From Dan Mingea (thechair_man@hotmail.com)

Dear Marman, I am a physician, nearing retirement age. I have sought answers to whale internal anatomy and whale physiology for several years, consulting many old books and the 'net. I have often found descriptions of whale external anatomy (I know they have flukes), but I have always run into deadends trying to ascertain specific adaptive mechanisms for prolonged diving to depths. I am well-aware of the phenomenon of "diving reflex" in humans. I am particularly interested in physiological adaptations (hemoglobin, myoglobin, acid-base balance, hemoglobin dissociation curves, etc.) in the whale that make the whale different from me: why can I not dive deep for a long time? What is different? I don't want to dive deep, but I do want to know why the whale can. I hope you can steer me in the right direction. G. Dan Mingea, MD, FAAP ------------------------------------------------------------------- -To submit a message to MARMAM, send it to: marmam@lists.uvic.ca -Please include your name and e-mail address in the body of the text of all submissions. -To subscribe to MARMAM, go to lists.uvic.ca/mailman/listinfo/marmam -To contact the MARMAM editors, write to: marmamed@uvic.ca