Probably not. Mammals and birds demand 10~100 times more oxygen to survive than other vertebrates (source), as our metabolism is rather high; I don’t think that the oxygen in water is able to supply that. And a change in that metabolic rate seems a bit too involved to be feasible, specially given that our brains use a lot of energy (thus oxygen).
The problem is that any change slowing down the metabolism would be deleterious in nature: no/slower body heating, lower brain capabilities, slower healing, increased reaction times, etc.
As a rough comparison, it’s like trying to reduce the energy demand of a computer. There’s some room for optimisation but eventually the only way to do it is by reducing the amount of things that it does, by throttling its components.
Probably not. Mammals and birds demand 10~100 times more oxygen to survive than other vertebrates (source), as our metabolism is rather high; I don’t think that the oxygen in water is able to supply that. And a change in that metabolic rate seems a bit too involved to be feasible, specially given that our brains use a lot of energy (thus oxygen).
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The problem is that any change slowing down the metabolism would be deleterious in nature: no/slower body heating, lower brain capabilities, slower healing, increased reaction times, etc.
As a rough comparison, it’s like trying to reduce the energy demand of a computer. There’s some room for optimisation but eventually the only way to do it is by reducing the amount of things that it does, by throttling its components.
Moore’s Law disagrees
Moore’s Law has no good biological equivalent. And it doesn’t even refer to energy consumption itself, but the number of transistors in a circuit.
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