What Happens When You Go Under Anesthesia?

In one out of every 1,000 surgeries, the patient’s eyes are closed. Their body is completely paralyzed, but their brain is wide awake. They can hear the surgeon talking, they can feel pressure — sometimes pain — but they can’t move, they can’t scream, they can’t signal that they’re conscious. This is called “anesthesia awareness” and it’s one of the most terrifying experiences in modern medicine. Most people think anesthesia starts when you fall asleep. It doesn’t. It starts in the pre-op room with a small injection into your IV. It’s typically a drug called midazolam, which belongs to a family of sedatives. Within minutes, your anxiety begins to melt away. You might even joke with the nurses, but you won’t remember any of it. That’s because midazolam causes what’s called “anterograde amnesia.” That means your brain stops recording new memories. 

 

Everything that happens after the injection — the wheeling through corridors, the brights lights of the operating room, the faces of the surgical team — your brain simply doesn’t store. Think of it like this: Imagine your memory is a camera. Midazolam doesn’t erase old footage; it presses pause on the record button. You’re awake, you’re talking, you’re functioning, but the tape is not rolling, and that’s by design. The human mind was never meant to witness surgery. Once you’re under, the anesthesiologist floods your lungs with pure oxygen, because in less than a minute you’ll stop breathing on your own completely. That stored oxygen in your blood is your safety reserve, your lifeline. Then your consciousness shuts down. This is not sleep; when you sleep, your brain is still active. Under propofol — a drug used for general anesthesia — your brain is chemically silenced. It's not resting; it’s been shut off. This is where the anesthesiologist’s critical job begins. For the next 30, 60, 90 minutes, a machine will breathe for you, and someone must control every breath. During surgery, the surgeon needs absolute stillness. If a patient reflectively coughs or their abdominal wall suddenly tightens during a delicate incision, the consequences could be devastating. That’s why paralytic drugs are administered. 

 

During every second of your surgery, an anesthesiologist is sitting at your head watching six screens monitoring your blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, carbon dioxide levels, body temperature, and anesthesia depth. When the surgeon closes the final suture, the anesthesiologist begins a reversal process that floods your lungs with oxygen that clears the anesthetic from your blood, and traces of electrical activity reappear on the brain monitor. This takes anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. Can you die from anesthesia? The risk of dying from anesthesia is between 1 in 200,000 and 1 in 300,000. Statistically, your risk of a fatal car accident on the drive to the hospital is higher than the risk of dying from anesthesia because modern anesthesia is one of the safest medical interventions in existence. So, the next time you have to “go under,” you’ll know what’s happening and you can relax.

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McDonald’s Has Hundreds of Pages of Intel on Its Repeat Customers, and You Can Get a Copy of Yours

It might surprise you to learn that we’re now living in a world where fast-food chains conduct the type of surveillance on customers that Cold War spy agencies once carried out on high-profile political dissidents. What that means is that McDonald’s has been plugging an enormous ream of data into its own predictive algorithms in order to estimate various customer measurements, like how many times you will stop by and how much you will likely spend. Reporter Reece Rogers experienced being tracked when he uncovered a Supersize McDossier detailing everything from his past orders to codes he scanned from the fast-food chain’s Monopoly sweepstakes. The result is a 515-page file that contains specific information McDonald’s identified about Reece. As a California resident, he has the legal right to access the data that companies store about him, so he decided to request that information to better understand what McDonald’s is collecting about its customers. It turns out that they not only can predict when you’ll return and how much you’ll spend per order, but the potential odds that you’ll stop being a customer. While many of the data points in the McDonald’s reports seem innocuous, the accumulation of information over years creates a creepily accurate picture of its customers’ habits. The good news is that customers who request the data also have the right to request that McDonald’s delete what it has stored, and that’s exactly what Reece did.

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Scientists Know Why Onions Make Us Cry

From wearing goggles to rubbing the knife with lemon juice, cooks have come up with a wide variety of tricks to try to keep themselves from crying while slicing onions. Scientists, however, already know why onions make us cry. When cut, they release a chemical that stimulates the nerves responsible for producing tears. The irritating compound goes by the name syn-propanethial-S-oxide. So, in order to help us avoid wearing goggles in the kitchen, a team of physicists decided to explore the underlying mechanisms at play when syn-propanethial-S-oxide gets released. They discovered that thinner, sharper blades produced fewer droplets that moved more slowly and with less energy. Meanwhile, the thicker, duller blades caused an explosion of high-speed particles that were sprayed out at up to an astonishing 141 feet per second. That’s because the dull blade initially bent the onion skin, which caused pressure to build up inside. When the blade finally sliced through, it released all that built-up energy and sent the unpleasant, tear-inducing juice flying. The duller blades produced as much as 40 times more particles than the sharper blades. Faster cutting speeds produced up to four times as many droplets as slower speeds. So, the best way to cut onions without your eyes stinging is to cut slowly with a thin, sharp knife. Problem solved.

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Cottage Cheese Cookies Are the Soft, Protein-Packed Chocolate Chip Dessert You Need to Try

Even if you’re sticking to strict health goals, desserts like cookies don’t need to be treated like the enemy. All it takes is a simple swap to make a healthier batch of cookies. That’s why it’s worth your time to try these cottage cheese cookies. Swapping butter for cottage cheese produces a creamy dough that bakes into soft and chewy cookies that are high in protein. You won’t be able to taste the difference.

Servings: 15 cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup large-curd cottage cheese

• ¼ cup pure maple syrup 

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1 cup almond flour 

• 2 tbsp melted coconut oil

• ½ cup vanilla protein powder

• ½ cup chocolate chips, plus more for topping

Directions:

 

• • Preheat oven to 350º F.
• • Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• • In a blender or mixer, add cottage cheese, maple syrup and vanilla and blend on high until smooth.
• • In a mixing bowl, combine almond flour and protein powder.
• • Add coconut oil and cottage cheese mixture and stir until combined.
• • Fold in chocolate chips.
• • Scoop dough onto baking sheet and flatten with your hand to form a cookie shape.
• • Add a couple of chocolate chips to each cookie. 
• • Bake 15 minutes or until cookie bottoms are golden brown.
• • Cool on a wire rack.

 

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