Bar-Headed Geese Fly Over Mount Everest Thanks to Dinosaur Lungs
Why Birds Can Fly over Mount Everest
Bar-headed geese migrate over the Himalayas at 28,000 feet, crossing Mount Everest, because birds inherited super-efficient lungs from dinosaurs. Unlike mammals, birds have one-way airflow through air sacs and hollow bones, keeping oxygen moving constantly. That lung design traces back to the Carboniferous: lignin let plants grow tall but resisted decay, burying carbon and pumping atmospheric oxygen past 30 percent, which fueled giant insects and amphibians until fungi evolved dry rot to break lignin down.
If you want to know what a dinosaur probably tasted like, eat some chicken!
- js2
(2020). Previous submissions with comments:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23639294 (Jun 26, 2020 - 96 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28844872 (Oct 12, 2021 - 108 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34210508 (Jan 1, 2023 - 6 comments)
This submission is from 4 days ago, so it must've been placed into the second chance pool.
- antics
Written by Walter Murch?? Like, the guy who is considered maybe the best editor and sound designer of all time, who was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, and won 3??? (Editing perhaps second only to Thelma Schoonmaker.)
- adonovan
The part about coal coming from dead trees during a window of time before bacteria evolved lignin digestion is no longer the scientific consensus. Such bacteria existed earlier; not all coal is high lignin; and coal still formed later. Too bad; it was a lovely story!