Featured Image Credit: The Science Channel
Topics: Weird, World News, Health
Tom Wood
A man lived underwater inside a tank in a South African shopping mall just to find out what would happen to him.
We’ve all got questions, haven’t we?
Some of us want to know the meaning of life, others want to know how much of something they could eat or drink before they died.
However, very few of us are willing to put in the hours that would help us to find out the answer to those big – and often stupid – questions.
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That certainly doesn’t apply to Tim Yarrow.
Back in November 2002, the South African diver decided to take on a huge challenge when he agreed to sit in a small pool submerged underwater for 10 whole days.
At the end of it, his hands were an absolute state.
If you've seen what happens to your mitts after spending only maybe 45 minutes in the bath, imagine what they’d look like after well longer than a week in the water.
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It’s not a pretty sight.
Yarrow had to make sacrifices for this stunt, too.
He was fed through a tube, and had all of his – ahem – waste taken away via a tube as well, using a catheter.
It’s certainly wasn’t a holiday for him.
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Ultimately, he learned that he could stay underwater for that lengthy amount of time, although he probably didn’t want to do it again.
In the process, Yarrow broke a record which had stood since 1986, too.
He also learned that it turns your hands into weird disgusting wrinkly flesh tubes in the process.
Luckily for us, there is an explanation for why this happens.
The whole thing was analysed for a TV show called Outrageous Acts of Science some years later, and they explained how Yarrow’s hands came to be so freaky.
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On that show, British biologist Ellie Harrison explained: “The reason that you get such wrinkly hands and feet is because the surface of the skin is covered in dead keratin cells and they absorb water faster than any other cells,
“Because they’re attached to the live keratin cells beneath, they just puff up and end up having to wrinkle.
“There’s nowhere else for them to go.”
If you’re eating right now, sorry.
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While this sort of thing seems strange and funny, it could eventually have been harmful to his health.
Harrison continued: “I should think in the long term, if he stayed under water for an extraordinarily long time, the skin would break down,
“It would probably blister and that would leave him really open to infection, particularly in that water, he could get really quite ill.”
Fellow biologist Carin Bondar added: "Skin on our hands and our feet tends to get coarse. We have extra layers of dead skin because our hands and our feet are so well used.”
Luckily for Tim, his hands eventually went back to normal and suffered no serious injuries from the entire stunt.
So, next time you’re desperately wondering about the answer to some question or other, just have a think about how far you’re willing to go to find out the answer.
Then, you’ll either do it, or forget about it.
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