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June 12, 2009

Strange But True!

Q. You never want to try this, but how might a certain mismanaged water sport get your body's blood bubbling up and “boiling over” like an exploding champagne bottle shooting out its cork?

A. Donned in scuba-diving gear, descend deep into the ocean and then re-surface too fast, causing dissolved and compressed gases in your blood to come rapidly out of solution, a condition called “the bends,” says marine scientist Ellen Prager in “Chasing Science at Sea.” At the surface, there is one atmosphere of pressure (atm) from the weight of the overlying air, then another atm for every 34 feet of water down, soon becoming an enormous pressure. As a diver goes deeper, this increased pressure causes the blood to absorb more gas, which must be slowly gotten rid of before returning to the surface. Now consider a bottle of champagne, its carbonation staying dissolved until you pop the cork, causing excess gas to expand rapidly and bubbles to shoot the cork across the room. “A diver's body at depth can be likened to a champagne bottle that we don't want to uncork.”


 
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