On Jeju Island, 50 miles south of the Korean peninsula, senior women regularly dive up to 60 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. They collect sea urchins, sea snails called abalone and other food—and ...

The Haenyeo, an all-female group of divers on South Korea’s Jeju Island, spend much of their lives underwater without ...

Often likened to mermaids in media reports and popular culture, South Korea’s famed Haenyeo (“sea women”) spend much of the ...

Past work from Ilardo has shown that nomadic Bajau divers in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines have especially large spleens. Even Bajau people who don’t dive seem to share this trait, ...

Scientists have investigated the unique biology of the Haenyeo, women from the South Korean island of Jeju who are known for ...

From high-altitude climbers to divers who can fish ... The Haenyeo, a name that means "women of the sea" in Korean, dive in groups year-round to harvest shellfish like abalone and sea urchin ...

The secret to tackling one of the United States’ most deadly chronic diseases may reside thousands of miles away in the chilly waters separating the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where generations of ...

The Haenyeo, or "women of the sea," are a group of all-women ... 50 miles south of mainland South Korea. The divers collect foodstuffs like abalone and seaweed from the seafloor, and do so while ...

A renowned community of female free divers in South Korea has benefited ... harvesting shellfish such as abalone and sea urchins for the island’s population. The women complete the dives without ...

A couple of years ago, Melissa Ilardo found herself aboard a motorboat traversing the ocean around Jeju Island, which sits some 50 or 60 miles off the coast of South Korea. Before the vessel had ...

These women dive year-round off Jeju Island, collecting sea urchin, abalone and other ... 30 non-diving women from Jeju and 31 women from the South Korean mainland. The average age of the ...