Eloectrical Resistance...

M

Mr Anonymous

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Electrical Resistance...

Something I remember as a kid, wondered if anyone else had experienced this.

Back at school, had a bunch of great teachers, really made their subjects interesting - I recall one lesson where we were dealing with the nervous system and as part of the lesson we had to partner up and test each others electrical resistance through the skin. Distinctly recall, everyone else managed to get a measurement - when it came to m'self, couldn't get the dial to so much as twitch with the equipment we were using. Followed through the next lesson, this time the teacher rigged pretty much the same gear for measuring electrical resistance/skin conductivity, this time using it as a rudimentary form of lie detector.

Great fun, came to my turn, again couldn't measure any resistance - tickled the teacher pink, actually prompted him to call in a colleague from next door. Many comments about the suspicion of me being genuinely pathological empirically proven. Hilarity ensued, better than doing written work at anyrate.

A number of years later a friend of mine was doing photography at Uni, one of the girls there had taken an interest in Kirlian Photography (it's the process where you pass a mild electrical current through a person and as electrical resistance builds you can literally photograph the electrical field generated by exposing the appendage on a photographic plate) - marvellous fun, except for one thing, when pounced upon to have a go she couldn't get a field build up. Demonstrated it on my friend, demonstrated it on herself - positive results everytime - tried me three or four times, wasting the remainder of her photographic paper in the process and miffing her off no end - all to no avail.

Apparently, I'm of the undead....

Reason for the boring - recently had to have a series of Nerve Conductivity Tests - RSI, trapped radial ulna nerve, right arm. Know I've got a moderate ligament strain in that elbow, been there a couple of years - hurts like billio when I forget and lean on the thing - shoots straight down to the hand, stays there too until whatever in the elbow became compressed releases.

Thing of it is, according to the test results - the nerve is conducting perfectly normally. No other aches and strains, shoulder, neck, back - haven't noticed a single problem elsewhere except the elbow.

Question: Presuming a fellow actually did conduct electricity with markedly less resistance than other people normally, would this give a misleading result to a standard nerve conductivity test?

And, also - anyone else ever heard of something like this before - general curiosity to that part, not like it constitutes an actual super power or anything, just wondering if anyone had ever heard of something like this before...
 
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Like detector tests work because it is the perspiration that conducts, rather than the skin.

With a medical test don't they apply some sort of artificial sweat to get by that?
 
Sauna said:
Like detector tests work because it is the perspiration that conducts, rather than the skin.

With a medical test don't they apply some sort of artificial sweat to get by that?
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Well, they do apply a conductive gel at the point they're applying the electrodes. I presume that to be its function.
 
I'm self employed - I'm perpetually being fired.....
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Ah.
So now you're into perpetual motion...
Muaha!

Anyway.
I have no answer for your question, I'm afraid.
But I do have a couple of anecdotes that I could share.

One which lies quite close to your story, I believe, although never tested in the manner which you describe.

A friend of mine had his graduation tassel hanging from the mirror in his car. This was back in the days when the only thing to do was 'cruise'. So, we cruised.

One day, he went into a store or something. Left me in the car to my own devices. I noticed a few of the strings in the tassel were in disarray and so I ran my fingers down the tassel to straighten them out.

Doing this gave the tassel a slight static charge. The strings began to repel each other and float ever so minutely.

I stroked it again.
More charge.
Again.
More charge.

By the time he came back from the store, his tassel was fully charged and all the strings were spread out and floating.

He got sorta annoyed and reached out to touch it and Bam! all the strings dropped flat in an instant.

It became a running joke. I'd charge up his tassel when he wasn't looking and he'd drain the charge with a single touch.


Interestingly, perhaps, he'd suffered a near fatal collision several years prior and was clinically dead for a brief period. Years after the tassel incident, I began to run into reports of people who have experienced brief bouts of death having problems with electronic devices.
Cd players burning out. Computers. Wristwatches.

As if death alters the electromagnetic field and/or capability of the body.


Now.
For my second anecdote.
This relates in that it was one of those little things in class that corresponds to your testing of the galvanic response.

I don't know what you call it, but there's this glass thing with two bulbs connected by a narrow pipe that contains alcohol in a near vaccuum.

The point of the device is that if you put your hands on one of the bulbs, the heat of your hand boils the alcohol causing it to rise up into the other bulb.

We started playing with this thing and having competitions to see who could get the alcohol to rise into the other bulb when two people grabbed a bulb each.

Turns out there was one kid in the class who had such cold hands that the alcohol would suck up into the bulb the instant he touched it.

...
Wonder if he ever got diabetes?
 
invert_nexus said:
Interestingly, perhaps, he'd suffered a near fatal collision several years prior and was clinically dead for a brief period. Years after the tassel incident, I began to run into reports of people who have experienced brief bouts of death having problems with electronic devices.
Cd players burning out. Computers. Wristwatches.

As if death alters the electromagnetic field and/or capability of the body.
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:) .... What a marvellous anecdote, made me smile at anyrate. Much appreciated - I can almost sense the next Steven King novel wafting off the surface of that little nugget, once the pretentions towards writing literature finally work their way out of his system and he goes back to doing what he does better of course....

Can't really allude to having had any near death experiences m'self unfortunately - although there was this one Canadian girl, several times actually, double jointed in the hips, came pretty close I'm still deliriously happy to report.

Odd y'should mention diabetes though - was a question put to me during the test. Far as I'm aware I'm not, diabetic that is, no history of the condition running in the family and all - but it did somewhat throw me as to why diabetes would particularly effect ones nervous system - particularly a nerves capacity to conduct....

Presumably has something to do with degradation of the myalin sheaths, perhaps?

Love to be able to report I could blow out electronic devices though - alas, they appear to love me.

No super powers for me I'm afraid. Just the capacity to frustrate those into Kirlian photography and occasionally amuse physics teachers.... :(
 
Mr Anonymous said:
:)
Love to be able to report I could blow out electronic devices though - alas, they appear to love me.

No super powers for me I'm afraid. Just the capacity to frustrate those into Kirlian photography and occasionally amuse physics teachers.... :(
Click to expand...

It's not really as much fun as you might think to burn out electric and electronic devices faster than normal. Floppy drives especially; I'm lucky if I can get them out of the packing before they fail. Light bulbs, either in my vehicles or in my house are no match for me. I am now a big fan of fluorescent bulbs and LEDs. They haven't yet figured out how to die quickly.

All of my life it has been the same story. But no clinical death episode ( that I remember ). And no super power ( actually somewhat the opposite ).
 
:) .... No, I'm sorry. But that's just fantastic - now this means, if we were superhero's, we'd be honour bound to become each others nemesis...

We need costumes, this instant!

Seriously though, d'you find you're forever giving yourself annoying little shocks and so forth?
 
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