Salty sea water will not quench your thirst, and excess can cause death from thirst. But why can’t you drink?
The answer to this question is obvious: the salt water is too salty and the rocks cannot cope with it.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), approximately 3.5% of the weight of seawater comes from dissolved salt. According to NOAA, if all the salt in the oceans were removed and spread across the Earth’s surface, the salt layer could rise more than 500 feet (166 meters) – up to 40 times higher, he says.
Rob Desall, curator of the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History, said the salinity of seawater is too high for humans to handle safely because our cells need water in a “Pretty pure form.”
“For most animals, rocks filter waste from water. What happens when you drink salt water, you get so much salt that the body has to wash it off, ”Desale said.
This is done in the form of urine produced by the kidneys by dissolving feces in excess water and then sent to the bladder for excretion. But the kidneys can only produce urine that is less salty than our blood, and salt water contains more than three times the amount of salt normally found in human blood, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. . This means you should drink at least the same amount of water for every glass of salt water you drink, so that your kidneys can get rid of all that salt.
Desalle said, “‘Why don’t we drink saltier water?’ You might say, ”Desalle said,“ but you still have some salt left, and then you have to wash with more water. So salt water will never quench your thirst-it will quench your thirst, it will make you thirsty. “
Some animals can drink salt water, so why shouldn’t we?
“Marine mammals have developed special enzymes and cytoskeletons that allow them to remove excess salt from their systems. It’s almost like they have extra rocks, ”Desale said. Sabi.
So why not us? Why did humans-and almost all other animals on earth for that matter-evolve to drink fresh water when saltwater is more abundant? When animals emerged from the ancient seas hundreds of millions of years ago to adapt to life on land, the species moved away from coastal habitats where there was too much saltwater. Many terrestrial species, including our primate ancestors, eventually began to inhabit inland ecosystems that contained abundant freshwater in lakes and rivers, but few, if any, saltwater resources. It may have shaped biological adaptations to unsalted drinking water.
“Most of our ancestors, whether animals in general, primates or insectivores, were not exposed to saltwater. So when treating non-saline water, natural selection has improved and our physiology has become very good, ”Desale said. It would be very dangerous and harmful to disable them in salt water. ”
Source: Life Science
Source: Arabic RT
