From the paper Discovery of the world’s highest-dwelling mammal [1]
> Upper altitudinal limits of wild mammals in the Himalayas and Andes are generally thought to fall in the range 5200-5800 m above sea level. Such limits are surely dictated by food availability in addition to physiological capacities for tolerating hypoxia and extreme cold.
Which explains the significance of:
> we captured a specimen of the yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis xanthopygus rupestris) on the very summit of Llullaillaco at 6739 m
That’s a variation on extreme ironing, “an extreme sport in which people take ironing boards to remote locations and iron items of clothing. According to the Extreme Ironing Bureau, extreme ironing is "the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ironing)
I correctly realized they were talking about an animal, but I'd misread it as "moose", and the mental image I had developed on the way to clicking through to the article was thus not accurate.
I didn't know why a mouse on a volcano would break some kind of record, and as my brain rapid fired possible parses to the sentence it did occur to me that this is a technology board and it could be a computer mouse. Neither one seemed more feasible for world records at face value.
Maybe 6700 meters, to match the 2 digits of precision.
Although from the article: "he encountered another yellow-rumped mouse even higher than previously sighted, atop the very summit of Llullaillaco, at 22,110 feet" -> 6739 meters
I feel like this is still an unsolved notational problem. Let's say I want to give you the elevation of Mt Everest in feet to 3 sig figs. I could say 29,000 ft, but that'd be misread as 2 sig figs. So I have to say something like 29010^2 , or 2.9010^4 , to convey the correct information. Or just 2.90e4. Maybe there's nothing better?
Famously, the original surveyor of Mt Everest calculated 29,000 exactly but lied and added 2 feet to make it 29,002 so that people would understand he meant 5 sig figs, not just 2. That's one way of solving the problem ...
It bothers me that this overloads the notation for repeating fractions. I guess there wouldn't be a use case requiring both in a single number, but you can imagine multiple numbers on the same page using this formatting for different purposes and it being confusing.
And it's fine for writing out by hand or in TeX (I assume), but good luck using it in any other context as we see here! Ideally a notation would be keyboard-friendly, at least for something with as wide an applicability as this anyway.
And -75F is -60C. Mind blowing. Even a human would have a problems surviving that. How could survive mouse body having a much bigger surface area to a volume ratio? Heat insulated nests maybe?
There's a spider in the Himalayas that lives at even higher altitudes, living on rocks warmed by the sun and surviving on gnats and flies that get blown up the mountain from temperate climates.
> Euophrys omnisuperstes (the species name means "standing above everything"), the Himalayan jumping spider, is a small jumping spider that lives at elevations of up to 6,700 m (22,000 ft) in the Himalayas, including Mount Everest, making it a candidate for the highest known permanent resident on Earth. They are found among rocky debris, feeding on tiny, stray springtails and flies.
(Aw, I read "Moose" and was so disappointed when I clicked through.)
As a random tidbit there's also a bizarre tiny pink armadillo that lives up there. It lives in holes and has a plug-shaped rear end. It's one of those critters that, when you see it, makes you go "C'mon Nature, you're putting me on, eh?"
> The work has received funding from the National Geographic Society and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, as better understanding adaptations to high altitude life is “potentially relevant in treating a number of human diseases that relate to... problems with oxygen delivery and oxygen utilization,” he says.
I often wonder how discoveries like this ultimately manifest into actionable technology. Are they studying cell structure? DNA? What does that process look like?
> The results could also aid doctors in treating altitude sickness and coping with life at high altitude or elsewhere where there are low levels of oxygen.
That makes me wonder if the end goal is some kind of pharmaceutical drug.
I think the reality is that researchers justify themselves to grant writing organizations in whatever way they can but are often just doing science for it's own sake.
Anecdotally, I watched a talk about how the structure of the ribosome was solved, and the researcher mentioned that they justified themselves to grant writing organizations by saying it would help develop antibiotics - which did turn out to be the case, but they described themselves as feeling amused rather than vindicated.
Bingo. While understandable, I fear the need to justify nearly all research by potential foreseeable gain limits our ability to invest in truly fundamental science.
Yes, grant-style funding is really bad for basic research. For where larger institutes have the advantage: a few prestigious findings can bring the funding to do a lot of less glamorous stuff on the side.
Or trying to advance their careers, which isn't the same thing, as it's self-interest without regard for whether science is being meaningfully advanced.
It’s almost impossible to predict how any knowledge will be used in the future. What is certain is that if you look at almost anything that exists in modern society, its existence depends on thousands of knowledge morsels, few of which were created with such eventual application in mind. That’s why successful civilizations must invest in knowledge regardless of its apparent practical relevance.
“These creatures you call mice you see are not quite as they appear, they are merely the protrusions into our dimension of vast, hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings.”
~ Slartibartfast, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Air pressure on Earth at 6700m is around 430mBar. [0] Pressure on Mars (at the artificially defined zero-level) is 6 mBar [1] and twice as much at the lowest point of Mars' surface [2], Hellas Planitia, which is a huge crater in the southern hemisphere with its lowest point around 9000m below zero.
They're pricey ($150) and heavy (2 pounds, heavy if you're carrying it around all day), making them less than entirely practical. But it tickles me that you can plug your phone into your campfire.
I don't know if you could pull off the charger and plunk it down on the crust of a lava flow, but it would be worth trying out. Assuming you had $150 to burn (literally).
Nature's resilience, adaptability, and resourcefulness underscores how much we have to pollute it to cause so many extinctions, deserts, and wastelands. How much beauty do we have to see or lose to change our values from growth at all costs and externalizing costs to enjoying what we have and taking responsibility for how our behavior affects others?
It seems convenient that the scientists who arranged an expedition to look for mice at high altitude find one higher than any mouse seen before. My skeptical side wonders if the guy who was obviously at the peak before Jay Storz in the video, brought the mouse up, and let it go so that it could be found. Hopefully unrelated researchers who don't use the same guides, etc... are able to also find mice at similarly high altitudes.
That's not skepticism, that's conspiracy theory. The previous record elevation for finding a mouse was on the same mountain. It would be more surprising if the first expedition actually found the elevation limit of these mice, rather than the follow-up expedition that was specifically investigating whether they ranged any higher.
> Upper altitudinal limits of wild mammals in the Himalayas and Andes are generally thought to fall in the range 5200-5800 m above sea level. Such limits are surely dictated by food availability in addition to physiological capacities for tolerating hypoxia and extreme cold.
Which explains the significance of:
> we captured a specimen of the yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis xanthopygus rupestris) on the very summit of Llullaillaco at 6739 m
[1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.13.989822v1