• Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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    2 months ago

    Probably not. Mammals and birds demand 10~100 times more oxygen to survive than other vertebrates (source), as our metabolism is rather high; I don’t think that the oxygen in water is able to supply that. And a change in that metabolic rate seems a bit too involved to be feasible, specially given that our brains use a lot of energy (thus oxygen).

    • YourPrivatHater@ani.social
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      2 months ago

      With selective breeding you could technically be lucky and slow down the metabolism, selective breeding isn’t a very precise way to change something, but the actual problem would be time anyway.

      • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
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        2 months ago

        The problem is that any change slowing down the metabolism would be deleterious in nature: no/slower body heating, lower brain capabilities, slower healing, increased reaction times, etc.

        As a rough comparison, it’s like trying to reduce the energy demand of a computer. There’s some room for optimisation but eventually the only way to do it is by reducing the amount of things that it does, by throttling its components.