So according to Wikipedia, cave fish aren't really obese, but are adapted to be able to binge eat because food is not generally available in their ecosystems. Sort of like being predisposed to being obese but generally restricting their caloric intake. Which to me sounds sort of like the proposed mechanisms of action for things like rapamycin and intermittent fasting.
But actually what I'm really curious about is: what do cave fish taste like? Sablefish are high in fat content and taste amazing. Monkfish liver is considered a delicacy in Japan. If you breed cave fish variants and give them tons of food, could you have the equivalent of fish wagyu and foie gras?
“That means that, within our genetic code, there could be extreme variations in body weight or longevity that are naturally masked by buffer systems. If we inhibit or exhaust the buffer systems, then those natural, extreme variations would reveal themselves.”
This made think of something I learned about in my freediving course called the Mammalian Dive Reflex, which is a masked human ability that was only discovered when someone was crazy enough (and skilled enough) to dive below what scientists thought was a survivable depth. Basically, they had assumed that because of Boyle’s Law, you could not hold your breath and dive too deep because your lungs would crush and rupture at some point. Then some maniac dove ‘too deep’ and lived. This caused them to discover that the human body will fill the lungs and vessels with blood and plasma to prevent crushing.
So according to Wikipedia, cave fish aren't really obese, but are adapted to be able to binge eat because food is not generally available in their ecosystems. Sort of like being predisposed to being obese but generally restricting their caloric intake. Which to me sounds sort of like the proposed mechanisms of action for things like rapamycin and intermittent fasting.
But actually what I'm really curious about is: what do cave fish taste like? Sablefish are high in fat content and taste amazing. Monkfish liver is considered a delicacy in Japan. If you breed cave fish variants and give them tons of food, could you have the equivalent of fish wagyu and foie gras?
“That means that, within our genetic code, there could be extreme variations in body weight or longevity that are naturally masked by buffer systems. If we inhibit or exhaust the buffer systems, then those natural, extreme variations would reveal themselves.”
This made think of something I learned about in my freediving course called the Mammalian Dive Reflex, which is a masked human ability that was only discovered when someone was crazy enough (and skilled enough) to dive below what scientists thought was a survivable depth. Basically, they had assumed that because of Boyle’s Law, you could not hold your breath and dive too deep because your lungs would crush and rupture at some point. Then some maniac dove ‘too deep’ and lived. This caused them to discover that the human body will fill the lungs and vessels with blood and plasma to prevent crushing.
Really interesting! We can have fancy humans like fancy rats.
Long term, the regular rate are the ones that survive.