What happens to our bodies at extremes?
What happens to our bodies at extremes?
Before 1953, every attempt to climb Mount Everest had failed. Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary finally made it to the top after a scientist investigated how climbers were affected by high altitudes.
Griffith Pugh from the National Institute for Medical Research designed the 1953 expedition’s schedule for acclimatising to altitude, and advised when and how oxygen tanks should be used.
The first person to understand that dehydration slows oxygen movement around the body, Griffith recommended climbers drank six times more water than usual. He even designed and tested the warm, lightweight boots worn on the first successful climb.
Griffith Pugh (right) conducting an alveali air test, Nepal 1953 (Photo: Royal Geographical Society)
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The National Institute for Medical Research is now part of the Francis Crick Institute.
Here, Peter Ratcliffe studies how cells sense and respond to low oxygen levels, a situation seen in anaemia, lung diseases and some cancers. In 2019, Peter won a Nobel Prize for this work.
