Read about the ins and outs of attending a scuba diving school as well as a variety of other fun subjects at Ericae.net.

Circling sharks and empty air tanks may haunt scuba divers' imaginations, but ordinary microbes are a far more probable hazard. A new study takes a stab at quantifying the risks that waterborne bacteria and viruses pose to divers

Skin squeeze is one of the barotrauma problems which divers can suffer due to the pressure factors involved in the practice of the sport. This way, a barotrauma can be caused due to the differences between the pressure of the water and the surface pressure to which the diver's body is adequate and used to.

Q: I am in good health and have had occasional problems clearing my ears because I had a broken nose with a deviated septum. I was diving recently and had a little trouble clearing my ears during my dives. I also had sinus congestion from a recent cold.

This section lists supplies and medications that you should consider taking along when you travel to areas where little or no medical care exists. If you're a physician, you'll find plenty of problems in the indigenous population that can use your help.

One of the many reasons people learn to dive is so they can observe and interact with underwater life. How you interact with animals under the sea can significantly alter your appreciation for the marine environment—and your risk of injury.

Divers have to have a reasonable level of physical and physiological fitness because of the obligatory stresses of the underwater environment. They must also be free of other limitations compromising safety in the underwater milieu. For safe diving, the millions of recreational and sport divers should maintain a reasonable level of fitness, the medical requirements for sport diving not being stringent.

What is recreational scuba diving? Recreational scuba diving is defined as pleasure diving to a depth of 130 feet without decompression stops.

Nitrogen narcosis is a dangerous condition that can affect scuba divers, especially when diving deeper than 30 meters. The exact mechanisms behind nitrogen narcosis are still to be explored, but it has to do with nitrogen gas affecting the nerve transmissions in the body during high pressure.