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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 20, 1973)
Page 4 College Station, Texas Wednesday, June 20, 1973 THE BATTALION THE Extended Underwater Stay May Improve Respiration E( A record-setting 10-day stay beneath, the surface of the ocean has led an A&M physiologist to believe that respiratory functions actually improve rather than de teriorate after lengthy submer sion. Dr. William Fife studied the effects of prolonged submersion on two teams of divers as well Leland, CSSC On The Road This Weekend Bob Leland of the College Sta tion Swim Club left Tuesday for California where he has been in vited to compete in the Santa Clara International Swim Meet. CSSC Coach Steve Montgomery said the highly prestigious four- day meet hosted by George Haines, who coached Mark Spitz and several other Olympic swim mers, will draw entries from at least 20 foreign countries, includ ing Russia. Leland qualified for the meet by recording a time of 1:13.3 in the 100-meter breast stroke at the Lone Star Invitational in San Antonio earlier this month. Montgomery said Texas A&M Swimming Coach Dennis Fosdick will accompany Leland to Santa Clara. The A&M Consolidated stu dent will compete Friday and Sunday. His breast stroke time is only 1.2 seconds off the time for the men’s national AAU qualifying score, Montgomery noted. Remainder of the CSSC swim mers will compete Friday and Saturday at the AAU-sanctioned Meyerland Invitational Meet in Houston. Montgomery said the club’s largest entry ever—65 boys and girls—are entered in the meet at Meyerland Country Club. Local “Hams” Setting Up o I. For Field Day Local radio amateurs will set up two complete radio stations near the Academic Building Sat urday to participate in Field Day, planned as the world’s largest simulated emergency communica tions test. Kurt Freiberger, summer chair man of the MSC Amateur Radio Committee, said Field Day in volves more than 12,000 “hams” in the U. S. and Canada. The event is a binational emergency commu nications preparedness test spon sored by the American Radio Re lay League. The local group plans to oper ate the stations continuously from 1 p.m. Saturday until 4 p.m. Sun day and will attempt to contact as many other amateur stations as possible. The 27-hour period will allow local participants to per fect their operating skills and test equipment while performing in the field under simulated emer gency conditions. Such preparedness is important because during an actual emergen cy amateur operators often pro vide the only communications in to an affected area, Freiberger explained. The public is invited to visit the site, he added. Committee mem bers will be available to explain the equipment’s operation and show how the committee coordi nates its efforts with the Red Cross, Civil Defense, police and other authorities during an actual emergency. FOR BEST RESULTS TRY BATTALION CLASSIFIED REX THEATRE 333 University (upstairs) Phone 846-9990 Open 3 p. m. till midnight 7 days a week Clip ad for $1.00 Discount Also FREE Membership cards to all Aggies REX THEATRE as on himself during the experi ment. One team stayed in the Hydro-Lab underwater habitat for four days, and the other re mained submerged for six. Dr. Fife remained in the structure the entire 10 days. “We found that respiratory functions actually improved, rather than deteriorated, as many believe happen,” he pointed out. “My own respiration improved about one and one-half times, and was continuing to improve when I surfaced.” Oxygen, he explained, is ex tremely toxic when breathed in pure form for long periods. He said many physiologists feel that prolonged breathing of com pressed air would have many of the same effects as with breath ing pure oxygen. “This simply wasn’t the case,” he said. “We believe the im provement is due to increased muscular activities required when breathing the dense compressed air. The fact that the air was clean and free of smoke and other pollutants probably had some thing to do with the improve ment, too.” The researcher said that the experiment also showed that those complaining of smoke on airliners and in other close con ditions might have more signifi cance than just lack of comfort. “The crew members who par ticipated in the experiment flew down to the site,” he said. “They experienced bronchial spasms during preliminary tests, but these disappeared after two days. We think that smoke-filled air line cabins do indeed do damage to non-smokers’ respiratory sys tem.” A daily routine for the research team was a series of seven respir ation tests, including tests on the amount of air the lungs are able to contain and the rate of move ment of air in and out of the lungs. All crew members showed definite improvement in all seven categories, Dr. Fife said. The Hydro-Lab, owned by the Perry Foundation, is located off Grand Bahama Island. The facil' ity is leased by TAMU for «• tensive oceanographic and phys- ological experiments and re search. Dr. Fife said the results of hi latest project showed the habitat might be moved lower than th present 50-foot depth. He sail tests are planned to see what ef. fects would be felt by moving th structure to a depth of 65 feet. c «isxr mtteh ISflSi BEACH TOWEL 100% COTTON Public has a pb communit; rrice of t ravior, a B r declare Dr. G1 ,chools ne “School responsibl nputs frc their dzed. 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