Mountaineers With Big Hearts and Even Bigger Lungs

No matter which mammal you are talking about, be it a rodent or a bat or a cat or an elephant or a whale, all have the same lung size--7% of the entire body volume.

In this alternate scenario, there is a regional population of men who have two anatomical anomalies that are advantageous in a mountainous environment:

• Lungs that fill up 15% of their total body volume, not seven.
• An enlarged heart, so large that outside the mountainous region of this scenario, doctors would have diagnosed the person with the medical condition called "cardiomegaly".

Within the realm of mammal genetics, are these two changes possible? Or are we talking changes that are more feasible in a different class (like birds or reptiles)?

posted over 7 years ago

JohnWDailey‭

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