Humans

The Tektite II underwater habitat in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1970

NASA tracked 48 Tektite II aquanauts in five-person crews beneath the Caribbean for up to 30 days and found that private space, steady topside support and relief from isolation helped protect mood, work routines and life inside the habitat

The NASA report on Tektite II reads like an early manual for environmental psychology in space. During the 1970 missions off St. John, 48 aquanauts lived in five-person teams under the sea for 14, 20, or 30 days while researchers tracked attitudes, moods, complaints, leisure and work. NASA wanted more than marine science. It wanted…

Lock down and Self-quarantine with new fish and tank decoration. Recreation at green garden during the Corona virus crisis. Stay home for relax and Social distancing

Humans Explainer

Thirty office workers took 10-minute breaks with live fish, a fish video, or quiet rest and the clearest psychological benefit came from stepping away from work, while the live tank still felt more engaging to participants

Visitors watching marine life in a large public aquarium exhibit

Humans Explainer

Researchers watched a 550,000-liter aquarium grow from bare water to 22 species and 151 animals, and as marine life returned visitors stayed longer, felt better and showed larger drops in heart rate

Peaceful scene of a large sailing ship with white sails on a tranquil sea during the day

Humans Explainer

Forty psychiatric outpatients in South Sardinia spent six months learning to sail and showed better symptoms and day-to-day functioning while the cruises lasted, but most of those rehabilitation gains had faded by the follow-up year

A cargo ship carrying goods between ports

Humans Statistics

More than 13,000 seafarers from 154 nationalities reported high wellbeing and happiness at sea, yet the same global survey found about one in five felt lonely and two-thirds did not get enough sleep, revealing where shipboard life still wears people down

Three seafarers navigating from a ship's bridge

Humans Explainer

A survey of 1,231 Chinese seafarers and a memory experiment with 177 more suggest that loneliness can weaken work engagement by eroding cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control and working memory

Humans Explainer

Twenty-nine submariners spent 60 to 80 days aboard a ballistic missile submarine and regular exercise helped preserve alertness, balance and distance vision even as mood worsened during patrol and sleep and health scores declined after returning home

A scuba diver using a light in deep water

Humans Explainer

Eighteen recreational divers entered a chamber simulating 40 meters below the surface and the brain signal tied to attention and target detection stayed slower even after the pressure eased, suggesting that nitrogen narcosis can leave information processing lagging beyond the deepest phase of a dive

Eighteen trained recreational divers sat inside a dry hyperbaric chamber, breathed compressed air at pressure equal to about 40 meters of seawater and then took a simple listening test while their brain activity was recorded. The striking part of the result was not only that performance slipped during the simulated deep dive. Some of the…

Hand holding creative glowing polygonal brain on blue background. AI and future concept

Humans Explainer

Fourteen men endured three two-hour immersions in 20°C water and their memory began adapting to the cold, while nitrous oxide used to simulate inert-gas narcosis continued to impair cognition throughout the day

Fourteen healthy men spent nearly 12 hours at a time cycling between cold water and rewarming and the main risk was mental rather than dramatic. The study showed that repeated exposure to 20 C water let some cold-related cognitive losses fade after the first immersion, but a laboratory analog of inert gas narcosis kept several…

Three scuba divers working together underwater

Humans Explainer

Firefighter divers spent five minutes at a simulated 50-meter depth and made more balance errors after surfacing, while an oxygen stop preserved improvement on a bead test, suggesting nitrogen narcosis can briefly linger after pressure returns to normal

Eighty-six professional firefighter divers entered a hyperbaric chamber for a short but deep pressure exposure, then repeated simple balance and hand-skill tests after surfacing. The most striking change did not appear in their fingers first. It appeared in how steadily they could hold a demanding heel-to-toe stance with their eyes closed. The 2024 Medicina study…

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