Oxygen mystery: How marine mammals hold their breath

[microrobert]

Oxygen mystery: How marine mammals hold their breath

Scientists say they have solved the mystery of one of the most extreme adaptations in the animal kingdom: how marine mammals store enough oxygen to hold their breath for up to an hour.

The team studied myoglobin, an oxygen-storing protein in mammals' muscles and found that, in whales and seals, it has special "non-stick" properties.

This allowed the animals to pack huge amounts of oxygen into their muscles without "clogging them up".

The findings are published in Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6138/1234192).

BBC News - Oxygen mystery: How marine mammals hold their breath (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22853482)

[mr. logan]

That is design, not adaptation. Why a wolf will keep entering into the sea more and more for thousands of generations? They wouldn´t get any food....Or contrary, the fish sticking the head out of the water for thousands of years too. What for? Behavioral DNA modifications must stay fixed, without random mutations, from generation to generation. That is very hard to achieve, the individuals should be a mirror of the previous, with no deviation.