Often likened to mermaids in media reports and popular culture, South Korea’s famed Haenyeo (“sea women”) spend much of the day underwater, diving without scuba gear to collect abalone, octopus, kelp ...

The Haenyeo women who dive deep into the East China Sea to harvest sea urchins and shellfish spend the most time underwater of any humans ever studied — one to five hours a day, researchers report ...

Imprints of evolution can be seen among the Haenyeo of South Korea. After generations of foraging for food on the seabed, these all-women divers have fostered several genetic adaptations that allow ...

Sue Kim first discovered the haenyeo on a family trip to South Korea’s Jeju Island. As her family walked along the coast they noticed a gathering of female free divers wearing wetsuits and donning ...

"The Last of the Sea Women," coming to Apple TV+ on Oct. 11, tells the story of South Korea's haenyeo -- female divers who harvest seafood without oxygen. Photo courtesy of Apple TV+ BUSAN, South ...

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 even ...

The Haenyeo, a group of all-female divers from the Korean island of Jeju, are renowned for their ability to dive in frigid waters without the aid of breathing equipment -- even while pregnant. A study ...

"I've dived for over 50 years, and this is the first time I've seen sea urchins dried up dead in the water. The sea pineapples are dead, the conch are dead […] now there's nothing in the sea." Lee Bok ...

South Korea’s “haenyeo,” or women divers, say that they’ve become inseparable from their deep blue environment. In Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai’s first executive-produced film, she ...

After spending several days with the Haenyeo, a group of women on South Korea’s Jeju Island renowned for harvesting seafood from the ocean floor without scuba gear, photographer Peter Ash Lee said one ...

Korean actress Song Ji-hyo is swapping the film set for the depths of the seas. She is the center of Deep Dive Korea: Song Ji-Hyo’s Haenyeo Adventure, a doc series from BBC Studios and JTBC. Across ...

Sue Kim remembers the first time she saw the haenyeo. The director was eight when she traveled to Jeju Island with her family and came across a group of women clad in wetsuits and masks. "They were so ...