A tribe in South-East Asia can dive deeper and longer than any other humans thanks to a new "mutated gene".
The Bajau tribe has resided on the coast of Indonesia for many years, spending a high quantity of their lives living in houseboats.
They are known for their strong swimming capabilities that allow them to hunt underwater with spears, as well as for their incredible lung capacities.
Their oceanic lifestyle has forced them to change their DNA so that they can hold their breath underwater for a long time.
According to The Mirror, members of this tribe can dive up to 70m (230 feet) using just a set of weights and a pair of wooden goggles.
Speaking to the BBC, Melissa Ilardo, from Cambridge University, said: "They dive repeatedly for eight hours a day, spending about 60 percent of their time underwater," as cited by the outlet.
It has been revealed that it is not just their swimming skills that help them achieve this, but also a unique genetic mutation called the “sea nomad gene”.
They also have extra-large spleens, which are organs inside your left rib cage that store and filter blood and make white blood cells that protect you from infection, per Cleveland Clinic.
The spleen plays an important role as it stores oxygenated blood, which can enable long bouts of not breathing - allowing the Bajau people to have a genetic advantage when swimming underwater.
"There's not a lot of information out there about human spleens in terms of physiology and genetics, but we know that deep diving seals, like the Weddell seal, have disproportionately large spleens," Dr. Ilardo said.
"We believe that in the Bajau they have an adaptation that increases thyroid hormone levels and therefore increases their spleen size," she continued. "It’s been shown in mice that thyroid hormones and spleen size are connected.
"If you genetically alter mice to have an absence of the thyroid hormone T4, their spleen size is drastically reduced, but this effect is actually reversible with an injection of T4," she added.
It has not been confirmed exactly how long the tribe members remain underwater without coming up for air, but some claim to have been under the sea for as long as 13 minutes.
Unfortunately, the Bajau tribe's nomadic ways are currently under threat.
Santarawi Lalisan, an elder statesman of the tribe, disclosed to Giuseppe from Project Happiness that their culture is now dying due to some members of the community - which also exists in the Philippines and Malaysia - abandoning their traditional lifestyle in favor of a more Western one.
"A lot of plastic has arrived here because today the Badjao go to the supermarket and here they use plastic and no longer paper. In the past, the Badjao only used paper when they were buying something," he said.
However, many of the tribespeople still choose to stick by their old ways.
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