According to researchers in Texas, when the pythons get around to feeding again, their atrophied major organs increase in mass by 40 to 100 percent to prepare for digestion—apparently it takes a lot to swallow a mouse whole. Within 48 hours of feeding, in fact, Burmese pythons can see up to a 44-fold increase in their metabolism. Their research is described the journal in BMC Genomics .

After Burmese pythons enjoy a meal, they undergo an extended period of fasting to save on energy. During this time, which can last as long as a year, their organs waste away.

Pythons spend probably 95 per cent of their lives fasting, said lead author Todd Castoe, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Texas at Arlington and an expert in snake genomics. Rather than have their organs using up all the precious energy during the fasting period, they let them waste away. In this study, pythons were fed in the lab every 30 days, but according to Castoe, going that long without food is nothing for these snakes compared to what they can face in the wild.

To observe the changes in pythons during their fast, the researchers compared gene expressions in snakes who were fasting to others who were one day post-feeding, and also to another group that was four days post-feeding. Using supercomputing and data analysis resources at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, they identified 1,700 genes and found that certain key sets were influencing changes in these snakes' organ structure.

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Humans could benefit from tissue and organ regeneration, too. According to the researchers, mammalian cells have responded to blood taken from pythons, although that's really preliminary and a lot more work needs to be done. Still, they think that their research could eventually be used to help heal humans.