Avian Surgery!

2014 First Place Video
http://www.the-aps.org/mm/Education/U...
Abstract:
High altitude climbers face many challenges when scaling the world's highest peaks. Not the least of which is the condition known as High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE). The lower oxygen content of the air at altitude leads to hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV) resulting from hypoxia. Blood vessels constrict, pressure is increased drastically, and fluid is squeezed out of the capillaries and into the alveoli of the lung! The physiology of Avian lungs on the other hand is uniquely adapted to life at altitude. In particular, avian lungs do not display HPV. Avian lungs consist of multiple air sacs which keep fresh air moving cross-current to capillaries during both inhalation and exhalation. The result of this is significantly improved efficiency in gas exchange as compared with mammalian bellows lungs. These anatomical adaptations not only increase oxygen delivery to tissues, but also allow the animal to live at altitude with no risk of HAPE. This video is a comedic, faux-infomercial featuring the fictional Dr. Seagull's who offers interspecies organ transplant. This surgery is now being marketed as a way to improve one's ability to live at altitude while avoiding the afflictions caused by hypoxia.

By Laura Philbin, Lubaina Elahi, David Tatarakis and Peter Luu
Special Thanks to Diane Luu and Jeff Sripenbenja

Image of Buteo magnirostris, by Dario Sanchez, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil..., Creative Commons.

Gray's Anatomy image of Heart and Lung, By Henry Vandyke Carter, Gray's Anatomy, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil...

Image of snow mountain, by Abba Langova, http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/v...

Music: "Happiness is" by Podington Bear, http://freemusicarchive.org/music/pod... Creative Commons

Source: Scott, G. R. (2011). Elevated performance: the unique physiology of birds that fly at high altitudes. The Journal of Experimental Biology, 214(15), 2455--2462. doi:10.1242/jeb.052548