It’s been reported that former Duke basketball star Paolo Banchero, the first overall pick of the 2022 NBA draft, loses up to seven pounds of sweat each basketball game.
Like Banchero, warm-blooded animals cool off by evaporating water, either by sweating or panting. Under normal circumstances, animals have water in their bodies to spare. But in the desert, it’s a hot commodity, creating a catch-22 for organisms: risk overheating or risk dehydration.
“That's the one-two punch that really makes it difficult to survive,” says animal physiologist Eric Riddell at Iowa State University.
