[extropy-chat] HISTORY: Solved & Unsolved Riddles

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Fri, 7 Nov 2003, Spike wrote:

> No wait, please disregard my previous post.  The reason
> whales don't get the bends is that they are not actually
> breathing while they are under water, the way human
> scuba divers do.  They don't get nitrogen narcosis for
> the same reason: they aren't carrying much nitrogen
> to the depths.

Ok, Spike -- I'll buy this to a limited extent but you
are going to have to convince me that the amount of N2
in the volume of a whale's lung is significantly less
than the amount of N2 in a diver's tank.

Then on top of that you are going to need to convince me
that a whale should have significantly lower O2 consumption
because I can't imagine how they manage to stay down that
long in the first place.

I'd start to wonder if whale hemoglobin is significantly
different from human hemoglobin in terms of its oxygen
carrying capacity -- or whether whale tissues are significantly
more tolerant of CO2 levels.  I don't think this one is
quite so easily answered as one might think.

R.