Naked Mole Rats and Acid

Ars Technica has a fascinating article on naked mole rats and their lack of sensitivity to acid. Naked mole rats live en masse in burrows which tend to be low on oxygen and high on carbon dioxide. As a result, they have made a number of evolutionary advances that allow them to thrive in this environment.

Naked mole rat burrow.

One of these evolutionary changes is that naked mole rats have a notably low pH count. This ends up allowing them to inhibit the dispersal of nerve signals quickly, reducing the overall effect of the acid.

The full article is at arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/12/acid-inhibits-naked-mole-rat-acid-sensors-instead-of-activating-them.ars and contains a great deal of information on *how* this actually happens. Naked mole rats are an interesting species, and while I am glad that our domestic rats do not resemble their cousins in appearance, I wish they shared some notable physical characteristics (for instance, there is no documented case of cancer in naked mole rats).

Naked mole rat.

They might not be pretty, but there is a lot to learn from them.