All articles tagged with #bajau
NPR’s Far-Flung Postcards visits Torosiaje, a unique Bajau seafaring village built on stilts over Sulawesi’s coast, where residents protect and cultivate mangroves to revive fish habitats, shield the shoreline, and even harvest mangrove seeds for soap, medicine, skincare, and cake flour.
A Copenhagen-led study finds Sama-Bajau divers who spend hours daily underwater have unusually large spleens that release extra red blood cells during dives, suggesting a inherited physiological adaptation rather than training alone. The finding, published in Cell, highlights how long-standing environmental pressures shape human biology, a pattern echoed by high-altitude Tibetans (EPAS1) and Andean populations with larger lungs, underscoring that evolution continues to tailor bodies to oxygen challenges globally—often with trade-offs such as risks to other bodily systems.