@tarponchik, I understand quite well what stress is. I have a Ph.D in biology and I am a professor of Human Anatomy & Physiology, so I have a decent handle on what tissue stress is. To make a claim that bubbles and/or inert nitrogen off-gassing is not a tissue stress is simply silly. Would you agree that DCS is tissue stress? If so, then what you suggest is that either inert nitrogen off gassing is a binary effect. Either DCS symptoms cause stress or lack of DCS symptoms cause no stress. So somehow between the absence of DCS symptoms and full blown DCS, there is no gradient of tissue stress? If you understand something about physiology, then you know that there really is no such thing as a binary effect on tissues. Physiological stresses are continuous, ranging from mild to severe effects.