Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle

Sponsored by the American Physiological Society

Extreme Animals

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Final highlights from the 2019 Arizona Physiological Society conference

Here are some additional comparative physiology highlights from the 2019 Arizona Physiological Society poster session: Researchers at Arizona State University compared the physiology of Gambel’s quail (Callipepla gambelii) living in urbanized and less developed areas. They found that birds living in more urbanized areas were larger and had more circulating lipids than birds living in areas that were less developed. (A Funk, P Hutton, S Earl, P Deviche, and K Sweazea. […]

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Regenerating limbs…and heads

Mandy M. Schofield, Christian A. Okafor, and Jack D. Shepard from Towson University presented an interesting poster at the 6th annual Greater Washington DC Area Physiological Society on how planarians are a useful “Model Organism for Investigation and Education.” Planarians are indeed very interesting little animals. They have remarkable abilities to regenerate as shown in this YouTube video: Aside from this impressive ability and its application to limb regeneration, planaria […]

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New research on how treefrogs protect their cells during freezing

  Brian Stogsdill, Jim Frisbee and Dr. David Goldstein at Wright State University discussed their research at the 34th annual Ohio Physiological Society meeting on special water channels in the red blood cells of freeze-tolerant Cope’s gray treefrogs. These channels can shuttle both water and glycerol in and out of the cells to protect them from damage during freezing. Check out this video showing a treefrog waking up from a […]

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Adults are better adapted to survive without oxygen

Adult fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) are more tolerant of environments devoid of oxygen than their larvae. In fact, they are able to survive up to 12 hours without oxygen by becoming paralyzed, which enables them to dramatically reduce metabolism and the need for oxygen. In contrast, Drosophila larvae expend a lot of energy trying to escape and are only able to tolerate a couple of hours without oxygen. This is surprising […]

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Remarkable hypoxia and cold tolerance of rodents native to the Tibetan plateau

The plateau zokor (Eospalax baileyi) is an underground dwelling rodent species native to the Tibetan plateau (2000-4200 meters in elevation). A new study published in the American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology explored how these animals were adapted to extract oxygen from an environment with very low levels (83-88% of atmospheric). Hemoglobin molecules found in red blood cells are responsible for binding oxygen and transporting it to tissues […]

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High altitude deer mice have less stress?

Animals that live at high altitude have evolved a number of physiological adaptations to deal with the low atmospheric oxygen concentrations (hypoxia). For low altitude acclimated animals, short exposures to high altitude results in activation of the sympathetic nervous system (i.e. the fight or flight response). This is a good thing because activation of this system results in more blood flow, especially to the heart and brain to help protect oxygen […]

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Animals that eat plastic?

Have you seen this? A video just released by Yellowstone National Park talks about how some heat-loving microorganisms can break down plastics. Pretty cool.   Not so cool was the recent finding published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences that Astrangia poculata coral polyps are eating microplastics instead of brine shrimp eggs…on purpose. In the lab, the team were able to observe the corals consuming nearly […]

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