BBC News - Oxygen mystery: How marine mammals hold their breath
And it revealed that the best mammalian breath-holding divers had evolved a non-stick variety of myoglobin.
The secret, Dr Berenbrink explained, was a subtle but crucial piece of chemical trickery; marine mammal myoglobin is positively charged.
"It also allows us to estimate the dive times of the ancient ancestors of whales”
Dr Michael Berenbrink University of Liverpool •Learn more about great whales
This has important physical consequences. Dr Berenbrink explained: "Like the similar poles of a magnet; the proteins repel one another."
"In this way we think the animals are able to pack really high concentrations of these proteins into their muscles and avoid them sticking together and clogging up the muscles."
Dr Berenbrink said he was excited by the discovery because it helped make sense of the incredible changes that took place in mammals' bodies as they evolved from land-based animals to the aquatic, air-breathing creatures that inhabit the oceans today.
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The scientist, who was not involved in this study, explained that a great deal of research at the moment was looking into how marine mammals manage to survive repeatedly cutting off and re-establishing the blood supply to their body tissues, something he likened to repeatedly suffering a crush injury.
"But being able to pick up a few [fossilised] bones of an extinct marine mammal and estimate its dive time from that - that's miraculous."
And it revealed that the best mammalian breath-holding divers had evolved a non-stick variety of myoglobin.
The secret, Dr Berenbrink explained, was a subtle but crucial piece of chemical trickery; marine mammal myoglobin is positively charged.
"It also allows us to estimate the dive times of the ancient ancestors of whales”
Dr Michael Berenbrink University of Liverpool •Learn more about great whales
This has important physical consequences. Dr Berenbrink explained: "Like the similar poles of a magnet; the proteins repel one another."
"In this way we think the animals are able to pack really high concentrations of these proteins into their muscles and avoid them sticking together and clogging up the muscles."
Dr Berenbrink said he was excited by the discovery because it helped make sense of the incredible changes that took place in mammals' bodies as they evolved from land-based animals to the aquatic, air-breathing creatures that inhabit the oceans today.
-
The scientist, who was not involved in this study, explained that a great deal of research at the moment was looking into how marine mammals manage to survive repeatedly cutting off and re-establishing the blood supply to their body tissues, something he likened to repeatedly suffering a crush injury.
"But being able to pick up a few [fossilised] bones of an extinct marine mammal and estimate its dive time from that - that's miraculous."