On Sat, 03 Jan 1998 Joao Pedro <jpnitya@mail.esoterica.pt> Wrote:
>do you know that mammals can't produce ascorbic acid (a powerful
>anti-oxidant)?
All mammal species can make their own vitamin C, well OK, if you want to
split hairs there are a few very minor exceptions, the gibbon, orangutan,
chimpanzee, gorilla, and an odd bipedal animal with a big head. Apparently
there was a mutation that destroyed the manufacturing metabolism for that
chemical, but these organisms ate a lot of fruit and fruit has gobs of
ascorbic acid, so the mutation was not harmful and may even have been helpful,
no point in wasting effort making something if you can find it for free.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.i
iQCzAgUBNK8qNH03wfSpid95AQF1UATsCgw8hMYDUizXZM4wLv0pLBCtGEol8/X5
LzfHTdqGXqN9i+SAq92ScuFDIxh8gXDZ05dfDSPkrbAK1ZKn/EM+1ItykB+h2C76
9yNS0+nswQ8ZMB1QtNQgG4wT8qf/5wyDv4TZg4A63kNTZfaG16ltPMQc+k/jsqXq
F4v6QKSN9WHYvlq0V4tMpwjIaMf4BYmP++Ac9+ufUhTLVkiO7nM=
=fNbR
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----