I was flipping past the Discovery Channel the other day, and they had a little tidbit on skydiving. Basically, they claimed that skydivers don’t need to breathe during freefall because they can absorb oxygen through their skin?! This didn’t seem right to me, so I turned to the trusty Internet to check the facts. And amazingly, it’s all true. According to the rec.skydiving FAQ:
Due to the high speed of terminal freefall (and much higher speeds in vertical freefall dives), the jumper’s body is exposed to O2 molecules at a much higher rate than someone walking around on the ground. The body is able to absorb the necessary O2 through the skin. This is why jumpers flap their cheeks in freefall, it presents a larger surface area to the airstream for oxygen osmosis. Once under canopy, the jumper resumes breathing normally.
This is also why jumpers do not jump on cloudy days or when they might risk going through clouds. The moisture in the clouds can condense on their exposed skin surfaces preventing the absorption of the necessary oxygen resulting in suffocation
Uhh… I may have been out sick one day in science class, but since when did we get the ability to breathe through our skin?! I’m sure it must be true… but I just don’t get the biological mechanism. And if this works, I wonder if there are any organisms that breath exclusively through their skin. I guess they’d have to be airborne birds that are constantly flying, kind of like the sharks that can’t breathe unless they are swimming…
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