Without medi-gels—the life-saving healing salves in Mass Effect—our Commander Shepards would be toast. Out in the real world, though, we can't just apply medi-gel to our injuries: it doesn't exist. Or well, it didn't, not like this. Not until recently.
According to Mother Nature Network, Joe Landolina, a college student at NYU, has invented something called "Veti-Gel." Apparently it speeds up the clotting and healing process, enough that "even wounds to internal organs or major arteries are able to close up instantaneously."
Look at this video to see it in action (unless you're squeamish; there's a ton of blood). It's insane.
"I have seen [Veti-Gel] close any size wound that it is applied to," Landolina says. "As long as you can cover it, it can close it."
The article has more claims about Veti-gel's incredible properties, including the ability to heal second-degree burns in a day. Even more uncanny is the fact that they sometimes do call Veti-Gel medi-gel.
If you're curious, this is what medi-gels do according to the Mass Effect wiki:
Heals various wounds and ailments, instantly sealing injuries against infection and allowing for rapid healing by having the gel grip tight to flesh until subjected to a frequency of ultrasound. It is sealable against liquids - most notably blood - as well as contaminants and gases.
By contrast, Veti-Gel:
When any part of the body is wounded, the damaged extracellular matrix helps trigger a cascade of chemical reactions in the blood that ends in fibrin - fibers that join togehter to start blood clots.
If Veti-Gel reaches the blood's platelet cells, it helps signal them to change shape and stick together to further help plug the hole in a blood vessel. [See also: Artificial Blood Clots to Improve Soldier Survival]
And when Veti-Gel comes into contact with the extracellular matrix in the wounded tissue, it binds to it, forming a kind of cover over the area. That eliminates the need to even apply pressure to the wound. "It looks like, feels like, and acts like skin," said Landolina.
Veti-gel still has to go through the FDA, but even so, damn. Every day, we come a little bit closer to the future depicted in sci-fi like Mass Effect, people.
College student invents gel that halts bleeding [Mother Nature Network Via Ann Lemay]