This rat survives with little oxygen

摘要

The naked mole rat can cope fine with oxygen levels low enough to kill us. It can even go 18 minutes with no oxygen at all. To investigate how well these East African rodents tolerate low oxygen, a team of biologists put them in a chamber with just 5 per cent oxygen, less than a quarter the amount found in air. Such conditions kill mice within 15 minutes - and we wouldn't survive either.