Previous discussion, based on better NYT article: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16881818" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16881818</a><p>Original paper in Cell (full text): <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.03.054" rel="nofollow">http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.03.054</a>
This is so ridiculous I'll repeat it in this thread.<p>The "enlarged spleens" they saw (~200 cm^3) are actually closer to <i>half</i> the size of typical spleens according to their own reference for spleen measurement (~500 cm^3). They apparently found another group to compare to with even smaller spleens, then acted like that was "normal" size to get this enlarged spleen for diving narrative. Details here:
<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16884186" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16884186</a>
So how did this evolve over the past 1000 years? Selection pressure? The ancestor who could dive better had more children? Could feed his family better? Was it just one person with mutation that started it? Or, did the frequent exposure to deep diving triggered something in one generation that influenced the genes of their children (along the lines of Epigenetic magic)?
The understanding of evolution in the title of this article is appalling... They didn't evolve large spleens so they could dive.. they dove a lot which resulted in selection bias which resulted in larger spleens...