Missing Limbs, Naked Mole Rats, and a Blood-Red Waterfall

supplies run low. And unrelated, the researchers have cracked the mystery of the pigmentation responsible for blood falls, A waterfall with an aptly dramatic name, but first, Senior editor Katherine Born and our freelance writer Alia Hoyt explore new research into how our brains control our movements. The results run counter to what we thought we knew about motor function,

and it's all thanks to patients with missing limbs. Recent research published in the journal Current Biology is poised to transform whole scientists understand the brain, specifically which section control which body parts. Researchers from University College London looked at seventeen people born without a hand, along with twenty four

people born with two hands as a control group. The participants were all video recorded doing five everyday tasks such as wrapping presents, while their brains were scanned using functional m r A. Science has generally posited that a certain area of the brain was in charge of hand function, but the researchers learned that when other body parts were compensating for a missing hand, like the foot, mouth, or arm, that hand area of the brain just as effectively lit up,

so instead of that section of the brain being hands specific, it appears to be actually functioned specific, although this is just a working theory. The concept is illustrated by six year old Zian Lee Aguila Valle of Kennesaw, Georgia, who was born without arms. Zian mostly uses his feet to bathe, dress, and eat, as well as to write, paint, play with legos, or help his mom cook dinner. He carries around small packages of cleansing wipes to d german his feet before eating.

He also loves skateboarding, swimming, and baseball. Interestingly, Zan's brain is better equipped to adapt his missing limbs than that of a person who loses a hand later in life. James Giordano, a neurology and biochemistry professor at Georgetown University, says the brain is very adaptive, so if a function needs to be done, another part can be recruited to

fill in for the one that's missing. If the limb loss occurs later in life, Jordana says, another appendage can be trained to fill in, but it's much more difficult because the brain has to basically rewire its connections. Neurophysical rehabilitation and high tech approaches like magnetic stimulation can encourage the brain to adapt. The study we mentioned earlier demonstrates

the brain is more plastic than we had imagined. The study could help scientists determine how the brain could control, for instance, a prosthetic arm using the brain area that would have controlled that missing arm. Next step, steph it aor Christopher Hassiotus and our freelancer Jesceline Shields bring us into the bizarre world of the naked mole rat, which can run its body basically like a plant when it

doesn't have enough oxygen to live like a mammal. Learning interesting facts about animals is like reading evolution celebrity gossip rag. There's a delightfully voyeuristic thrill that comes with learning that a star nosed mole can smell underwater by blowing bubbles and then sucking them back in its nose, or that a sea otter has so much hair and has the approximate surface area of a hockey rink. But have you heard about the naked mole rat. You're gonna want to

sit down. So the naked mole rat heterocephalous glaber looks about like you'd expect a hairless mole crossed with a hairless rat crossed with a chest bursting creature from alien. But this subterranean African mammal is by far the longest living rodent. It's cold blooded, and it's immune to cancer. It's practically pervious to most types of pain, and shows

very few signs of aging during its life. Like some insects, naked mole rats are use social, meaning a group of them has a queen that takes on all the reproductive responsibilities for the group, while other females are sterile and have jobs like finding food or fending off predators. A single queen naked mole rat might live thirty years and

have nine hundred babies in her lifetime. And finally, these little animals can survive for long periods without oxygen by basically turning into plants wait seriously under normal oxygen rich conditions. The naked mole rat runs itself on glucose like every other self respecting mammal on the planet, and mammals need

oxygen to fuel this process. But in the absence of oxygen, according to a new study published in the journal Science, it turns out naked mole rats can switch over to a different biochemical process using fructose, the same sugar that powers plants. Now, scientists have known for a while that because they live in large groups in tight underground space is where plentiful oxygen supplies aren't given like they are here above ground, naked mole rats have evolved to withstand

shockingly low oxygen situations. Until now, however, nobody has quantified the extent to which these hideous little wizards can abstain from breathing air. The team of international researchers discovered the little animals can chill for five or more hours at a time in extremely low oxygen environments, and for up to eighteen minutes with absolutely no oxygen whatsoever. To figure this out, the team put both naked mole rats and

regular mice in a chamber with no oxygen. As you might expect the mice died immediately, But although the naked morats quickly lost consciousness and their heartbeats slowed from two hundred to only fifty beats per minute, after being introduced back into the air, a full eighteen minutes later, they completely recovered and went about their naked mole rat business.

So exactly how do the animals manage this? According to the studies lead author Thomas Park, who's a professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the naked mole rat has simply rearranged some basic building blocks of metabolism to make it super tolerant to low oxygen conditions. There are other animals who can metabolize fructose in the absence of oxygen, but only in limited parts of the body,

like the gut. It's naked mole rats that have emergency fruito services set up in all of their organs, even their brain and their heart, making them unique among mammals in that regard, at least as far as we know right now. Finally, this week, managing editor Alison louder Milk and our freelancer Kate Kirshner explain how researchers solved the mysteries of a blood red waterfall flowing out of the

middle of a glacier. If you were to say that the blood red color of an Antarctic waterfall was only the second most interesting thing about it, it might be hard to take you seriously. After all, one look at blood falls and you're probably pretty focused on the horrifying carry prom scene nestled in the ice of Taylor Glacier. You're not looking for much else to catch your eye.

But while that horror seene hue undoubtedly pulls you in, scientists have now figured out the source of the blood, so to speak, and it's arguably more fascinating than the ghoulish falls itself. When geologist and all around adventure Thomas Griffith discovered the geological wonder back in nineteen eleven, the prevailing idea was that a type of algae was causing the distinctive red bloom, sort of like the harmful algal blooms or red tides that have been known to plague

Florida's Gulf coast. But a two thousand three analysis found that it was actually high levels of iron that tinged the water, so distinctively the iron turns to rust in the water. But this presented another mystery. So I just weren't sure where the salty in laden liquid water was

coming from that's been feeding the waterfall. So they decided to investigate the subsurface of the glacier with radar signals, and when they did, researchers found a subsurface lake, complete with a flowing path of water that supplied the briny, iron rich water to the falls. Second mystery solved. This discovery is particularly interesting because it confirms that flowing water can persist inside a glacier as cold as tailor, something

researchers weren't quite sure was possible. And in case you're wondering how liquid water can exist in a clearly freezing glacier, it's actually the process of freezing that keeps it moving. As water freezes, it releases heat that can melt the ice around it. Add in some salty water that freezes at a lower tempt and you have flowing water in

a glacier. That's our show for this week. Thank you so much for tuning in further thanks to our audio technical brown, our producer Dylan Fagan, and our editorial liaison Alice in louder Milk. Subscribed to out Now for more of the latest science news, and send us links to anything else you'd like to hear his cover, plus what historical figure do you find endlessly fascinating? Let us know?

You can send us an email at Now podcast at how stuff works dot com, and of course, for lots more stories like these, head on over to our home planet Now dot how stuff works dot com.