Researchers uncover Yak genes responsible for their altitude tolerance
(Phys.org) -- For some four thousand years, people in Tibet have relied on Yaks to help them survive in the high altitudes in which they live. The Yaks have proven over time that they are far better at dealing with high mountain living than are cows, which are more prevalent in other societies around the world. Scientists have known for years that cows and Yaks are closely related, and that the two were once the same species, having diverged just shy of five million years ago, which is roughly the same time span that humans and chimps went their separate ways. Now, new research by an international team of biologists and geneticists has taken apart the Yak genome and found, as they describe in their paper published in Nature Genetics, the genes that are responsible for allowing the Yak to thrive at such high altitudes.