Mount Vernon News mountvernonnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mountvernonnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
To most people, giraffes are merely adorable, long-necked animals that rank near the top of a zoo visit or a photo-safari bucket list. But to a cardiovascular physiologist, there’s even more to love. Giraffes, it turns out, have solved a problem that kills millions of people every year: high blood pressure. Their solutions, only partly understood by scientists so far, involve pressurized organs, altered heart rhythms, blood storage and the biological equivalent of support stockings.
Giraffes have sky-high blood pressure because of their sky-high heads that, in adults, rise about six meters above the ground a long, long way for a heart to pump blood against gravity. To have a blood pressure of 110/70 at the brain about normal for a large mammal giraffes need a blood pressure at the heart of about 220/180. It doesn’t faze the giraffes, but a pressure like that would cause all sorts of problems for people, from heart failure to kidney failure to swollen ankles and legs.
Letters: Readers offer thoughts on Stone Foltz, Collin Wiant and what should be done about hazing msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Police departments across the U.S. strictly limit shooting at moving vehicles because they consider the practice ineffective and not worth the risk to life.