Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2023 October 4

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 4

EMT's taking EEG

Adventure (fanfic) novel (chapter 34).[1] Guy gets hit by some kind of energy beam, falls down, paralyzed, no heartbeat, eyes not responsive to light, stiff as a board, seemingly dead, or else tonic immobility. Medics arrive and they find a normal EEG, i.e. the guy is alive despite the paralysis.

Would paramedics/EMT's usually carry EEG equipment and know how to use it? EKG maybe, but I thought EEG was much more sensitive and anyway there is no CPR analog for head injuries. So this EEG seemed a bit out of place. Of course it's fiction, but it is generally pretty careful about stuff like this. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:86EA (talk) 09:41, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

I did a Google search on the words "do paramedics have eeg", and found articles like this one and this one, which seem to imply that it is not usual now, but that it's being considered, as portable EEG machines are starting to appear. So if the fiction is set in the near future, it's reasonable. --142.112.221.246 (talk) 07:00, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

This 2015 article about seizures says that "In other healthcare systems [i.e. not the UK National Health Service] it is common for emergency physicians to provide pre-hospital care and the use of certain investigations, such as out-of-hospital single-channel electroencephalography (EEG), may be an effective tool in these circumstances". Alansplodge (talk) 11:40, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Help identifying a biological database

Hi, I'm trying to identify a biological database. I recall a scientist from the EU (I think) talking about a database (which is available only to researchers) which has been collecting samples over the past few decades from healthy volunteers - the same people every period of time - and their DNA, RNA and proteins were sequenced. They also collect other health measures. This allows retrospective research, say an individual was diagnosed with a certain disease, the researcher can look back and see when things started to go wrong. Does anyone have any clue which database this might be? Or maybe a publication that used such data? 2A01:6500:A042:E362:5864:707B:9DB7:B12A (talk) 12:38, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't know about the EU but the UK has a large project of that type called UK Biobank. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:21, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

UK Biobank, in fact. See also Biobank for general information and pointers to other specific organisations. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 13:24, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Mike Turnbull & -- Verbarson , it looks like this is what I was trying to find. 2A01:6500:A042:E362:5864:707B:9DB7:B12A (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:6500:A042:E362:5864:F05F:F7B7:B12A (talk) 18:12, 4 October 2023 (UTC)