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Water is crucial for our survival , and yet more than 96 % of the major planet ’s limpid water supply is sea pee — and it moderate so much table salt that it ’s undrinkable by humans .
Salty ocean water wo n’t allay your hunger , and drinking too much can even lead to demise by evaporation .
Saltwater quickly causes dehydration.
But if saltwater is still pee , why ca n’t we drink it ?
The answer to that enquiry is actually passably straightforward : Saltwater is simply too salty for our kidneys to manage .
Approximately 3.5 % of saltwater ’s weightiness add up from dissolved common salt , fit in to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA ) . If all the salt in the oceans were removed and spread over every land surface on Earth , the salty level would predominate more than 500 animal foot ( 166 meters ) high — about as tall as a 40 - floor power building , NOAA tell . The salinity , or salinity , of seawater is too gamy for human to safely process , as our cell require water supply " in a relatively pure word form , " enunciate Rob DeSalle , a conservator in the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural chronicle in New York City .
Saltwater quickly causes dehydration.
" For most animate being , the kidneys filter impurities out of water , " DeSalle told Live Science , tell Live Science . " What happen when you wassail seawater is you absorb alotof salt that the body now demand to wash out [ of the body ] . "
touch : Why ca n’t humans abide corn whisky ?
It does this in the form of urine , which the kidney make by break up impureness in excess water , which is then sent to the bladder to be eliminated . But the kidney can only bring forth water that is less salty than our blood , according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , and saltwater contains more than three times the amount of table salt that is normally present in human lineage . This means that for every cup of saltwater you fuddle , you ’d want to drink at least the same volume of weewee in order for your kidneys to flush out all that salinity .
" You might say ‘ why not just toast more seawater ? ' " DeSalle said . " But then you ’re just leave with more salt that you ’d then have to blush with even more water . So saltwater can never quench your thirst — it can only make you thirstier . "
Some animals can drink saltwater, so why can’t we?
Some animals , in sea ecosystem , however , have adaptations that countenance them to safely imbibe saltwater . Seabirds such as albatrosses , patsy and penguin , which might expend weeks on the candid ocean with no freshwater in sight , have specialized salinity glands and channel in their bills for filtering and purge excess saltiness from ingested water before it hits their stomachs and is steep into their rip , harmonize to the Audubon Society . devil dog mammals such as whale , dolphinfish and seals have also evolved adaptation to life in an environment where freshwater is scarce or absent .
— Is it good to drink moonshine ?
— Does drinking milk make your body produce more mucous secretion ?
— How much water do you really need to drink ?
" Marine mammalian have conform special enzymes and cellular structures that provide them to purge extra salt from their systems , " DeSalle said . " It ’s like they have super kidneys . "
So why do n’t we ? Why did humans — and intimately all other domain animals , for that issue — germinate to toast freshwater when saltwater is so much more plentiful ? As animal emerge from the ancient seas hundreds of millions of age ago and began adjust to life on land , specie moved away from coastal home ground where there was draw of seawater . Many tellurian species — include our primate root — eventually came to inhabit inland ecosystem that had plenty of freshwater in lakes and rivers , but very few , if any , saltwater sources . This likely shaped biologic adaptations for imbibing water that was n’t salty .
" Most of our ancestors were not exhibit to saltwater , whether it ’s creature in world-wide , primates , or insectivore , " DeSalle said . " So natural extract honed in on process unsalty water , and our physiology became so alright - tune that cut off it with brine down the line becomes very dangerous and damaging . "
earlier published on Live Science on Jan. 28 , 2013 and rewritten on June 23 , 2022 .
