[extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles

[Hal Finney]

I was interested to hear the discussion of why whales don't get the bends.
However the explanation doesn't seem complete.  I believe that ordinary
air, if compressed within the lungs, will dissolve to a greater degree
in the blood, so the bends are possible even if you don't breathe
compressed air.

According to
http://rbcm1.rbcm.gov.bc.ca/programs/whales/t-activity-5.html, whales
have additional adaptations to prevent gases from being dissolved in
their blood during dives, mechanisms to reduce the interface between
air and blood.

According to http://www.msnbc.com/news/977733.asp, a study reported
in Nature last month suggested that some recent whale strandings after
exposure to military sonars may have been caused by the animals getting
the bends.  The author is quoted, "This new evidence from our study of
marine mammal diseases in the U.K. challenges the widely held notion that
cetaceans (marine mammals) cannot suffer from decompression sickness."

Hal