A professor at the University of South Florida, has been living underwater
without depressurization for over 75 days and plans to stay a little while longer.
Joe Dituri, also known as Doctor Deep Sea Online,
joins me now to discuss his journey and research under the sea.
So this isn't your first time tackling something like this.
What motivated you to do it this time?
Oh, interesting question.
What motivated me to do this?
I would say it's the culmination of so far my life's work.
And this is basically just the pointy end of the spear.
We took all that 28 years of Navy experience, a Ph.D.
in biomedical engineering.
This zest for life and desire to explore.
And we threw it all together.
And we're like, What happens to the human body
when you leave it in an isolated, confined, extreme environment?
We'll find out.
What do you miss most about being on land
or what have you grown to appreciate more?
Oh, well, two things.
Very much so tactile.
There's this lack of tactile functioning.
The high fives, the handshakes, the hugs.
There's not a lot of that going on down here.
And the second thing, which was a little bit surprising to me,
the sunlight winds up being something that you really need.
You really do need it. And and I miss that.
And I forget how much I'm driven by the sun.
This is obviously dedicated to and in homage to science.
And what are some of the scientific findings and things
that you hope to accomplish through your research?
My desire is to to give a broader
understanding to the world of the mechanism
of action, of hyperbaric medicine, such that we can apply it
across a broad spectrum of things that are happening,
like anti-aging for our aging population, to increase their vitality and health,
including, you know, Crohn's ulcerative colitis,
including a lot of things like traumatic brain injury.
What is hyperbaric medicine and how does this contribute
to our understanding of how
this could help resolve different issues like traumatic brain injuries?
Terrific question. Yeah.
Hyper means more than baric means pressure.
So all we are doing is hyperbaric medicine.
All this is is pressurizing somebody
in it with either oxygen or without oxygen.
So here I am, underwater for 100 days,
and so far my oxidative stress is cut by two thirds.
Every single inflammatory marker in my body is cut by half.
And these are preliminary results.
Mind you, they're only the first phase of them.
We have more blood work to do.
We have about 200 more blood, urine and saliva tests to do so.
You've been down there for a while now.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I wake up at probably around 430, 5:00 in the morning.
I've always been an early riser.
I come in, I have a couple of cups of coffee because guess what?
Science does not happen without coffee.
Bottom line is, I'll eat a bunch of eggs in the morning.
I'll do my checks, figure out all the science
that I have to do for the day, and mix it in with whatever interview
I happen to have or whatever outreach I have for the kids.
Mesh all that together.
You wind up having about 6 hours worth of science, about two or 3 hours
worth of outreach, and about two or 3 hours
worth of interviews or getting in line.
And then I always go for a dive once a day I get out of this habitat,
go swim around the lagoon.
Yesterday, I found a seahorse.
It was great.
The day before that,
a manatee was in a lagoon and I got some great video of the manatee.
As a fellow diver, I am so envious.
But as you mentioned, you know, this is for a purpose.
And I'm curious to hear from you
what you want the world to take away from from what you're doing.
We have a threefold purpose.
First, I want to find out
what happens to the human in the isolated, confined, extreme environment.
The second part is we're reaching out to the kids.
And when you speak with the kids about science,
technology, engineering and math, they're all high school grade school kids.
And at first, they're all frumpy and they're sitting down.
But I tell you, by the end of the hour long lecture,
they're hanging on their seat and they're like, don't go, don't go.
I have one more question. So we're getting them.
But and the third and final thing is we're talking to experts.
60 to 70% of the world's oxygen comes from the ocean,
and we should start taking better care of it.
And then I share that with the kids.
And we just raise awareness.
And it is World Oceans Week coming up.
Would you do this again?
Absolutely not tomorrow, but I would do it again.
Dr. Dituri, thank
you so much for joining me For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Nicole Ellis.