Resumen de This rat survives with little oxygen
To investigate how well the 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 humans wouldn't survive either. But naked mole rats just carry on as normal. The first test was stopped after 5 hours when nothing happened, says Thomas Park at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Next, mole rats were put in pure nitrogen. Being without oxygen kills mice in about a minute. People pass out after a breath or two of pure nitrogen, and would probably die in under 10 minutes. But the mole rats survived for at least 18 minutes. They stopped breathing after a few minutes, but their hearts kept beating and they revived as soon as they were returned to normal air.
