Australian man survives 100 days with artificial heart

Device design, power, and “feel”

• The artificial heart is powered by an external battery via a “driveline” cable through the abdomen; current packs last ~4–5 hours, with talk of future wireless power through the skin.
• Commenters note redundancy: dual batteries, external power options, loud alarms well before depletion; some still find the “instant death if power fails” dependence unsettling but see it as better than certain death without it.
• The heart’s appearance is described as “steampunk” or “like a turbocharger,” CNC‑machined metal that looks crude/industrial to some.
• People wonder how it physically connects to major vessels and what it would feel like to have cold, heavy metal in the chest.

Regulating blood flow and pulse

• Multiple questions center on how the device modulates flow for exercise, emotion, and sexual function.
• Ideas raised: using accelerometers (activity level), blood oxygen, CO₂, or lactate as feedback; but no clear explanation from the article or commenters—marked as unclear.
• Comparisons to LVADs and earlier pumps: some run continuous flow with no traditional pulse; experience shows bodies can function without pulsatile flow.
• Others correct that this particular device does create a pulse, highlighting some confusion over technical details.
• Transplanted hearts already lose normal neural control and tend to have higher, less-variable resting rates, so some suggest perfect rate control may not be essential for a bridge device.

Clinical significance & historical context

• One commenter with industry experience (LVADs/artificial hearts) emphasizes this as the result of decades of work by large teams.
• Several note earlier artificial hearts (Jarvik-7, AbioCor, total artificial hearts with multi‑year survival), criticizing the article’s “world first” framing as device‑specific marketing rather than true novelty.
• Others point to European products like Carmat’s total artificial heart with >100 implants and multi‑year use.

Progress, risk, and ethics

• Debate over why medical progress feels “slow” compared to computing: necessity of human trials, complex regulation, and the inherent difficulty of “reverse‑engineering biology.”
• Some hope AI/ASI will accelerate medical advances; others argue that building an aligned, caring ASI is harder than solving many medical problems.
• Extended discussion on funding: whether ultra‑expensive, niche treatments (including artificial hearts and rare‑disease drugs) should be publicly funded; tension between maximizing quality‑adjusted life years vs. compassion for individuals.
• Views range from strong support for collective funding/insurance and moral duty, to hard‑nosed resource‑allocation arguments, with references to health economics and historical/anthropological examples of caring for the vulnerable.

Cultural and sci‑fi references

• Several comments riff on sci‑fi: Star Trek episodes, Battlestar Galactica arcs, Repo Men, Iron Man’s arc reactor, and earlier life‑support tech like iron lungs, using them to frame both the wonder and the eeriness of living on a machine.