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Yes

37 (61.7%)

No

6 (10%)

No, but a person's skin will absorb too much water and eventually turn into mush, thus exposing his organs and causing him to bleed to death due to lack of coverage

17 (28.3%)

Total Members Voted: 59

[Sensei]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure prune-fingering to death is out of the question.

[kaijyuu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_foot

Being pruned to death is totally possible, but requires rather extreme conditions.

[Sensei]

Interestingly, upon a little reading, it looks like (although not know for certain) cold is a major motive, or a requirement, for trench foot to occur (and then infection or necrosis occurs). Looking at wiki's very short list of "Immersion foot syndromes" shows that in warm water, an advanced version of normal pruning is, as far as we're aware, as bad as it gets. I'm pretty sure that also implies vulnerability to infection. There's also paddy foot, which I don't really know much about.

Further information, I think, would best be pursued via the citations in those articles. Right now though, I'm going to shower, to avoid being that guy who smells horrible because he's too busy debating something stupid on the internet to bathe.

[Flare]

I have never heard a story of a pirate stranded on a desert island or run out of water on his pirate ship surviving by dangling his legs in the water. 

So I voted Yes.

I think the OP is considering osmosis between the human and the liquid outside. In that if the human becomes dehydrated there is little water in him, thus osmosis would speed up. If you put a person in salt water IE. an ocean osmosis would work the other way and draw water out of the person due to the high concentration of salt in the water.

This is null though, the skin only allows water to pass through one direction.

What would happen if you make a deep, but non fatal incision though?

[Sensei]

Well, it would scab over first of all. Or bleed too fast to absorb any water, until then. And get infected.

[Flare]

As far as I understand, moisture stops scabbing. The rate of blood loss depends on where you make the incision at, there are points where no major blood vessels are broken but the skin is opened.

As for infection, as far as I understand the OP. This is a controlled environment. It might as well be sterile.

[Truean]

.... Why not just plug in an IV with saline solution or whatever they hook you up to in hospitals? And/or a feeding tube if you're talking something close to suspended animation.

[Megaman]

Salt water.

That is all.

[Shinotsa]

My real question here is how long would the person be in one of these tubes? Problems that astronauts will face on long journeys into zero-G, like muscular/skeletal degeneration, could be a major concern. Not to mention the drop in cardiovascular endurance from being completely sedentary. So if you were discussing super soldiers or anything similar (since this is the most common use for human suspension tubes that I've seen in sci-fi) you'd probably just be better off breeding the stupidest, shortest, and stockiest of the population until you have dorfs.

[10ebbor10]

My real question here is how long would the person be in one of these tubes? Problems that astronauts will face on long journeys into zero-G, like muscular/skeletal degeneration, could be a major concern. Not to mention the drop in cardiovascular endurance from being completely sedentary. So if you were discussing super soldiers or anything similar (since this is the most common use for human suspension tubes that I've seen in sci-fi) you'd probably just be better off breeding the stupidest, shortest, and stockiest of the population until you have dorfs.

Electrical stimulation of limbs and muscles and such. That might solve some of you problems at least. Sure, it would look rather creepy with all those electrodes and such, and peoples spasming in the tanks, but that's better then dropping dead when you get out of the tube.

Degeneration and such strongly depends on which type of tube is used, and most importantly, if the human body is put in some sort of cryo/hibernation. The hibernation system would lower degeneration seriously, as the human biorythm is seriously slowed. The other system would most likely not be used from long time, and therefore  not give much problems.

As for dehydration, it depends on the way the system works and such.

General rule of Thumb

If the system is designed a system to provide water, you would need it.
If it is not, you probably don't. The water will most likely provided with the food.

However, for a long time hibernation like system, human digestion will most likely be disabled, and therefore food, oxygen and water will most likely be delivered directly into the blood stream.

[Shinotsa]

Ah, electrical stimulation could work, though I suppose you'd need some sort of limited restraint that allows movement and yet prevents injury, removal of the IV, or removal of the stimulating electrodes. The problem here is that the skin, after prolonged exposure to water, could lose some structural integrity and be rubbed raw on any restraints or even from simply rubbing against itself in areas such as the groin and underarms. This is assuming that the electrical stimulation would produce sustained, significant movement rather than just small twitches.

Also, it would look far less creepy if you put a strobe light and maybe some lasers around the lab. Not sure what it would do to prevent/aid the degradation of vision in an environment devoid of stimuli, but a bunch of convulsing people really fit in with strobe lights and lasers. 

[MarcAFK]

Something else i just thought of, most of the water you need to survive is used merely to remove waste, particularly urine, under some kind of deep sleep you would need significantly less water, particularly if the subject was fed some kind of fictional futuristic nutrient substance that provides nessicary nutrients with less waste production, so maybe since respiration produces water as a waste product combined with not consuming solid food and possibly with some external system that removes waste from the blood rather than relying on the kidneys, you might find theres virtually no need for water at all.
Back to what i remember of in utero (previously i said in vitro which means in glass, oops) I believe the babys digestive system , respiration and even kidneys are mostly off or deactivated since all the waste cleaning and respiration are taken care of by the mother. Some waste is passed into the surrounding fluid but it's virtually all taken care of through the blood stream.Also the baby doesn't turn into a prune because the temperature and salt levels are perfect.
And someone said something about not being able to breathe liquids, back in the 90's james cameron had a mouse actually breathing that liquid hydrocarbon stuff for a shot in the abyss, i think in the movie everyone inside the seabase were supposedly suspended in that stuff (they weren't actually though, that stuff causes cancer or something, and is freaking expensive).

[Starver]

.... Why not just plug in an IV with saline solution or whatever they hook you up to in hospitals? And/or a feeding tube if you're talking something close to suspended animation.

(I hate to be so "I already said that", but I believe I already said that.  With more words, though, so probably a TL;DR; )

[Jelle]

I would think so yes. Skin doesn't work that way (luckely)

[Sensei]

So, we're in agreement that without some other source of water (scary face mask, IV, etc), being submerged is not sufficient to prevent fatal dehydration?