How Do Our Big Noses Compare To The Flatter Ones Of Other Primates?

Plants and Animals





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Air is conditioned poorly in the human nasal cavity. T. Nishimura et al., PLOS Computational Biology 2016 CC BY 2.0

One of the jobs of the nose and nasal passage is to “condition” the air we breathe: Matching the temperature and humidity of inhaled air to that of the lungs prevents damage to tissues in the respiratory system. Compared to the flat nasal features of chimpanzees and macaques, our protruding nose – a legacy of earlier Homo – conditions the air poorly, according to new findings published in PLOS Computational Biology.