Posted on 10/15/2007 10:22:37 AM PDT by blam
Possum breaks record with year-long snooze
14 October 2007
NewScientist.com news service
A possum has set an enviable record for doing absolutely nothing. After stuffing itself full of food in a laboratory, one curled up and hibernated for a record 367 days.
Some mammals, such as ground squirrels, hibernate for up to six months through winter, while a western jumping mouse (Zapus princeps) once hibernated for 320 days in a lab. That record has now been smashed by an Australian eastern pygmy possum (Cercartetus nanus) in Fritz Geiser's lab at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales (Naturwissenschaften, DOI: 10.1007/s00114-007-0274-7).
It used just one-fourtieth of the energy it does while awake, which probably allows the possum to survive lean times in Australia's unpredictable climate, says Geiser.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
It’s dead, Jim.
If only. Possums do nothing. Congressional Democrats do nothing good.
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