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Divers could breathe deep with liquid-filled lungs

By Helen Knight

10 November 2010

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Scuba only takes you so deep

(Image: Georges Antoni/Hemis/Alamy)

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Inhaling oxygen-rich liquid would allow divers to explore deeper into the ocean than ever before, and even eliminate decompression sickness

YOU step into your diving suit and pull a helmet over your head. The helmet immediately starts to fill with liquid, but you don’t panic, you simply begin breathing in the fluid as you would air.

No, this is not a scene from the movie The Abyss (pictured), but the brainchild of inventor Arnold Lande, a retired heart and lung surgeon formerly based at the University of Texas Medical School…

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