Why can’t we summit huge mountains in one day? You’ve probably seen the first Deaf American and the first Deaf woman reach Mount Everest (@scottandshayna). If you’ve been following them, you’ll see them explaining the importance of acclimatization. What’s the science behind their bodies making more red blood cells to climb?
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ID: Barbara is wearing a black shirt standing in front of a grey background. At 0:04, an image of Scott and Shayna in their gear on top of Mt. Everest is shown. At 1:50, a light grey image shows a chart of the barometric pressure (mmHg) and a mountain reaching 8,000m. Red dots are oxygen and blue dots are nitrogen. A rectangle shows the atmospheric pressure from higher altitude (top) and sea level (bottom). There are more condensed blue and red dots on the bottom and less/spread out dots on the top. At 1:55, Alicia appears wearing a black shirt standing in front of a grey background. At 2:35, a white background appears of a blood vessel feeding CO2 into the alveolus that brings O2 into the blood vessel. Air goes in and out of the alveolus. At 4:22, the closing video shows white background with blue text: Enjoyed this video? Black text: Please consider donating; your support will help keep our content & resources FREE! Green button with black text: atomichands.com/donate. Image of an iPhone with Atomic Hands’ menu webpage shows with menu options: ASL STEM Storybooks, ASL STEM Videos, ASL STEM Resources, ASL STEM Dictionaries, ASL STEM News, ASL STEM Events, and Deaf STEMist Network. Next clip shows: This video is sponsored by RIT National Technical Institute for the Deaf Regional STEM Center.
Transcript: You’ve probably seen the first Deaf American (Scott) and the first Deaf woman (Shayna) to reach Mount Everest – if you’ve been following them, you’ll see them explaining the importance of acclimatization. What’s the science behind it?
The higher we go up in the atmosphere, the less pressure there is in the air, making it harder for our bodies to get enough oxygen. The percentage of oxygen in the air at high altitudes does not change, but the pressure drops! Why does the pressure drop as we go higher up in the atmosphere? Because the air is less dense the farther we are from the Earth’s core and the pull of gravity. This means there are fewer air molecules, including oxygen, pressing down on us from above. At sea level, oxygen in your lungs (specifically in the tiny air sacs called alveoli) is at a much higher pressure than in your blood vessels, so the force pushing oxygen into your blood vessels is strong, causing oxygen to move quickly into the vessels. At high altitudes, the pressure difference between alveoli and blood vessels is smaller, so there is less force pushing oxygen into your blood vessels, causing oxygen to move more slowly into the vessels. It’s like being pushed forward—you’ll go faster if someone is pushing you from behind, right? This means without acclimating, the muscles are not getting as much oxygen to generate energy or ATP that they need…especially when you’re hiking the tallest mountains in the world! They were trying to get their body to acclimate to the reduced oxygen in their muscles by breathing faster, making more red blood cells that carry oxygen, and producing more blood vessels. This helped them climb many mountains successfully! Very interesting!
