Mouse found atop a 22,000-foot volcano, breaking world record | Hacker News Reader

Mouse found atop a 22,000-foot volcano, breaking world record

nationalgeographic.com

190 pointsgreenyoda70 comments

From the paper Discovery of the world’s highest-dwelling mammal [1]

> Upper altitudinal limits of wild mammals in the Himalayas and Andes are generally thought to fall in the range 5200-5800 m above sea level. Such limits are surely dictated by food availability in addition to physiological capacities for tolerating hypoxia and extreme cold.

Which explains the significance of:

> we captured a specimen of the yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis xanthopygus rupestris) on the very summit of Llullaillaco at 6739 m

[1] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.13.989822v1

Maybe it was just an adventurous mouse?

Danger mouse

Mighty mouse i'ld say.

No joke my first thought reading the title was that some researcher left his laptop equipment over there.

Same here, I guess I need to disconnect a little bit..

I'm just sad it wasn't a trackpad. I'd have kicked it into the volcano.

I assumed the animal, but expected the record to be in the category of "size of testicles".

I think reading the title on HN made me think it was the computer peripheal and not the animal...

This made me think of this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/may/17/arts.artsnews1

For others interested, this was solved the next day. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/may/19/martinwainwright....

That’s a variation on extreme ironing, “an extreme sport in which people take ironing boards to remote locations and iron items of clothing. According to the Extreme Ironing Bureau, extreme ironing is "the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ironing)

> That’s a variation on extreme ironing

I'd say an extreme variation of it ;)

I didn't know why a mouse on a volcano would break some kind of record, and as my brain rapid fired possible parses to the sentence it did occur to me that this is a technology board and it could be a computer mouse. Neither one seemed more feasible for world records at face value.

I correctly realized they were talking about an animal, but I'd misread it as "moose", and the mental image I had developed on the way to clicking through to the article was thus not accurate.

22000 foot are 6705.6 meters.

Although beware excessive precision: https://blog.plover.com/physics/precision.html

Maybe 6700 meters, to match the 2 digits of precision.

Although from the article: "he encountered another yellow-rumped mouse even higher than previously sighted, atop the very summit of Llullaillaco, at 22,110 feet" -> 6739 meters

> "[...] atop the very summit of Llullaillaco, at 22,110 feet" -> 6739 meters

That's exactly the elevation listed in the Wikipedia article too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llullaillaco

As a former physics teacher this reply gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.

I feel like this is still an unsolved notational problem. Let's say I want to give you the elevation of Mt Everest in feet to 3 sig figs. I could say 29,000 ft, but that'd be misread as 2 sig figs. So I have to say something like 29010^2 , or 2.9010^4 , to convey the correct information. Or just 2.90e4. Maybe there's nothing better?

Famously, the original surveyor of Mt Everest calculated 29,000 exactly but lied and added 2 feet to make it 29,002 so that people would understand he meant 5 sig figs, not just 2. That's one way of solving the problem ...

It's easy enough to invent a notation, like

    29,0·00

Maybe this new standard notation was born today on HN!

The usual way is a line. It can be faked here with code formatting (4 spaces to force mono font) and underscores:

    ___
    29000

It bothers me that this overloads the notation for repeating fractions. I guess there wouldn't be a use case requiring both in a single number, but you can imagine multiple numbers on the same page using this formatting for different purposes and it being confusing.

And it's fine for writing out by hand or in TeX (I assume), but good luck using it in any other context as we see here! Ideally a notation would be keyboard-friendly, at least for something with as wide an applicability as this anyway.

But this is certainly a good starting point.

> multiple numbers on the same page using this formatting for different purposes and it being confusing.

I think it's unambigous at least: 2̅9̅0̅00 vs 11̅.̅4̅2̅8̅5̅7̅; sigfigs has overline at the start, while repeating has overline at the end.

what he did was fine as it's an exact conversion 1 inch = exactly 2.54 cm and you can go from there.

If the height is exact 6700, they will usually add some random number, otherwise people wouldn't believe it is 6700...

And -75F is -60C. Mind blowing. Even a human would have a problems surviving that. How could survive mouse body having a much bigger surface area to a volume ratio? Heat insulated nests maybe?

> temperatures sometimes plunge below minus 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sometimes. And the mice are usually hibernating during that time.

There's a spider in the Himalayas that lives at even higher altitudes, living on rocks warmed by the sun and surviving on gnats and flies that get blown up the mountain from temperate climates.

"Insectopedia," by Hugh Raffles contains a chapter on high-altitude, silk-gliding spiders, as well as enthralling musings on other subjects.

This book is not an encyclopedic take on insects, but is an eccentric, ambagious collection of good writing. My favorite airline book experience.

Curiosity led me to the Himalayan jumping spider:

> Euophrys omnisuperstes (the species name means "standing above everything"), the Himalayan jumping spider, is a small jumping spider that lives at elevations of up to 6,700 m (22,000 ft) in the Himalayas, including Mount Everest, making it a candidate for the highest known permanent resident on Earth. They are found among rocky debris, feeding on tiny, stray springtails and flies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euophrys_omnisuperstes

(Aw, I read "Moose" and was so disappointed when I clicked through.)

As a random tidbit there's also a bizarre tiny pink armadillo that lives up there. It lives in holes and has a plug-shaped rear end. It's one of those critters that, when you see it, makes you go "C'mon Nature, you're putting me on, eh?"

Surely not? The point of the find is that this is the first time a mammal has been found at such an elevation.

Sorry, I meant the high mountain desert, not all the way up there where the mouse is.

They should give the mouse an MRI.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-cells-into-...

If you give a mouse an MRI, he'll ask for a PET scan.

And when you give him an ultrasound, he'll ask for sound-conducting jelly.

But if you give him a PET scan, he won't ask you for a CAT scan.

>It’s incredible that anything could live that high, at 20,340 feet—there is no vegetation, and seemingly nothing to eat.

There's clearly vegetation in the background of the photo.

Seems like the photo was taken at a lower altitude. What the summit actually looks like can be seen in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGUDXs8Z31A

> The work has received funding from the National Geographic Society and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, as better understanding adaptations to high altitude life is “potentially relevant in treating a number of human diseases that relate to... problems with oxygen delivery and oxygen utilization,” he says.

I often wonder how discoveries like this ultimately manifest into actionable technology. Are they studying cell structure? DNA? What does that process look like?

> The results could also aid doctors in treating altitude sickness and coping with life at high altitude or elsewhere where there are low levels of oxygen.

That makes me wonder if the end goal is some kind of pharmaceutical drug.

Very interesting nonetheless!

It’s almost impossible to predict how any knowledge will be used in the future. What is certain is that if you look at almost anything that exists in modern society, its existence depends on thousands of knowledge morsels, few of which were created with such eventual application in mind. That’s why successful civilizations must invest in knowledge regardless of its apparent practical relevance.

I think the reality is that researchers justify themselves to grant writing organizations in whatever way they can but are often just doing science for it's own sake.

Anecdotally, I watched a talk about how the structure of the ribosome was solved, and the researcher mentioned that they justified themselves to grant writing organizations by saying it would help develop antibiotics - which did turn out to be the case, but they described themselves as feeling amused rather than vindicated.

I believe it was this talk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRIDCQM3d7I

Bingo. While understandable, I fear the need to justify nearly all research by potential foreseeable gain limits our ability to invest in truly fundamental science.

Well, researchers have learned to play the game and with enough creativity you can make up potential applications for grant writing purposes.

Yes, grant-style funding is really bad for basic research. For where larger institutes have the advantage: a few prestigious findings can bring the funding to do a lot of less glamorous stuff on the side.

> often just doing science for its own sake

Or trying to advance their careers, which isn't the same thing, as it's self-interest without regard for whether science is being meaningfully advanced.

I mean sure, but people don't generally go into a career in science unless they're genuinely interested in it.

I've read horror stories about toxic careerism in science where real scientific progress is only ever a by-product.

You'd be surprised. Some really enjoy the status game and the power dynamics.

“These creatures you call mice you see are not quite as they appear, they are merely the protrusions into our dimension of vast, hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings.” ~ Slartibartfast, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It's all a conspiracy by the Walt Disney Company.

I think he was just trying to hitch a ride from a high point before the impending destruction of Earth

It's an experiment upon humans of course. Be found where no mouse should be; see how humans react on Hacker News. (-:

What world record was he breaking?

Not just any mouse, a "yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse". And he's adorable!

How does this altitude compare with ground level on mars? Air pressure wise.

Air pressure on Earth at 6700m is around 430mBar. [0] Pressure on Mars (at the artificially defined zero-level) is 6 mBar [1] and twice as much at the lowest point of Mars' surface [2], Hellas Planitia, which is a huge crater in the southern hemisphere with its lowest point around 9000m below zero.

[0] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=air+pressure+6700m

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_(Planet)

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellas_Planitia

Ah thanks! So the mouse couldn’t live there ...

the lack of oxygen would get it first i think :)

How long was the mouse's tail?

In 1927 col walter snetterton disappeared while trying to cross the Andes by frog. Maybe someone tried with mice?

I read it as MOOSE and I was like HOLY CRAP!

Who moved my cheese?

Good book

Oh, an actual mouse, not a computer mouse.

Nature's resilience, adaptability, and resourcefulness underscores how much we have to pollute it to cause so many extinctions, deserts, and wastelands. How much beauty do we have to see or lose to change our values from growth at all costs and externalizing costs to enjoying what we have and taking responsibility for how our behavior affects others?

It seems convenient that the scientists who arranged an expedition to look for mice at high altitude find one higher than any mouse seen before. My skeptical side wonders if the guy who was obviously at the peak before Jay Storz in the video, brought the mouse up, and let it go so that it could be found. Hopefully unrelated researchers who don't use the same guides, etc... are able to also find mice at similarly high altitudes.

That's not skepticism, that's conspiracy theory. The previous record elevation for finding a mouse was on the same mountain. It would be more surprising if the first expedition actually found the elevation limit of these mice, rather than the follow-up expedition that was specifically investigating whether they ranged any higher.

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