Study Of Adaptive Functional Evolution Of Leptin In Cold-Adaptive Pika Family Shows Potential To Treat Human Diseases

Clearly the "cure" is just around the corner.

Leptin has been associated with overweight and obesity, hence the hook for funding.

"Researchers at the Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences have put forward the viewpoint for the first time that adaptive functional evolution may occur in the leptin protein of the pika (Ochotona) family, a typical cold-adaptive mammal. They speculated that the cold, rather than hypoxia, may be the primary environmental factor that drives the adaptive evolution of pika leptin...

Pikas are small non-hibernating lagomorphs living only in cold regions at either high altitudes or high latitudes and have a maximum distribution of species diversification confined to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (average altitude >3000 m), which is called the "roof of the world" and "third polar of the world". The low temperature and hypoxia are the two most remarkable climatic characteristics of the Plateau. During evolution, pikas have become highly hypoxic- and low temperature-tolerant mammals with markedly high resting metabolic rates, non-shivering thermogenesis, and a high ratio of oxygen utilization to cope with the cold and hypoxic plateau environment."

Shut up.