Their blood makes penguins record divers
Penguins spend almost half of their lives underwater. On their excursions into the depths, they are helped by special blood, which contains more hemoglobin than that of other birds. This protein takes oxygen from the lungs and releases it to various tissues. Researchers wanted to know more precisely what the penguins’ hemoglobin is all about. That’s why they recreated the protein of the last common ancestor – the original penguin, so to speak – in the laboratory and subjected it to various tests («PNAS»).
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