed container over water caused the water to rise and replace one-fourteenth of the air's volume before extinguishing the subjects. From this, he surmised that nitroaereus is consumed in both respiration and combustion. Mayow observed that antimony increased in weight when heated, and inferred that

2565-547: A physician consultant for "death counseling". His first public assisted suicide, of Janet Adkins, a 54-year-old woman diagnosed in 1989 with Alzheimer's disease , took place in 1990. Charges of murder were dropped on December 13, 1990, as there were, at that time, no laws in Michigan regarding assisted suicide. In 1991, however, the State of Michigan revoked Kevorkian's medical license and made it clear that, given his actions, he

2700-404: A process called eutrophication and the decay of these organisms and other biomaterials may reduce the O 2 content in eutrophic water bodies. Scientists assess this aspect of water quality by measuring the water's biochemical oxygen demand , or the amount of O 2 needed to restore it to a normal concentration. Paleoclimatologists measure the ratio of oxygen-18 and oxygen-16 in

2835-505: A report by the Detroit Free Press , 60% of the patients who died with Kevorkian's help were not terminally ill, and at least 13 had not complained of pain. The report further asserted that Kevorkian's counseling was too brief (with at least 19 patients dying less than 24 hours after first meeting Kevorkian) and lacked a psychiatric exam in at least 19 cases, 5 of which involved people with histories of depression, though Kevorkian

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2970-549: A series of suicides were vigorously discussed in United Kingdom newspapers, critic William Archer suggested that in the golden age there would be penny-in-the-slot machines by which a man could kill himself. Following Archer's statement in 1893, the 1895 story " The Repairer of Reputations " by Robert W. Chambers featured the Governor of New York presiding over the opening of the first "Government Lethal Chamber" in

3105-400: A sleep-inducing barbiturate called sodium thiopental and the last a lethal mixture of potassium chloride , which immediately stopped the heart, and pancuronium bromide , a paralytic medication to prevent spasms during the dying process. Two deaths were assisted with this method. Kevorkian assisted others with a device that employed a gas mask fed by a canister of carbon monoxide which

3240-458: A small proportion of manganese dioxide. Oxygen levels in the atmosphere are trending slightly downward globally, possibly because of fossil-fuel burning. At standard temperature and pressure , oxygen is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas with the molecular formula O 2 , referred to as dioxygen. As dioxygen , two oxygen atoms are chemically bound to each other. The bond can be variously described based on level of theory, but

3375-449: A triplet electronic ground state . An electron configuration with two unpaired electrons, as is found in dioxygen orbitals (see the filled π* orbitals in the diagram) that are of equal energy—i.e., degenerate —is a configuration termed a spin triplet state. Hence, the ground state of the O 2 molecule is referred to as triplet oxygen . The highest-energy, partially filled orbitals are antibonding , and so their filling weakens

3510-467: Is Raised" as the cover art for their 1996 album Paegan Terrorism Tactics . In 2011, his paintings became the center of a legal entanglement between his sole heir and the Armenian Library and Museum of America . Kevorkian was tried four times for assisting suicides between May 1994 and June 1997. With the assistance of Fieger, Kevorkian was acquitted three times. The fourth trial ended in

3645-445: Is also more physiologically inert than helium, with less chance of adverse reaction, and that loss of consciousness is quick with death following within minutes. Unlike helium cylinders, nitrogen cylinders can be refilled in the event of leakage and nitrogen gas can't be detected during an autopsy. The principle behind the device is oxygen deprivation that leads to hypoxia , asphyxia and death within minutes. Deprivation of oxygen in

3780-513: Is associated with the atmospheric processes of aurora and airglow . The absorption in the Herzberg continuum and Schumann–Runge bands in the ultraviolet produces atomic oxygen that is important in the chemistry of the middle atmosphere. Excited-state singlet molecular oxygen is responsible for red chemiluminescence in solution. Table of thermal and physical properties of oxygen (O 2 ) at atmospheric pressure: Naturally occurring oxygen

3915-518: Is calculated as "dead" in the hypothetical thermonuclear war simulated using computers actually die, without actually damaging any infrastructure. In the end, the computers are destroyed, the war can no longer be calculated in this way, the treaty breaks down, and faced with a real threat, (presumably) peace begins. After the Heaven's Gate mass suicide event was linked by tabloids to an extreme fascination with science fiction and Star Trek in particular it

4050-472: Is composed of three stable isotopes , O , O , and O , with O being the most abundant (99.762% natural abundance ). Most O is synthesized at the end of the helium fusion process in massive stars but some is made in the neon burning process . O is primarily made by the burning of hydrogen into helium during the CNO cycle , making it a common isotope in the hydrogen burning zones of stars. Most O

4185-630: Is often given for Priestley because his work was published first. Priestley, however, called oxygen "dephlogisticated air", and did not recognize it as a chemical element. The name oxygen was coined in 1777 by Antoine Lavoisier , who first recognized oxygen as a chemical element and correctly characterized the role it plays in combustion. Common industrial uses of oxygen include production of steel , plastics and textiles , brazing, welding and cutting of steels and other metals , rocket propellant , oxygen therapy , and life support systems in aircraft , submarines , spaceflight and diving . One of

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4320-441: Is produced when N (made abundant from CNO burning) captures a He nucleus, making O common in the helium-rich zones of evolved, massive stars . Fifteen radioisotopes have been characterized, ranging from O to O. The most stable are O with a half-life of 122.24 seconds and O with a half-life of 70.606 seconds. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 27 seconds and

4455-408: Is reasonably and simply described as a covalent double bond that results from the filling of molecular orbitals formed from the atomic orbitals of the individual oxygen atoms, the filling of which results in a bond order of two. More specifically, the double bond is the result of sequential, low-to-high energy, or Aufbau , filling of orbitals, and the resulting cancellation of contributions from

4590-459: Is released as a byproduct . Oxygen is too chemically reactive to remain a free element in air without being continuously replenished by the photosynthetic activities of autotrophs such as cyanobacteria , chloroplast -bearing algae and plants. A much rarer triatomic allotrope of oxygen , ozone ( O 3 ), strongly absorbs the UVB and UVC wavelengths and forms a protective ozone layer at

4725-475: Is still angry at him over the end of their relationship six months earlier; his ghost eventually makes its way back to his body so he can continue living. According to series co-creator Matt Groening , the suicide booth concept was inspired by a 1937 Donald Duck cartoon, Modern Inventions , in which Donald Duck visits a Museum of the Future and is nearly killed by various push button gadgets. The suicide booth

4860-712: Is temperature-dependent, and about twice as much ( 14.6  mg/L ) dissolves at 0 °C than at 20 °C ( 7.6  mg/L ). At 25 °C and 1 standard atmosphere (101.3  kPa ) of air, freshwater can dissolve about 6.04  milliliters  (mL) of oxygen per liter , and seawater contains about 4.95 mL per liter. At 5 °C the solubility increases to 9.0 mL (50% more than at 25 °C) per liter for freshwater and 7.2 mL (45% more) per liter for sea water. Oxygen condenses at 90.20  K (−182.95 °C, −297.31 °F) and freezes at 54.36 K (−218.79 °C, −361.82 °F). Both liquid and solid O 2 are clear substances with

4995-435: Is the result of the oxygen cycle . This biogeochemical cycle describes the movement of oxygen within and between its three main reservoirs on Earth: the atmosphere, the biosphere, and the lithosphere . The main driving factor of the oxygen cycle is photosynthesis , which is responsible for modern Earth's atmosphere. Photosynthesis releases oxygen into the atmosphere, while respiration , decay , and combustion remove it from

5130-463: Is unusual among the planets of the Solar System in having such a high concentration of oxygen gas in its atmosphere: Mars (with 0.1% O 2 by volume) and Venus have much less. The O 2 surrounding those planets is produced solely by the action of ultraviolet radiation on oxygen-containing molecules such as carbon dioxide. The unusually high concentration of oxygen gas on Earth

5265-522: Is usually given priority in the discovery. The French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier later claimed to have discovered the new substance independently. Priestley visited Lavoisier in October 1774 and told him about his experiment and how he liberated the new gas. Scheele had also dispatched a letter to Lavoisier on September 30, 1774, which described his discovery of the previously unknown substance, but Lavoisier never acknowledged receiving it (a copy of

5400-588: The American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry in 1992. Last year he got a committee of doctors, the Physicians of Mercy, to lay down new guidelines, which he scrupulously follows." However, Fieger stated that Kevorkian found it difficult to follow his "exacting guidelines" because of "persecution and prosecution", adding, "[H]e's proposed these guidelines saying this is what ought to be done. These are not to be done in times of war, and we're at war." In

5535-617: The Armenian genocide of 1915, finding refuge with relatives in Paris and eventually reuniting with her brother in Pontiac. Levon and Satenig met through the Armenian community in their city, where they married and began their family. The couple had a daughter, Margaret, in 1926, followed by son Murad, and their third and last child, Flora. When Kevorkian was a child, his parents took him to an Orthodox church weekly. He started questioning

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5670-618: The Earth , the Moon , Mars , and meteorites , but were long unable to obtain reference values for the isotope ratios in the Sun , believed to be the same as those of the primordial solar nebula . Analysis of a silicon wafer exposed to the solar wind in space and returned by the crashed Genesis spacecraft has shown that the Sun has a higher proportion of oxygen-16 than does the Earth. The measurement implies that an unknown process depleted oxygen-16 from

5805-565: The Greek roots ὀξύς (oxys) ( acid , literally 'sharp', from the taste of acids) and -γενής (-genēs) (producer, literally begetter), because he mistakenly believed that oxygen was a constituent of all acids. Chemists (such as Sir Humphry Davy in 1812) eventually determined that Lavoisier was wrong in this regard, but by then the name was too well established. Oxygen entered the English language despite opposition by English scientists and

5940-533: The NuTech group. Nitschke described his device as a modification of the exit bag with helium method described in The Peaceful Pill Handbook . Helium was replaced by a cylinder of compressed nitrogen and a regulator to supply the nitrogen into a plastic bag. One advantage of this method was the availability of larger amounts of nitrogen and flow rates last longer. Nitschke states that nitrogen

6075-484: The blood and carbon dioxide out, and the body's circulatory system then transports the oxygen to other tissues where cellular respiration takes place. However in insects , the most successful and biodiverse terrestrial clade , oxygen is directly conducted to the internal tissues via a deep network of airways . Many major classes of organic molecules in living organisms contain oxygen atoms, such as proteins , nucleic acids , carbohydrates and fats , as do

6210-465: The reaction of oxygen with organic molecules derived from food and releases carbon dioxide as a waste product. In aquatic animals , dissolved oxygen in water is absorbed by specialized respiratory organs called gills , through the skin or via the gut ; in terrestrial animals such as tetrapods , oxygen in air is actively taken into the body via specialized organs known as lungs , where gas exchange takes place to diffuse oxygen into

6345-470: The shells and skeletons of marine organisms to determine the climate millions of years ago (see oxygen isotope ratio cycle ). Seawater molecules that contain the lighter isotope , oxygen-16, evaporate at a slightly faster rate than water molecules containing the 12% heavier oxygen-18, and this disparity increases at lower temperatures. During periods of lower global temperatures, snow and rain from that evaporated water tends to be higher in oxygen-16, and

6480-503: The symbol   O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table , a highly reactive nonmetal , and a potent oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as well as with other compounds . Oxygen is the most abundant element in Earth's crust , and the third-most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium . At standard temperature and pressure , two oxygen atoms will bind covalently to form dioxygen ,

6615-430: The thermal decomposition of potassium nitrate . In Bugaj's view, the isolation of oxygen and the proper association of the substance to that part of air which is required for life, provides sufficient evidence for the discovery of oxygen by Sendivogius. This discovery of Sendivogius was however frequently denied by the generations of scientists and chemists which succeeded him. It is also commonly claimed that oxygen

6750-536: The 'Lucid Subjazz' label. It features Kevorkian on the flute and organ playing his own works with "The Morpheus Quintet". It was reviewed in Entertainment Weekly online as "weird" but "good-natured". As of 1997, 1,400 units had been sold. Kevorkian wrote all the songs but one; the album was reviewed in jazzreview.com as "very much grooviness" except for one tune, with "stuff in between that's worthy of multiple spins". The first public performance of

6885-557: The 17th and the 18th century but none of them recognized it as a chemical element . This may have been in part due to the prevalence of the philosophy of combustion and corrosion called the phlogiston theory , which was then the favored explanation of those processes. Established in 1667 by the German alchemist J. J. Becher , and modified by the chemist Georg Ernst Stahl by 1731, phlogiston theory stated that all combustible materials were made of two parts. One part, called phlogiston,

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7020-596: The 1960s, Kevorkian was expected to die within a year in May 2006. After applying for a pardon, parole, or commutation by the parole board and Governor Jennifer Granholm , he was paroled for good behavior on June 1, 2007. He had spent eight years and two and a half months in prison. Kevorkian was on parole for two years, under the conditions that he would not help anyone else die, or provide care for anyone older than 62 or disabled. Kevorkian said he would abstain from assisting any more terminal patients with death, and his role in

7155-488: The 1994 case was brought under "a badly written law" aimed at Kevorkian, but he attempted to give him "the best trial possible". Geoffrey Fieger , Kevorkian's lawyer during the 1990s, gave a speech at a press conference in which he stated: "Dr. Jack Kevorkian didn't seek out history, but he made history." Fieger said that Kevorkian revolutionized the concept of suicide by working to help people end their own suffering, because he believed physicians are responsible for alleviating

7290-531: The 2s electrons, after sequential filling of the low σ and σ orbitals; σ overlap of the two atomic 2p orbitals that lie along the O–O molecular axis and π overlap of two pairs of atomic 2p orbitals perpendicular to the O–O molecular axis, and then cancellation of contributions from the remaining two 2p electrons after their partial filling of the π orbitals. This combination of cancellations and σ and π overlaps results in dioxygen's double-bond character and reactivity, and

7425-480: The American scientist Robert H. Goddard became the first person to develop a rocket engine that burned liquid fuel; the engine used gasoline for fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer . Goddard successfully flew a small liquid-fueled rocket 56 m at 97 km/h on March 16, 1926, in Auburn, Massachusetts , US. In academic laboratories, oxygen can be prepared by heating together potassium chlorate mixed with

7560-565: The Australian Parliament. The machine was put on display in the British Science Museum. The Exit International euthanasia device was invented by Philip Nitschke in 2008. It uses a canister of nitrogen , a plastic suicide bag , and a plastic tube with one end attached to the gas canister and the other fixed inside the bag by a tie held by adhesive tape. Nitschke said, "That idea of giving people access to

7695-699: The Michigan Court of Appeals put it in a 1995 ruling upholding an order against Kevorkian's activity. According to The Economist : "Studies of those who sought out Dr. Kevorkian, however, suggest that though many had a worsening illness... it was not usually terminal. Autopsies showed five people had no disease at all... Little over a third were in pain. Some presumably suffered from no more than hypochondria or depression." In response, Kevorkian's attorney Geoffrey Fieger published an essay stating, "I've never met any doctor who lived by such exacting guidelines as Kevorkian... [H]e published them in an article for

7830-484: The Philosopher's Stone drawn from the source of nature and manual experience"] (1604) described a substance contained in air, referring to it as 'cibus vitae' (food of life, ) and according to Polish historian Roman Bugaj, this substance is identical with oxygen. Sendivogius, during his experiments performed between 1598 and 1604, properly recognized that the substance is equivalent to the gaseous byproduct released by

7965-438: The Sun's disk of protoplanetary material prior to the coalescence of dust grains that formed the Earth. Oxygen presents two spectrophotometric absorption bands peaking at the wavelengths 687 and 760  nm . Some remote sensing scientists have proposed using the measurement of the radiance coming from vegetation canopies in those bands to characterize plant health status from a satellite platform. This approach exploits

8100-579: The Supreme Court's 1976 decision in Gregg v. Georgia reinstituted the death penalty . He advocated harvesting the organs from inmates after the death penalty was carried out for transplant into sick patients, but he failed to gain the cooperation of prison officials. As a pathologist at Pontiac General Hospital, Kevorkian experimented with transfusing blood from the recently deceased into live patients. He drew blood from corpses recently brought into

8235-496: The US state of Oklahoma. In 2017, Nitschke invented the 3D-printed suicide capsule, which he named "the Sarco". The Sarco would contain a touchpad and nitrogen, and once an activation code is entered, "the person is again asked if they wish to die". An affirmative answer causes nitrogen to flow into the capsule, displacing oxygen, and death follows shortly thereafter. The Sarco machine cannot be printed on small 3D printers. The Sarco offers

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8370-981: The Ziegfeld Theater in New York City. Kevorkian walked the red carpet alongside Al Pacino , who portrayed him in the film. Pacino received Emmy and Golden Globe awards for his portrayal and personally thanked Kevorkian, who was in the audience, upon receiving both of these awards. Kevorkian stated that the film "brings tears to my eyes – and I lived through it". On March 12, 2008, Kevorkian announced plans to run for United States Congress to represent Michigan's 9th congressional district as an independent against eight-term congressman Joe Knollenberg ( R - Bloomfield Hills ), former Michigan Lottery commissioner and state senator Gary Peters ( D - Bloomfield Township ), Adam Goodman ( L - Royal Oak ) and Douglas Campbell ( G - Ferndale ). The race had already garnered national attention due to Democrats targeting

8505-680: The act of any type of euthanasia to any other person, nor that he promote or talk about the procedure of assisted suicide. Kevorkian was born in Pontiac, Michigan , on May 26, 1928, to Armenian immigrants from the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey ). His father, Levon (1891–1960), was born in the village of Passen , near Erzurum , and his mother, Satenig (1900–1968), was born in the village of Govdun, near Sivas . His father left Ottoman Armenia and made his way to Pontiac in 1912, where he found work at an automobile foundry. Satenig fled

8640-596: The age of 17. In 1952, he graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor . Kevorkian completed residency training in anatomical and clinical pathology and briefly conducted research on blood transfusion. Over a period of decades, Kevorkian developed several controversial ideas related to death. In a 1959 journal article, he wrote: I propose that a prisoner condemned to death by due process of law be allowed to submit, by his own free choice, to medical experimentation under complete anaesthesia (at

8775-475: The airing of a videotape he made on September 17, 1998, which depicted the voluntary euthanasia of Thomas Youk, 52, who was in the final stages of Lou Gehrig's disease . After Youk provided his fully informed consent (a sometimes complex legal determination made in this case by editorial consensus) on September 17, 1998, Kevorkian himself administered Thomas Youk a lethal injection. This was highly significant, as all of his earlier clients had reportedly completed

8910-493: The atmosphere. In the present equilibrium, production and consumption occur at the same rate. Free oxygen also occurs in solution in the world's water bodies. The increased solubility of O 2 at lower temperatures (see Physical properties ) has important implications for ocean life, as polar oceans support a much higher density of life due to their higher oxygen content. Water polluted with plant nutrients such as nitrates or phosphates may stimulate growth of algae by

9045-412: The bond order from three to two. Because of its unpaired electrons, triplet oxygen reacts only slowly with most organic molecules, which have paired electron spins; this prevents spontaneous combustion. In the triplet form, O 2 molecules are paramagnetic . That is, they impart magnetic character to oxygen when it is in the presence of a magnetic field, because of the spin magnetic moments of

9180-483: The character Bender wants to use it. Fry at first mistakes the suicide booth for a phone booth, and Bender offers to share it with him. Fry requests a collect call , which the machine interprets as a "slow and horrible" death. It then turns out that "slow and horrible" can be survived by pressing oneself against the side of the booth, leading Bender to accuse the machine of being a rip-off . In Futurama: Bender's Big Score , after failing to initially chase down Fry in

9315-707: The complete classical organ works by Jack Kevorkian was by Craig Rifel in a live concert on April 30, 1996, at Central United Methodist Church in Waterford, Michigan, including Kevorkian's Prelude & Fugue in E-flat, Pipe Dream, Sonata in D, Passacaglia on B-A-C-H, Pastorale & Fugue in B-Flat, and Fantasy & Fugue in C. In 1999, the Geneva-based self-determination society EXIT commissioned David Woodard to orchestrate wind settings of Kevorkian's organ works. He

9450-417: The device a " Thanatron " ("Death machine", from the Greek thanatos meaning "death"). Other people were assisted by a device which employed a gas mask fed by a canister of carbon monoxide , which Kevorkian called the " Mercitron " ("Mercy machine"). My aim in helping the patient was not to cause death. My aim was to end suffering. It's got to be decriminalized. — Jack Kevorkian According to

9585-444: The diatomic elemental molecules in those gases. The first commercial method of producing oxygen was chemical, the so-called Brin process involving a reversible reaction of barium oxide . It was invented in 1852 and commercialized in 1884, but was displaced by newer methods in early 20th century. By the late 19th century scientists realized that air could be liquefied and its components isolated by compressing and cooling it. Using

9720-466: The electron spins are paired. It is much more reactive with common organic molecules than is normal (triplet) molecular oxygen. In nature, singlet oxygen is commonly formed from water during photosynthesis, using the energy of sunlight. It is also produced in the troposphere by the photolysis of ozone by light of short wavelength and by the immune system as a source of active oxygen. Carotenoids in photosynthetic organisms (and possibly animals) play

9855-493: The existence of a God, as he believed an all-knowing God would have prevented the Armenian Genocide on his extended family. He stopped attending church by the time he was 12. Kevorkian was a child prodigy , teaching himself multiple languages (including German, Russian, Greek, and Japanese). As such, he was often alienated by his peers. Kevorkian graduated from Pontiac Central High School with honors in 1945, at

9990-572: The fact that the Englishman Priestley had first isolated the gas and written about it. This is partly due to a poem praising the gas titled "Oxygen" in the popular book The Botanic Garden (1791) by Erasmus Darwin , grandfather of Charles Darwin . John Dalton 's original atomic hypothesis presumed that all elements were monatomic and that the atoms in compounds would normally have the simplest atomic ratios with respect to one another. For example, Dalton assumed that water's formula

10125-399: The first known experiments on the relationship between combustion and air was conducted by the 2nd century BCE Greek writer on mechanics, Philo of Byzantium . In his work Pneumatica , Philo observed that inverting a vessel over a burning candle and surrounding the vessel's neck with water resulted in some water rising into the neck. Philo incorrectly surmised that parts of the air in

10260-407: The gas achieved by enclosing the head in a strong, clear plastic bag, secured around the neck, with the inert gas fed into the bag by plastic tubing. Suicides using this method are documented in the forensic literature. In the study Asphyxial suicide with helium and a plastic bag (Ogden et al.), the authors describe a typical case history, in which an elderly cancer sufferer used a plastic bag which

10395-403: The gas. The Deliverance Machine was invented by Philip Nitschke . It consisted of software entitled Deliverance, that came on a special laptop that could be connected to an IV in a person's arm. The computer program asked a series of questions to confirm the person's intent to die that being: 1." Are you aware that if you go ahead to the last screen and press the “Yes” button, you will be given

10530-516: The grounds that the patient needed more treatment or medical records had to be checked. In 2011, disability rights and anti-legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia group Not Dead Yet spoke out against Kevorkian, citing potentially concerning sentiments he expressed in his published writing. On page 214 of Prescription: Medicide, the Goodness of Planned Death , Kevorkian wrote that assisting "suffering or doomed persons [to] kill themselves"

10665-547: The historically Republican district based in Oakland County, which Knollenberg barely won in 2006 against a little-known opponent. The district would suffer some of the worst brunt of the Great Recession due to declines in Detroit's automotive industry . Upon Kevorkian's entry into the race, one analyst viewed him as a potential spoiler to Peters' candidacy. Ultimately, Kevorkian received 8,987 votes (2.6% of

10800-529: The hospital and transferred it successfully into the bodies of hospital staff members. Kevorkian thought that the U.S. military might be interested in using this technique to help wounded soldiers during a battle, but the Pentagon was not interested. In the 1980s, Kevorkian wrote a series of articles for the German journal Medicine and Law that laid out his thinking on the ethics of euthanasia . In 1987, Kevorkian started advertising in Detroit newspapers as

10935-399: The idea; instead, it was based on observations of what happens when something burns, that most common objects appear to become lighter and seem to lose something in the process. Polish alchemist , philosopher , and physician Michael Sendivogius (Michał Sędziwój) in his work De Lapide Philosophorum Tractatus duodecim e naturae fonte et manuali experientia depromti ["Twelve Treatises on

11070-441: The individuals themselves allegedly took the final action which resulted in their own deaths. Kevorkian allegedly assisted only by attaching the individual to a euthanasia device that he had devised and constructed. The individual then pushed a button which released the drugs or chemicals that would end their own life. Two deaths were assisted by means of a device which delivered the euthanizing drugs intravenously . Kevorkian called

11205-504: The letter was found in Scheele's belongings after his death). Lavoisier conducted the first adequate quantitative experiments on oxidation and gave the first correct explanation of how combustion works. He used these and similar experiments, all started in 1774, to discredit the phlogiston theory and to prove that the substance discovered by Priestley and Scheele was a chemical element . In one experiment, Lavoisier observed that there

11340-562: The lower stratosphere , which shields the biosphere from ionizing ultraviolet radiation . However, ozone present at the surface is a corrosive byproduct of smog and thus an air pollutant . Oxygen was isolated by Michael Sendivogius before 1604, but it is commonly believed that the element was discovered independently by Carl Wilhelm Scheele , in Uppsala , in 1773 or earlier, and Joseph Priestley in Wiltshire , in 1774. Priority

11475-423: The major constituent inorganic compounds of animal shells, teeth, and bone. Most of the mass of living organisms is oxygen as a component of water, the major constituent of lifeforms. Oxygen in Earth's atmosphere is produced by biotic photosynthesis , in which photon energy in sunlight is captured by chlorophyll to split water molecules and then react with carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates and oxygen

11610-428: The majority of these have half-lives that are less than 83 milliseconds. The most common decay mode of the isotopes lighter than O is β decay to yield nitrogen, and the most common mode for the isotopes heavier than O is beta decay to yield fluorine . Oxygen is the most abundant chemical element by mass in the Earth's biosphere , air, sea and land. Oxygen is the third most abundant chemical element in

11745-428: The matter would strictly be to persuade states to change their laws on assisted suicide. He was also forbidden by the rules of his parole from commenting about assisted suicide procedure. Kevorkian gave a number of lectures upon his release. He lectured at universities such as the University of Florida , Nova Southeastern University , and the University of California, Los Angeles . His lectures were not limited to

11880-494: The nitroaereus must have combined with it. He also thought that the lungs separate nitroaereus from air and pass it into the blood and that animal heat and muscle movement result from the reaction of nitroaereus with certain substances in the body. Accounts of these and other experiments and ideas were published in 1668 in his work Tractatus duo in the tract "De respiratione". Robert Hooke , Ole Borch , Mikhail Lomonosov , and Pierre Bayen all produced oxygen in experiments in

12015-434: The organs of a disabled newborn as a token of "daring and highly imaginative research" that would be possible "beyond the constraints of traditional but outmoded, hopelessly inadequate, and essentially irrelevant ethical codes now sustained for the most part by vacuous sentimental reverence". Kevorkian was a jazz musician and composer. The Kevorkian Suite: A Very Still Life was a 1997 limited-release CD of 5,000 copies from

12150-510: The patient is killed. It also shows three different modes, namely, "Quick Painless Death", "Slow and Painful Death", and "Megadeath" (a pun on a band of a similarly spelled name ). It was a reference to the suicide building in Soylent Green . Being a direct parody of the aforementioned scene, Abraham Simpson receives the opportunity to select his final vision and musical accompaniment: 1960s-era footage of " cops beatin' up hippies " to

12285-413: The person's disability, a makeshift handle may be attached to the valve to make it easier to turn. Or, with the valve in the "open" position, a clip or clothespin could be clamped on the tubing. Pulling it off allows the gas to flow. By Kevorkian's estimates, this method took 10 minutes or longer. Sometimes he encouraged people to take sedatives or muscle relaxants to keep them calm as they breathed deeply of

12420-464: The presence of carbon dioxide creates panic and a sense of suffocation (the hypercapnic alarm response), and struggling even when unconscious, whereas anoxia in the presence of an inert gas , like nitrogen , helium or argon , does not. Close contact with an enclosed inert gas is lethal, but released into the open air, it quickly disperses, and is safe for others. It is neither flammable nor explosive. Humphry's book describes close contact with

12555-479: The process themselves. During the videotape, Kevorkian dared the authorities to try to convict him or stop him from carrying out mercy killings. Youk's family described the lethal injection as humane, not murder. On November 25, 1998, Kevorkian was charged with second-degree murder and the delivery of a controlled substance (administering the lethal injection to Thomas Youk). Because Kevorkian's license to practice medicine had been revoked eight years previously, he

12690-458: The remainder of this article. Trioxygen ( O 3 ) is usually known as ozone and is a very reactive allotrope of oxygen that is damaging to lung tissue. Ozone is produced in the upper atmosphere when O 2 combines with atomic oxygen made by the splitting of O 2 by ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Since ozone absorbs strongly in the UV region of the spectrum , the ozone layer of

12825-407: The rest of us can only imagine. He started at a time when it was hardly talked about and got people thinking about the issue. He paid one hell of a price, and that is one of the hallmarks of true heroism." The epitaph on Kevorkian's tombstone reads, "He sacrificed himself for everyone's rights." In 2015, the 1968 Volkswagen Type 2 van in which Jack Kevorkian assisted some of his suicidal patients

12960-414: The seawater left behind tends to be higher in oxygen-18. Marine organisms then incorporate more oxygen-18 into their skeletons and shells than they would in a warmer climate. Paleoclimatologists also directly measure this ratio in the water molecules of ice core samples as old as hundreds of thousands of years. Planetary geologists have measured the relative quantities of oxygen isotopes in samples from

13095-536: The story is suffering from brain damage, it remains ambiguous whether or not he is an unreliable narrator . Modern writer Martin Amis provoked a small controversy in January 2010 when he facetiously advocated "suicide booths" for the elderly, of whom he wrote: There’ll be a population of demented very old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants and cafes and shops...There should be

13230-559: The suffering of patients, even if that meant allowing patients to die. Kevorkian spoke at Presbyterian and Episcopal churches to gain support for euthanasia. John Finn, medical director of palliative care at the Catholic St. John's Hospital, said Kevorkian's methods were unorthodox and inappropriate. He added that many of Kevorkian's patients were isolated, lonely, and potentially depressed, and therefore in no state to mindfully choose whether to live or die. Derek Humphry , author of

13365-457: The suicide handbook Final Exit , said Kevorkian was "too obsessed, too fanatical, in his interest in death and suicide to offer direction for the nation". In a 2015 Retro Report story about Kevorkian's legacy and the Right to Die movement, journalist Jack Lessenberry said Kevorkian "got a national debate going, which I think he then helped stifle by his own outrageous actions". Howard Markel,

13500-473: The then-future year of 1920, after the repeal of laws against suicide: "The Government has seen fit to acknowledge the right of man to end an existence which may have become intolerable to him, through physical suffering or mental despair." [...] He paused, and turned to the white Lethal Chamber. The silence in the street was absolute. "There a painless death awaits him who can no longer bear the sorrows of this life." However, as Chambers's protagonist who relates

13635-485: The time appointed for administering the penalty) as a form of execution in lieu of conventional methods prescribed by law. Senior doctors at the University of Michigan, Kevorkian's employer, opposed his proposal and Kevorkian chose to leave the university rather than stop advocating his ideas. Ultimately, he gained little support for his plan. He returned to the idea of using death-row inmates for medical purposes after

13770-578: The time?" Kevorkian said: "Of course. Any time you interfere with a natural process, you are playing God." Director Barry Levinson and actors Al Pacino , Susan Sarandon and John Goodman , who appeared in You Don't Know Jack , a film based on Kevorkian's life, were interviewed alongside Kevorkian. Kevorkian was again interviewed by Cavuto on Your World on April 19, 2010, regarding the movie and Kevorkian's world view . You Don't Know Jack premiered April 24, 2010, on HBO . The film premiered April 14 at

13905-662: The topic of euthanasia; he also discussed such topics as tyranny , the criminal justice system, politics, the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Armenian culture . He appeared on the Fox News Channel 's Your World with Neil Cavuto on September 2, 2009, to discuss health care reform . On April 15 and 16, 2010, Kevorkian appeared on CNN 's Anderson Cooper 360° . Cooper asked, "You are saying doctors play God all

14040-510: The tune of " Pennsylvania 6-5000 " by the Glenn Miller Orchestra . Jack Kevorkian Murad Jacob " Jack " Kevorkian (May 26, 1928 – June 3, 2011) was an American pathologist and euthanasia proponent. He publicly championed a terminal patient's right to die by physician-assisted suicide , embodied in his quote, "Dying is not a crime". Kevorkian said that he assisted at least 130 patients to that end. He

14175-486: The universe, after hydrogen and helium. About 0.9% of the Sun 's mass is oxygen. Oxygen constitutes 49.2% of the Earth's crust by mass as part of oxide compounds such as silicon dioxide and is the most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust . It is also the major component of the world's oceans (88.8% by mass). Oxygen gas is the second most common component of the Earth's atmosphere , taking up 20.8% of its volume and 23.1% of its mass (some 10 tonnes). Earth

14310-401: The unpaired electrons in the molecule, and the negative exchange energy between neighboring O 2 molecules. Liquid oxygen is so magnetic that, in laboratory demonstrations, a bridge of liquid oxygen may be supported against its own weight between the poles of a powerful magnet. Singlet oxygen is a name given to several higher-energy species of molecular O 2 in which all

14445-435: The upper atmosphere functions as a protective radiation shield for the planet. Near the Earth's surface, it is a pollutant formed as a by-product of automobile exhaust . At low earth orbit altitudes, sufficient atomic oxygen is present to cause corrosion of spacecraft . The metastable molecule tetraoxygen ( O 4 ) was discovered in 2001, and was assumed to exist in one of the six phases of solid oxygen . It

14580-451: The vessel were converted into the classical element fire and thus were able to escape through pores in the glass. Many centuries later Leonardo da Vinci built on Philo's work by observing that a portion of air is consumed during combustion and respiration . In the late 17th century, Robert Boyle proved that air is necessary for combustion. English chemist John Mayow (1641–1679) refined this work by showing that fire requires only

14715-547: The vote) in the election, in which Peters defeated the incumbent Knollenberg by a nine-percent margin. Peters would eventually serve three terms in Congress before making a successful run for the United States Senate. Kevorkian had struggled with kidney problems for years. He was diagnosed with liver cancer , which "may have been caused by hepatitis C ," according to his longtime friend Neal Nicol. Kevorkian

14850-514: The year 2000, Bender wants to kill himself, but then ironically mistakes a regular phone booth for a suicide booth. A suicide booth reappeared in Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs where Bender once again attempts to end his life, but is saved when dropped into the League of Robots' lair. During the season 6 episode " Ghost in the Machines ", Bender commits suicide in a booth named Lynn that

14985-494: Was "merely the first step, an early distasteful professional obligation... What I find most satisfying is the prospect of making possible the performance of invaluable experiments or other beneficial medical acts under conditions that this first unpleasant step can help establish – in a [portmanteau] word obitiatry." In a journal article titled "The Last Fearsome Taboo: Medical Aspects of Planned Death", Kevorkian also detailed anesthetizing, experimenting on, and utilizing

15120-428: Was HO, leading to the conclusion that the atomic mass of oxygen was 8 times that of hydrogen, instead of the modern value of about 16. In 1805, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Alexander von Humboldt showed that water is formed of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen; and by 1811 Amedeo Avogadro had arrived at the correct interpretation of water's composition, based on what is now called Avogadro's law and

15255-520: Was also an oil painter. His work tended toward the grotesque and surreal, and he had created pieces of symbolic art, such as one "of a child eating the flesh off a decomposing corpse". Of his known works, six were made available in the 1990s for print release. The Ariana Gallery in Royal Oak, Michigan , is the exclusive distributor of Kevorkian's artwork. The original oil prints are not for release. Sludge metal band Acid Bath used his painting "For He

15390-467: Was bought by paranormal investigator Zak Bagans (from the documentary series Ghost Adventures ) for display in his haunted museum in Las Vegas . † = Later heavily revised and incorporated into glimmerIQs †† = Later incorporated in abridged form into glimmerIQs * = Revised and distributed in 2009 by World Audience, Inc. Oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element with

15525-404: Was called "Mercitron" (mercy machine). This became necessary because Kevorkian's medical license had been revoked after the first two deaths, and he could no longer have legal access to the substances required for the "Thanatron". It was a rudimentary device consisting of a canister of carbon monoxide attached to a face mask with a tube. A valve must be released to start the gas flowing. Depending on

15660-606: Was closely enough associated with Bender's character that in 2001 it was featured as the display stand for the Bender action figure. It was also one of the many features of the series which troubled the executives at Fox when Groening and David X. Cohen first pitched the series. In the Star Trek episode " A Taste of Armageddon ", people who were deemed war casualties by the government of Eminiar VII were required to enter suicide booths. Treaty arrangements require that everyone who

15795-479: Was convicted of murder in 1999 and was often portrayed in the media with the name of " Dr. Death ". In 1998, Kevorkian was arrested and tried for his role in the voluntary euthanasia of a man named Thomas Youk who had Lou Gehrig's disease, or ALS . He was convicted of second-degree murder and served eight years of a 10-to-25-year prison sentence. He was released on parole on June 1, 2007, on condition he would not offer advice about, participate in, or be present at

15930-446: Was denied parole repeatedly until 2007. In an MSNBC interview aired on September 29, 2005, Kevorkian said that if he were granted parole, he would not resume directly helping people die and would restrict himself to campaigning to have the law changed. On December 22, 2005, Kevorkian was denied parole by a board on the count of 7–2 recommending not to give parole. Reportedly terminally ill with Hepatitis C , which he contracted in

16065-408: Was first discovered by Swedish pharmacist Carl Wilhelm Scheele . He had produced oxygen gas by heating mercuric oxide (HgO) and various nitrates in 1771–72. Scheele called the gas "fire air" because it was then the only known agent to support combustion. He wrote an account of this discovery in a manuscript titled Treatise on Air and Fire , which he sent to his publisher in 1775. That document

16200-451: Was given off when the substance containing it was burned, while the dephlogisticated part was thought to be its true form, or calx . Highly combustible materials that leave little residue , such as wood or coal, were thought to be made mostly of phlogiston; non-combustible substances that corrode, such as iron, contained very little. Air did not play a role in phlogiston theory, nor were any initial quantitative experiments conducted to test

16335-751: Was hospitalized on May 18, 2011, with kidney problems and pneumonia . Kevorkian's condition grew rapidly worse and he died from a thrombosis on June 3, 2011, eight days after his 83rd birthday, at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan . According to his attorney, Mayer Morganroth, there were no artificial attempts to keep him alive and his death was painless. Kevorkian was buried in White Chapel Memorial Cemetery in Troy, Michigan . Judge Thomas Jackson, who presided over Kevorkian's first murder trial in 1994, commented that he wanted to express sorrow at Kevorkian's death and that

16470-491: Was independently developed in 1895 by German engineer Carl von Linde and British engineer William Hampson . Both men lowered the temperature of air until it liquefied and then distilled the component gases by boiling them off one at a time and capturing them separately. Later, in 1901, oxyacetylene welding was demonstrated for the first time by burning a mixture of acetylene and compressed O 2 . This method of welding and cutting metal later became common. In 1923,

16605-519: Was no longer permitted to practice medicine or to work with patients. His California medical license was suspended in April 1993 by an administrative law judge , with Kevorkian's attorney responding that Kevorkian "will go on assisting people commit suicide. He dares that California judge to come catch him". According to his lawyer Geoffrey Fieger , Kevorkian assisted in the deaths of 130 terminally ill people between 1990 and 1998. In each of these cases,

16740-445: Was no overall increase in weight when tin and air were heated in a closed container. He noted that air rushed in when he opened the container, which indicated that part of the trapped air had been consumed. He also noted that the tin had increased in weight and that increase was the same as the weight of the air that rushed back in. This and other experiments on combustion were documented in his book Sur la combustion en général , which

16875-404: Was not able to call any witnesses to the stand as the judge did not deem the testimony of any of his witnesses relevant. After a two-day trial, the Michigan jury found Kevorkian guilty of second-degree homicide. Judge Jessica Cooper sentenced Kevorkian to serve 10–25 years in prison and told him: This is a court of law and you said you invited yourself here to take a final stand. But this trial

17010-484: Was not an opportunity for a referendum. The law prohibiting euthanasia was specifically reviewed and clarified by the Michigan Supreme Court several years ago in a decision involving your very own cases, sir. So the charge here should come as no surprise to you. You invited yourself to the wrong forum. Well, we are a nation of laws, and we are a nation that tolerates differences of opinion because we have

17145-557: Was not legally allowed to possess the controlled substance. On March 26, 1999, a jury began deliberations in the first-degree murder trial of Kevorkian. He had discharged his attorneys and proceeded through the trial representing himself , a decision he later regretted. The judge ordered a criminal defense attorney to remain available at trial as standby counsel for information and advice. Inexperienced in law but persisting in his efforts to represent himself, Kevorkian encountered great difficulty in presenting his evidence and arguments. He

17280-465: Was not sensibly different from that of common air , but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards." Priestley published his findings in 1775 in a paper titled "An Account of Further Discoveries in Air", which was included in the second volume of his book titled Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air . Because he published his findings first, Priestley

17415-478: Was noted that multiple episodes, including "A Taste of Armageddon", actually advocated an anti-suicide standpoint as opposed to the viewpoint expressed by the Heaven's Gate group. In the seventeenth season The Simpsons episode " Million Dollar Abie ", a suicide machine called a "diePod" (a pun on the iPod ) is featured. The diePod allows the patient to choose visual and auditory themes that present themselves as

17550-408: Was proven in 2006 that this phase, created by pressurizing O 2 to 20  GPa , is in fact a rhombohedral O 8 cluster . This cluster has the potential to be a much more powerful oxidizer than either O 2 or O 3 and may therefore be used in rocket fuel . A metallic phase was discovered in 1990 when solid oxygen is subjected to a pressure of above 96 GPa and it

17685-504: Was published in 1777. In the meantime, on August 1, 1774, an experiment conducted by the British clergyman Joseph Priestley focused sunlight on mercuric oxide contained in a glass tube, which liberated a gas he named "dephlogisticated air". He noted that candles burned brighter in the gas and that a mouse was more active and lived longer while breathing it. After breathing the gas himself, Priestley wrote: "The feeling of it to my lungs

17820-462: Was published in 1777. In that work, he proved that air is a mixture of two gases; 'vital air', which is essential to combustion and respiration, and azote (Gk. ἄζωτον "lifeless"), which did not support either. Azote later became nitrogen in English, although it has kept the earlier name in French and several other European languages. Lavoisier renamed 'vital air' to oxygène in 1777 from

17955-420: Was secured over her head, a helium tank, and a plastic hose attached to the tank valve and plastic bag. The authors noted that a suicide bag filled with helium will cause almost immediate unconsciousness, followed within minutes by death. Time to loss of consciousness in a bag filled with nitrogen is 15 seconds, according to professors Copeland, Pappas and Parr, who campaigned for a more humane execution method in

18090-420: Was shown in 1998 that at very low temperatures, this phase becomes superconducting . Oxygen dissolves more readily in water than nitrogen, and in freshwater more readily than in seawater. Water in equilibrium with air contains approximately 1 molecule of dissolved O 2 for every 2 molecules of N 2 (1:2), compared with an atmospheric ratio of approximately 1:4. The solubility of oxygen in water

18225-453: Was sometimes alerted that the patient was unhappy for reasons other than their medical condition. In 1992, Kevorkian himself wrote that it is always necessary to consult a psychiatrist when performing assisted suicides because a person's "mental state is [...] of paramount importance." The report also stated that Kevorkian failed to refer at least 17 patients to a pain specialist after they complained of chronic pain and sometimes failed to obtain

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