21–30 of 47 posts
What blows my mind is the guys that actually perform activities diving while holding their breathe for similarly long durations. Learning to control your body in idle circumstances is impressive in a meditative sense, but how people manage comparable durations while physically active is a different thing entirely.
Some people seem to have _evolved_ to be able to hold their breath (over 12 minutes) and work. Look for the "sea nomads", there have been articles about them recently, a recent (2016) research ( https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)30386-6 ) suggests that their ability could be because they evolved a larger spleen (which helps with red blood cells).
Although that skill didn't evolve. It's just something kids can do with practice, and the ability is lost as we age and our lenses become less flexible.
Doesn't the brain start to die after 10-15 minutes without oxygen? How could he possibly go that long without breathing without suffering any brain damage? I remember when David Blaine was going for the records, the biggest concern was that he would irreversibly and severely damage his brain.
Your brain starts to die without any oxygen, but not breathing is not the same as not giving your brain any O2. Your blood cells buffer amount of O2 for use and CO2 ready for removal, which is how an untrained person is able to hold their breath and not die. When you stop breathing, consumption of O2 continues until CO2 builds up to a threshold point, triggering a desperate need to breathe (humans cannot actually det…
PSA: Trying to hold your breath for a long time is dangerous, especially if you hyperventilate first. People die this way. The hyperventilation thing is because your brain needs oxygen to live, but your impulse to breathe is driven by carbon dioxide saturation. When you hyperventilate, you get rid of a ton of carbon dioxide, and you can get into a situation where you don't have enough CO2 buildup to trigger the signa…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for sharing - that was an incredible story. I find David Blaine fascinating because many of his magic tricks aren't tricks per se, he just does things that would be unthinkable for the average person. For instance he often takes a bite out of a wine glass and chews it up, and it seems like there must be some trick to it, except in one of his TV specials he goes to a dentist and reveals that his teeth are all w…
This one is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLAs11gkqKE . Ricky Gevais: "Sorry sorry David seriously, this isn't a trick. You're just sticking a needle through your fucking arm. What are you doing? That's fucking horrible. You're a maniac. That's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This one is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLAs11gkqKE . Ricky Gevais: "Sorry sorry David seriously, this isn't a trick. You're just sticking a needle through your fucking arm. What are you doing? That's fucking horrible. You're a maniac. That's the worst thing I've ever seen in my life."
Why was there no blood?
What blows my mind is the guys that actually perform activities diving while holding their breathe for similarly long durations. Learning to control your body in idle circumstances is impressive in a meditative sense, but how people manage comparable durations while physically active is a different thing entirely.
Some people seem to have _evolved_ to be able to hold their breath (over 12 minutes) and work. Look for the "sea nomads", there have been articles about them recently, a recent (2016) research ( https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)30386-6 ) suggests that their ability could be because they evolved a larger spleen (which helps with red blood cells).
However, all the news stories neglected to mention that the sea nomads still had smaller spleens than average humans overall.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like a poor idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity
oxygen toxicity at sea level (1 atmosphere of pressure) would require a 140% oxygen mixture - it's only when you go to higher pressure environments (eg 10m underwater = 2 atm) that it becomes an issue (at 2atm, 70% oxygen is toxic; at 4atm, 35% oxygen is toxic, etc - regular air is 21% oxygen, which becomes toxic around 7atm aka 60m underwater)
PSA: Trying to hold your breath for a long time is dangerous, especially if you hyperventilate first. People die this way. The hyperventilation thing is because your brain needs oxygen to live, but your impulse to breathe is driven by carbon dioxide saturation. When you hyperventilate, you get rid of a ton of carbon dioxide, and you can get into a situation where you don't have enough CO2 buildup to trigger the signa…
On this topic, David Blaine's TED talk about holding his breath for 17 minutes is probably the most interesting TED talk there is. https://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_...
Thanks for sharing - that was an incredible story. I find David Blaine fascinating because many of his magic tricks aren't tricks per se, he just does things that would be unthinkable for the average person. For instance he often takes a bite out of a wine glass and chews it up, and it seems like there must be some trick to it, except in one of his TV specials he goes to a dentist and reveals that his teeth are all w…
Remember: Magicians are allowed to lie. Sometimes it's just a simple thing like "I never touched the deck of cards" when actually they were holding them at the start of the trick. Other times it is fake explanation. "I am reading you using psychology" is a popular one with mentalists. Other people on a magicians TV show may lie too.
I don't know the particular David Blaine trick you are talking about, but I wouldn't be surprised if he does not actually chew on real glass.