South Korean designer creates wearable gills

The ocean has been described as our world’s final frontier. For everything we know about the vast blue expanse that covers 71 percent of our globe, far more remains uncovered. As you probably know, humans don’t breathe so well when you take away our oxygen. A new concept straight out of James Bond’s bag of tricks aims to correct this evolutionary oversight.

South Korean designer Jeabyun Yeon just unveiled a conceptual scuba mask that would allow divers to breathe underwater without oxygen tanks. The mask, called the Triton, consists of two branching arms designed to serve as “gills” that extract oxygen from the water and deliver breathable air directly into their wearer’s lungs. Instead of hauling around heavy scuba equipment, swimmers could simply bite down on a plastic mouth piece.