by James Nestor
sambas, [>]–[>]
Sars, Michael, [>]–[>]
Schnöller, Fabrice
Click Research by, [>]
dolphin tracking by, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
shark tracking by, [>], [>]–[>], [>]
whale tracking by, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Scholander, Per, [>], [>]–[>]
scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus), [>], [>]
SEALAB II, [>]
seals, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>]
seizures, [>]–[>], [>]
senses. See extrasensory abilities
Serra, Carlos, [>]
sharks
attacks by, [>], [>]–[>], [>]
magnetoreception of, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
swimming with, [>]–[>]
tracking, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Siestas, Tom, [>]
Simon, Bob, [>]
Sirena Deep, [>]–[>], [>]
sonar. See acoustic recording devices; echolocation
space travel, [>]
spiritual practice
freediving as, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
meditation, [>], [>], [>]
yoga, [>]–[>], [>]
Stanley, Karl, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
static apnea records, [>]. See also breath-holding
Štěpánek, Martin, [>]
submarines
inventions of, [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
tours on, [>]–[>], [>]
sunlight (photic) zone, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
Super Emerald, [>]
Takayan (Japanese guide), [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
Terouka, Gita, [>]
tracking
dolphin, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
shark, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
whale, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
training
breath-holding, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
freediving, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
safety, [>]–[>]
Trieste, [>]
Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, whale tracking in, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
Trubridge, William, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Tsibliyev, Vasily, [>]
Tupaia (Polynesian chief), [>]
underwater construction, [>]–[>]
underwater living, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
underwater photography, [>], [>], [>]
vagus nerve, [>]
Valsalva maneuver, [>]
Vaughan-Lee, Emmanuel, [>]
Vertical Blue competition, [>]–[>]
Vikings, [>]
Wächtershäuser, Günter, [>]–[>]
Walsh, Don, [>]
whales
communication of, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
echolocation by, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
hunting, for oil, [>]–[>]
intelligence of, [>], [>]–[>], [>]
physiology of, [>], [>]–[>]
prey of, catching, [>]
tracking, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
Whales Weep Not, [>], [>]–[>]
Whitehead, Hal, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
Winram, William, [>]–[>]
World Access for the Blind, [>], [>]
A World Without Sun, [>]
yoga, [>]–[>], [>]
zones
bathypelagic, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
hadal, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
mesopelagic, [>]–[>], [>]
photic, [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]
About the Author
JAMES NESTOR has written for Outside, Men’s Journal, Dwell, the New York Times, Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications. His longform piece “Half-Safe,” about the only around-the-world journey by land and sea in the same vehicle ever attempted (and completed), was published by The Atavist. Nestor lives in San Francisco.
Footnotes
* Symptoms of decompression sickness, which is caused by nitrogen coming out of the bloodstream and forming bubbles when pressure suddenly decreases, aren’t always immediate. Studies with pigs and other animals show that nitrogen toxicity reaches critical levels about thirty minutes after an animal resurfaces after a deep dive. First the body’s large joints, such as elbows, knees, and ankles, start throbbing. Skin becomes itchy and mottled. Limbs become paralyzed, and lungs feel as if they’re burning. In extreme cases, death follows.
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* By the mid-1960s, the ocean floor was hot property, and deep-sea missions were getting increasingly bizarre and dangerous. Not to be outdone by the French, in 1965 the U.S. Navy placed a former Mercury 7 astronaut, Scott Carpenter, inside a 680-square-foot steel tube called SEALAB II and sunk it off the coast of La Jolla, California, to a depth of 203 feet. For an entire month, Carpenter lived in SEALAB II, testing equipment, receiving posts from a navy-trained bottle-nosed dolphin named Tuffy, and huffing a gas mixture of mostly helium. (If it didn’t work, there was a chance Carpenter would suffer seizures, nausea, irreversible lung damage, or worse.) The experiment was a success, but the helium had a side effect: While sucking the gas in a decompression chamber after the dive, Carpenter could speak to his commanders only in a high-pitched, helium-distorted voice. The no-bullshit conversation between squeaking Carpenter and President Lyndon Johnson, who called to congratulate him on completing the mission, became legendary.
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* Before they bite, sharks often conduct a kind of taste test by bumping their noses into prey and emitting a short blast of electricity. If the signals conduct, as they do against animal or human flesh, there’s a good chance the shark will bite. Wetsuits dull these signals, telling sharks, as Buyle says, “that we’re not on the menu.” Sharks assess the caloric value of their food on the first bite. If the prey doesn’t register enough calories to justify a full-scale attack, the shark will release it and move on. Wetsuits might dull this sense and significantly decrease the chances of a return, full-scale attack seconds later.
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* Some sources claim that Oviedo intended to write 5 minutes instead of 15; others contend his reporting was accurate.
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* By the time a click leaves a human echolocator’s mouth—traveling at 1,100 feet per second—and returns to his ears and creates an image in his brain, .3 millionths of a second have passed.
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* In 1963, Lilly’s findings were replicated by researchers at a laboratory in Point Mugu, California. The test dolphins, named Doris and Dash, were placed in separate soundproof laboratories and connected by an intercom similar to Lilly’s. The researchers recorded the dolphins separately, then disconnected the line. They played back a recording of everything Doris had said in the conversation to Dash. Dash responded to Doris just as he had done before but then stopped thirty-two minutes into the tape. The next day, the researchers played back the recording of Doris to Dash again. Dash stopped talking at the same time. They repeated the experiment yet again, with the same results. The scientists plotted the whistles and click trains and identified a particular whistle signature, which they believed was used as a warning word, meaning something like “Shut up. Someone is listening!” But they could never conclusively determine what it was.
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* In January 2012, Branko Petrović of Serbia broke Mifsud’s record with a twelve-minute, eleven-second static breath-hold. However, this record has not been certified by AIDA because Petrović had no international judge present during the dive.
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* Computers, which were created before scientists understood ion channels, work on the same principle. The binary code on which all computers are ba
sed—0s and 1s—run in series along binary strings, much the way ion channels run along nerve endings. It’s those strings of 0s and 1s that make up every color, sound, movie, song, and program—everything you see and hear—on your computer, the same way the binary of open and closed ion channels are used for all the processes in your body.
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* At least, according to Discover magazine blogger Phil Plait’s calculations. Follow his figures (if you can): The sun’s volume is 1.4 x 1033 cubic centimeters. Each second, each centimeter of the sun emits 2.8 ergs (an erg is a unit of energy). So, the total luminosity of a cubic centimeter of sun is 2.8 ergs per second. The human body has a volume of about 75,000 cubic centimeters. Dividing human luminosity (1.3 x 1010 ergs/sec) by volume gives you 170,000 ergs per second per cubic centimeter.
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* Although some countries like Japan and Korea continued whaling under the loophole of “scientific research.”
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* Alvin had recently been retrofitted to dive to 21,300 feet, but nobody had yet dared to take it there. In March 2012, film director James Cameron made it down to 35,756 feet—the deepest natural point on the planet—but his submersible, DeepSea Challenger, has since been decommissioned. Full ocean depths had been reached only once before, in 1960, when Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy lieutenant Don Walsh took the Trieste, a steel chamber filled with gasoline (for buoyancy), to 35,797 feet.
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