How did you just describe my life. A guy brought greyhounds during one of my inpatient hospital stays as therapy animals and called them "60mph couch potatoes." Now as a nurse I love night shift because I'll go 500mph for four hours... then sit on my ass for 8 (god willing). Sometimes I have to go 500mph the whole shift which sucks, but is doable on an infrequent basis, and waaaaay better than standing or sitting upright in some kiosk all day! Also sometimes I hiss when I see the sun...

Also fun fact standing still for extended periods is bad for you in a similar way to sitting for extended periods in a cramped space (like a plane), as a lot of the blood return from your legs while upright happens because the pressure increases from flexing your calves and thighs pushing blood up past the one-way valves in your veins. No movement = no alternating squeezing / relaxing = less blood return = blood pooling = varicose veins and clots that you hope stay in the leg until they dissolve.

Funner fact, the only animal that has veins in its arteries (usually the pressure is high enough to not need them) is the giraffe because the valves help keep the pressure high enough for blood to make it up the neck arteries!

Ask me about the desert animal's kidneys, I dare you.

[–] cfi@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm gonna regret this, but tell me about the desert animal's kidneys

[–] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Kidneys are made up of these microscopic loopy tube thingies called nephrons that make sure you have the right amount of salt and water in your blood. They start by dumping out literally everything into the start of the tube except like, the actual blood cells (and some other stuff but I don't remember that part). Then as the fluid moves through the tube they just pull the right amounts of everything back into the blood and let you pee out the rest.

Most water reclamation is done in a longer tube that's not as squiggly called the loop of henle. This is because most of your blood is water so you need a bunch of that back. In humans it's pretty long but in desert animals it's super extra long because they need a looooot of that water back.

My anatomy and physiology teacher was really good and he used to say there's basically only two ways we know how or why anything in the body works:

a) it breaks often enough to figure out the differences between functional and nonfunctional parts / systems

b) there's an animal or plant that can do that thing better, worse, or just generally differently for comparison.

I just tricked you into reading about kidneys, sucker! Now you know how pee is made (and why)!

[–] CucumberFetish@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Kidneys rock! As long as they don't stone, that is.

[–] LazerFX@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

ROCK AND STONE, BROTHER!

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 2 points 1 month ago

Sandy rocking!

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