Re: Is there a Goose, of the Mt Everest veriety, that breaths in and NOT out?

Question:
I was informed by a fellow student..They were watching a documentary (for the 
50th anniversary of the Everest/Hillary climb. 
The information given refered to a goose that ,because of the extreme altitude, 
was able to breath via only INHALING and not EXHALING. Do you know of such a 
goose?

Reply:
I must admit this sounded really ...what's the right term...wacky, bizarre, 
impossible? So I did some searching on Google with the search string "goose 
breathes in not out everest"...nothing very interesting on the Web or in 
Newsgroups. So I changes "breathes" (the correct spelling of the verb) into 
"breaths" (the noun) thinking it might be misspelled. I came across this 
website:
http://www.lsplace.com/journal/2001/01/09.html
which seemed to have some elements of your impossible tale. So I followed the 
link to a 2000 article in Audobon Magazine by Lily Whiteman : 
http://magazine.audubon.org/birds/birds0011.html

Regarding the bar-headed goose:
--- begin quote ---
What's the secret to the bar-headed goose's aerobic success? "First of all, 
bar-headed geese are birds," says S. Marsh Tenney, an emeritus professor of 
physiology at Dartmouth Medical School, whose research on respiratory 
adaptations to oxygen deprivation includes studies of these highfliers. "And all 
birds are built for particularly efficient oxygen uptake." The avian breathing
system is uniquely structured. Among its special features are several sacs that 
temporarily store inhaled air that has passed through the lungs and then send it 
back through their lungs before it is exhaled. Thus, birds circulate inhaled air 
through their lungs twice--once more than earthbound mammals do--increasing 
their opportunities for capturing oxygen. 
--- end quote ---

There is some other interesting material in the article but copyright 
considerations prevent me from posting any more. It sounds to me that this 
reportage or others like it has been mangled in the telling by person or persons 
unknown, perhaps by a TV reporter or a graduate student. Thus begin so many 
urban legends. Let's see if this one catches on.

But wait...some other web sites reminded me that ALL birds have non-expansile 
lungs and that they therefore all need to have the a same arrangement that is 
being claimed to be unique to the bar-headed goose. See: 
http://www.poultryscience.org/psa/toc/papers/98/ps981130.pdf

So this is not something unique to the bar-headed goose, and a more careful 
re-reading shows me that Dr. Tenney never said that the bar-headed goose was 
unique in this respect. All birds pass air through their lungs, into air sacs, 
and then they breath the same air out through the lungs again. There probably 
are things that are different about the "Everest goose" but not their lung 
design.

Fair winds;
David Winsemius.