Natures wonders:bird lungs better than human (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, June 25, 2020, 23:39 (1610 days ago) @ David Turell

The air goes in one way and out the other; probably came from dinosaurs:

http://nautil.us/issue/86/energy/why-birds-can-fly-over-mount-everest?mc_cid=0737aeaa21...

"Every year, millions of bar-headed geese migrate over the Himalayas and have been doing so for millions of years. They have been seen flying at 28,000 feet. They have flown over Mount Everest! How do they do that?

"The answer seems to be that bar-headed geese, like all birds—hummingbirds, ostriches, pigeons—have super-efficient lungs. It makes our lungs—and the lungs of all mammals—look primitive. I’m sure when birds get together they gossip about how pathetic our lungs are!

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"...that’s what the birds have with their lungs: an in point and an out point. They also have air sacs and hollow spaces in their bones. When they breathe in, half of the good air (with oxygen) goes into these hollow spaces, and the other half goes into their lungs through the rear entrance. When they breathe out, the good air that has been stored in the hollow places now also goes into their lungs through that rear entrance, and the bad air (carbon dioxide and water vapor) is pushed out the front exit. So it doesn’t matter whether birds are breathing in or out: Good air is always going in one direction through their lungs, pushing all the bad air out ahead of it.

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"...scientists have now folded Aves into a category called Dinosauria, and those dinosauria, like pigeons and seagulls and geese, are flying all around us today. If you want to know what a dinosaur probably tasted like, eat some chicken!"

Comment: Except for bats no mammals are built to fly. Look at the eagle. Six-foot wings and only 12 pounds of weight. A very helpful design since wing flapping takes lots of energy, and needs lots of air/blood exchange. Designer required