With Suction Cups and Lots of Luck, Scientists Measure Blue Whale's Heart Rate (reuters.com) 19
Using a bright orange electrocardiogram machine attached with suction cups to the body of a blue whale, scientists for the first time have measured the heart rate of the world's largest creature and came away with insight about the renowned behemoth's physiology. From a report: The blue whale, which can reach up to 100 feet (30 meters) long and weigh 200 tons, lowers its heart rate to as little as two beats per minute as it lunges under the ocean surface for food, researchers said. The maximum heart rate they recorded was 37 beats per minute after the air-breathing marine mammal returned to the surface from a foraging dive. "The blue whale is the largest animal of all-time and has long fascinated biologists," said Stanford University marine biologist Jeremy Goldbogen, who led the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "In particular, new measures of vital rates and physiological rates help us understand how animals work at the upper extreme of body mass," Goldbogen added. "What is life like and what is the pace of life at such a large scale?" Generally speaking, the larger the animal, the lower the heart rate, minimizing the amount of work the heart does while distributing blood around the body. The normal human resting heart rate ranges from about 60 to 100 beats per minute and tops out at about 200 during athletic exertion. The smallest mammals, shrews, have heart rates upwards of a thousand beats per minute.
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Nope (Score:2)
Is the Fitbit Charge HR Waterproof? No. It's OK to wear it in the rain but they recommend not wearing it in the shower. No bathing or swimming with it, either.
Oh, so it's not quite rated for 1,000ft deep water.
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They couldn't find a wrist.
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Seems like they could have just used like, a Fitbit Charge HR XXXXXXXXXXXL to learn that stuff.
Ya, but (a) the roaming charges for the network connection would be outrageous and (b) whales are pretty private and it probably wouldn't want to share it's personal health information with Google ...
Sounds like a Saturday night at my place! (Score:1)
Suction cups and a lot of work.
Because my wife is breast feeding. What did you think I meant?
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You've graduated from dad jokes to uncle jokes.
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By the way, there is no such thing as suction. It's simply a lack of air, or vacuum =)
So much effort... (Score:3)
Blood pressure scaling (Score:2)
So do this scale with blood pressure? I mean even at 5 beats per minute that is still a lot of blood per beat, with a lot of pressure. So larger mammals use more energy to compress & decompress the heart harder, to produce more pressure.
Is that why larger mammals need less beats?
I guess a congratulation is in order, since I can image a lot of the lesser attachment devices just fall off once the whale dives.
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If the arteries are wider, you don't need more pressure to handle the increased flow.
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The capillaries are the same size, and if the arteries start out larger, they need to go through more splits to get down to capillary size. So more pressure is going to be needed...either that or a lot slower flow.
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Cardiac output demand is determined by body size and cardiac output is stroke volume multiplied by the rate, so the short answer is: correct.
Take a mouse for a contrasting example: little animal, little heart, but still has to exchange gas in the capillary beds. However, as its heart is smaller it has a smaller stroke volume. To compensate for that, it has to beat much faster than the blue whale's heart. The whale's heart slows as it dives much like a free diver to conserve oxygen consumption not just fo
I see what they did there (Score:2)
Clever way to study obesity without attracting the attention of the food companies...
The whale was not amused (Score:2)
Mrs. Whale gave him hell about the hickey from the suction cup.
"normal human resting heart rate" (Score:2)
The normal human resting heart rate ranges from about 60 to 100 beats per minute and tops out at about 200 during athletic exertion
Max heart rate is age-related, more-or-less. One generally-recognized formulea for determining max heart rate is 220 - age, however this only gets an approximate value. Some people can have higher heart rates.
The blue whale ... lowers its heart rate to as little as two beats per minute ... maximum heart rate they recorded was 37 beats per minute
That 2 bpm number is really impressive, considering how much body mass it's got to supply with oxygen. And the max is over 18 times the minimum. If a human had that range it would be amazing. Retired professional cyclist Miguel "big Mig" Indurain was rumored to have a resting heart rate of 28 bpm [bbc.com]
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And I'm sure at 2bpm, the while is not worrying about dying. The problem with low heart rate in humans is you
That's the easy part (Score:2)