Ep 115 Altitude Sickness: Balloons though?

This Podcast Will Kill You

Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts

Health & Fitness, Science

4.8 • 17.7K Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2023

⏱️ 122 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In our episode on the bends, you joined us as we explored how low we can go. Now we’re back with a similar invitation: come along to learn how high we can fly (and what happens to our bodies when we get up there). In this very special episode, we examine the short-term effects and potentially deadly consequences of life at great heights and ask how we came to understand the relationship between altitude, oxygen, and health. This journey begins earlier than you may have guessed, back to a time before oxygen was discovered, and winds through unexpected avenues, including misadventures in hot air balloons and early experiments demonstrating the vitality of air, as we trace how the pieces of high altitude physiology were put together. A big part of what makes this episode so very special is our guest, Dr. Jonathan Velotta, Assistant Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Denver, who joins us to chat about some of the incredible ways that humans and other animals have adapted to live at high altitude. Tune in for a bird’s-eye view of what it’s like to have a high life.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Kara Clank.
0:01.0	And I'm Lisa Trigger.
0:02.6	We're comedians and hosts of That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast on exactly right.
0:07.4	Every Tuesday we take you through an episode of Law and Order SVU, the crime it's based
0:11.2	on and chat with celebs guests from the episode.
0:13.7	Listen to That's Messed Up on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
0:18.7	podcasts.
0:19.7	This is Justin from The Generation Why, and we're doing a four-part series unraveling
0:24.2	the story of Khalif Browder, a young boy falsely accused of stealing a backpack and held
0:29.1	at Riker's Island for three years without trial.
0:32.2	This story is about a young life caught in the middle of the Justice System.
0:36.4	Listen to Generation Why on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:40.1	I come to The Fatal Hour when we were about to be seized by the terrible influence of the
0:44.9	atmospheric decompression.
0:47.2	At 7,000 meters, we were all standing in a basket.
0:50.5	Civil, numbed for a moment, has revived.
0:53.3	Crochet's Benelli is a motionless in front of me.
0:56.1	Look, he says to me how beautiful those serious clouds are.
1:00.1	The sublime spectacle before our eyes was indeed beautiful.
1:04.3	Towards 7,500 meters, the numbness one experiences is extraordinary.
1:10.0	The body into the mind weakened little by little, gradually, unconsciously, without one's
1:15.4	knowledge.
	...

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