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Q&A

What changes would be needed for humans to live in an ocean?

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Taking genetic manipulation of humans to change them to live in other environments, besides maybe gills what other physical changes would need to be done for a human to spend 95+% time living in the ocean? I also suspect gills would only be partially useful, allowing longer submersion's but still require trips to the surface, like dolphins and whales.

People like structural homes but dependence on these should be kept to a minimum. The humans should be able to dive a little deeper than regular people with SCUBA gear.

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This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/21468. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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Water pressure gets very problematic very quickly:

The deeper you go under the sea, the greater the pressure of the water pushing down on you. For every 33 feet (10.06 meters) you go down, the pressure increases by 14.5 psi.

14.5 PSI $\approx$ 99.974 Pascals

That said, if humans aren't going any further than scuba diving depths, this won't be too hard, but for longer periods, this could be an issue. There are some solutions to this, though:

Many animals that live in the sea have no trouble at all with high pressure. Whales, for instance, can withstand dramatic pressure changes because their bodies are more flexible. Their ribs are bound by loose, bendable cartilage, which allows the rib cage to collapse at pressures that would easily snap our bones.

Humans would have to adapt to this.

Another issue is temperature. Hypothermia is possible in many situations. Blubber, like whales, seals, and some other creatures have, is a possible solution to this problem.

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