decompression sickness
dr. dolittle | September 16, 2016 Image from Wikimedia commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1475156
Until now I had assumed that a "peep" was that squishy sugar-covered marshmallow treat that we enjoyed as kids and a "yo-yo" was a toy on a string. As it turns out, peep and yo-yo are also term used to described types of diving patterns. A square dive is one in which there are no excursions to the surface, known as a "peep", except at the end of the dive, of course. This is in contrast to a yo-yo dive in which divers repeatedly "peep" for a moment at the surface during a dive. The problem is that yo-yo…
dr. dolittle | February 14, 2016 Image of Steller sea lion by Daniel Hershman from Federal Way, US (A crashing wave) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Animals exposed to military sonar are thought to develop symptoms similar to decompression sickness. Since microparticles in the blood are known to increase with decompression sickness in diving land animals, researchers explored whether levels were also increased in Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus), that similarly hold their breath while diving. Microparticles are fragments of cell membranes. The research team compared…