Why Don’t Whales Get the Bends?

Author

Evan Ochs
June 13, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

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🗓️ Today in History

Alexander the Great Dies at 32

On June 13, 323 BCE, Alexander the Great died in the ancient city of Babylon at just 32 years old, after building one of the largest empires the world had ever seen. He had never lost a battle, marched his army from Greece to India, and named over 70 cities after himself. The cause of his death is still a mystery, with theories ranging from fever to poisoning to rare disease. One strange detail stuck with ancient historians—his body reportedly showed no signs of decay for several days, leading some to believe he was not just a king but something more.

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Why Don’t Whales Get the Bends?

If a human dives deep and comes up too fast, your body throws a tantrum. It’s called the bends. Decompression sickness. Basically, nitrogen gets shoved into your bloodstream under pressure, and then decides to make a break for it on the way back up — forming bubbles that mess up your joints, brain, and overall vacation plans.

Now picture a whale. Dives a mile underwater. Hangs out. Then casually shoots to the surface like it remembered that it left its garage open. No cramps. No dizziness. No bubbles trying to kill it from the inside.

So what gives?

Their lungs collapse on purpose

Whale lungs don’t mess around. Ours are little pink balloons. Theirs are more like industrial-grade bellows. When they dive, the pressure squeezes their lungs shut — on purpose. That pushes the air out of the parts where gas exchange happens and into bigger spaces where it just chills. Less nitrogen in the blood means nothing to bubble out later. What would hospitalize you is just part of the routine.

They reroute blood like a construction crew

Whales slow their heart to like four beats per minute and send blood only to the VIP organs — the brain, the heart, the stuff that keeps you alive. Everything else gets put on pause. Less blood flowing means less nitrogen sneaking in. Less nitrogen means fewer problems. Simple math.

They exhale like their lives depend on it

Humans let out a polite 15 percent of the air in our lungs with each breath. Whales drop 80 to 90 percent. When they surface, they’re not taking a relaxing sigh. They’re doing a full system purge. Nitrogen gets kicked out before it can cause problems. No time for drama.

They’ve been training for 50 million years

Nature ran the experiment a few million times. The whales that got the bends didn’t stick around. The ones that learned to collapse lungs, conserve blood, and dive like submarines? They passed on the good genes. Now we’ve got creatures that can swim to the bottom of the ocean like it’s no big deal and come back up like they’re just running errands.

Bottom line

Whales don’t get the bends because they’ve been practicing for longer than we’ve been standing upright. While we’re busy adjusting our goggles and checking our dive computers, a whale is already 2,000 feet down, lung collapsed, heart slowed, nitrogen handled, no big deal.

They belong down there. 

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🎯 Fun Fact

Space smells like seared steak

Astronauts say that after a spacewalk, their suits smell like burnt meat or welding fumes. Scientists think it’s from dying stars and high-energy particles. The universe might be cold and silent, but apparently, it smells like barbecue.

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