Word: whaled
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Paul Dudley White, President Eisenhower's civilian heart specialist, sailed from Los Angeles for an ocean rendezvous with some grey whale cows, now calving off the Pacific coast of Lower California. Armed with two electrode-bearing harpoons, Heart Researcher White hoped to spear the cows lightly, chart the pulses of the 50-ft. (maximum) beasts while trailing them in a dory equipped with an electrocardiograph. Asked about his most important patient. Dr. White assured newsmen: "I'll be on call for the President all the while...
...them all in a sack, and on a pitch black night took them out under an arch. First I would cough, and then immediately whale the daylights out of the cats. They whined and shrieked like an infernal pipe organ. I would pause for a while and repeat the operation-first a cough, and then a thrashing. I finally noticed that even without beating them, the beasts moaned and yelped like the very devil whenever I coughed. I then let them loose. Thereafter, whenever I had to eat off the floor, I would cast a look around. If an animal...
What is a whale's spout made of? One theory: the spout is condensed vapor from the whale's moist breath. But in the tropics, where breath does not condense, the whale's spout is just as visible as in arctic cold. In Britain's Nature, Dr. F. C. Fraser and P. E. Purves tackle the old controversy again...
...Fraser-Purves theory: the spout is foam (mucus, gas and globules of emulsified oil) that forms in the whale's lungs. When the whale surfaces after a dive and empties its lungs, the foam expelled is the visible spout...
When a human diver descends to great depths, the nitrogen in his lungs tends to dissolve in his blood. When he comes to the surface, it forms bubbles that clog the circulation. This might not happen to whales if their lungs were full of oily foam. Oil has an affinity for nitrogen; it can absorb six times as much as blood can. Fraser & Purves think that when a whale dives, the nitrogen in the air of its lungs is absorbed by oil droplets before it gets into the blood. So the whale makes a deep dive and surfaces without suffering...