Florida Professor Sets New Record For Longest Time Living Underwater, 74 Days

Florida Professor Living Underwater For 74 Days Sets New World Record

A Florida professor has been living underwater for the past two weeks and won’t come back to the surface until June if all goes as planned.

Joseph Dituri, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of South Florida, is attempting to shatter a world record for the most days a human has lived underwater. The previous record of 73 days was set in 2014 by two Tennessee professors.

Dituri is attempting to live for 100 days in a special habitat about 25 feet down in an ocean lagoon in Key Largo, Florida.

On the 15th day of his adventure, which began on March 1, Dituri spoke with USA TODAY from his underwater home on a Zoom call, sharing what’s been the most rewarding, the most challenging and the most surprising thing about life in the sea.

 

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Dituri’s main purpose while living underwater is not breaking records but studying how the human body responds to long-term exposure to extreme pressure.

Before he started living in the 100-square-foot habitat, called Jules’ Undersea Lodge, Dituri underwent a battery of psychological and medical tests. While he’s living underwater, and afterward, a medical team will continue running tests on the 55-year-old.

Among the goals of the project, which cost $250,000 to fund, will be to study the psychological effects of living in an isolated, confined environment for months, and to explore whether living under pressure can increase life spans and prevent certain aging diseases, according to a news release about the project.

“We haven’t done this level of research on people while they were underwater,” Dituri told reporters last week. “No humans ever stayed past 73 days. We’re going to go all the way to 100.”