Could man soon be able to breathe underwater? Scientists eye possibility of merging human and algae DNA (2024)

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Could man soon be able to breathe underwater? Scientists eye possibility of merging human and algae DNA? ›

Scientists eye possibility of merging human and algae DNA. Researchers found that oxygen-producing algae have bonded with their eggs so closely that the two are now inseparable - they hope the same process could be applied to humans.

This took more than 350 million years. There are humans (Bajau Laut- sea nomads) who can hold their breath for longer durations (up to some minutes) underwater. However, it is biologically impossible to evolve (or devolve) to live underwater in a short period.

Humans cannot breathe underwater because our lungs do not have enough surface area to absorb enough oxygen from water, and the lining in our lungs is adapted to handle air rather than water. However, there have been experiments with humans breathing other liquids, like fluorocarbons.

Oxygen from our gills would keep us from blacking out as we moved deeper, but below 200 meters or so we'd reach the bathyal zone, where it's dark and the water is 59 degrees Fahrenheit or colder [source: Britannica]. Living underwater in the shallows without some pressurized airspace wouldn't be an option either.

Breathhold diving was the only method available, occasionally using reed snorkels in shallow water, and stone weights for deeper dives. Underwater diving for commercial purposes may have begun in Ancient Greece, since both Plato and Homer mention the sponge as being used for bathing.

To fly! The dream of man and flightless bird alike. Virtually impossible. To even begin to evolve in that direction, our species would need to be subject to some sort of selective pressure that would favour the development of proto-wings, which we're not.

As a practical matter, it is unclear that a usable artificial gill could be created because of the large amount of oxygen a human would need extracted from the water.

Air has much, much more readily available oxygen than water does. Originally Answered: Could humans ever be genetically modified through DNA reprogramming to breath underwater like a fish? Nope. The amount of oxygen that dissolves in water is not enough to sustain our enormous brains and our high-energy metabolism.

The liquid perfluorocarbon (PFC), which is used for liquid ventilation, has proven perfectly suitable as a breathing medium, as it not only dissolves high amounts of oxygen but also acts as anti-inflammatory for human tissue.

In 2026, a crew of six fully-trained aquanauts will be deployed to a new oceanic habitat system – beginning what promises to be the era of humanity's continuous presence underwater.

Did humans once have gills? ›

Humans already had gills, or at least our distant ancestors did, some 450 million years ago. Along the way our ancestors traded gills for lungs, which are much more efficient in oxygenating our bodies. There's no reason to think that modern day humans would ever return to having gills, as lungs work much better.

No. Breathing water would have at least three problems: (1) It can't deliver oxygen to the blood and tissues fast enough to support a mammalian metabolic rate. We need oxygen faster than water-breathing can provide it.

The next step is to prove that it can be used by humans, though Kamei believes that this will require a gill with a surface of 32 square meters (344 square feet).

A scuba set is any self-contained breathing apparatus that is carried entirely by an underwater diver and provides the diver with breathing gas at the ambient pressure.

The Bajau are a seafaring population in Southeast Asia who have this adaptation. They can hold their breath for over 5 minutes, while highly trained divers from other populations can only hold it for 3 or 4. Bajau divers use this extreme diving ability to spend hours each day hunting underwater for fish.

After a few years, Atlantean scientists developed a serum that would permanently let their people breathe underwater; as a consequence of the magic used by Shalako in settling Tritonis, the Tritonians were further mutated to have fish-tails instead of legs.

Human bodies would be bigger to limit heat loss. They would likely grow webbed fingers and toes. Eventually, people would have fused legs and larger eyes. They'd look quite a bit like mermaids!

If we used a time machine to travel back to a prehistoric period, the earliest we could survive would be the Cambrian (around 541 million years ago). Any earlier than that and there wouldn't have been enough oxygen in the air to breathe.