The expanded python heart appears remarkably similar to the larger-than-normal hearts of Olympic-caliber athletes. Colorado researchers report they’ve figured out how the snakes make it happen.

After a year, Dr. Cecilia Riquelme determined that she could enlarge the heart of a starved python by injecting blood from a feasting one. She dropped plasma from a fed python into a lab dish ...

To accommodate the sudden rush of sugars, fats, and proteins, ScienceNOW explains, the body goes into overdrive, and its heart expands over 40%, presumably to pump greater volumes of blood ...