Another stormy day, but the sun shone.
This morning, Jillian and Chipper learned about the diving reflex, and how seals conserve oxygen use while diving by shunting blood supply away from extremities, shutting down digestion, kidney, and liver function, and slowing down their heart rate.
We tested how our heart rates changes when “diving” by submerging our face in a basin of water and measuring pulse rate every 4 seconds. The results were really clear; heart rate rapidly slowed down during the “dive”, and it slowed down to a lower rate in very cold water. Chipper’s heart rate dropped the lowest. All vertebrates demonstrate this diving reflex, and Wendell seals in the Antarctic can drop their heart rate to as low as 4 bpm! We are now even more in awe of both marine mammals and human free-divers.
Emma and I decided it was too windy to go outside to look for seaweed, but we spent a while learning how incredible seaweed is for absorbing carbon dioxide, food, cosmetics, medicines, biofuel, waste water treatment, plastic alternatives, and even reducing methane in cow farts!
We decided to dabble in some skin care, and mixed dried nori with water and honey for a face mask. Our skin felt very soft after it was washed off.
Maurice, Jillian, Chipper and I braved the wind this afternoon to go and look for seaweed. The surf was too high to get to the outer pools, but we found a few species including dragon kelp.
