Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Zwicker D
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5866548 | biostudies-other | 2018 Mar
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
Zwicker David D Ostilla-Mónico Rodolfo R Lieberman Daniel E DE Brenner Michael P MP
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20180305 12
The nasal cavity is a vital component of the respiratory system that heats and humidifies inhaled air in all vertebrates. Despite this common function, the shapes of nasal cavities vary widely across animals. To understand this variability, we here connect nasal geometry to its function by theoretically studying the airflow and the associated scalar exchange that describes heating and humidification. We find that optimal geometries, which have minimal resistance for a given exchange efficiency, ...[more]