Now, researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder say the way the python's heart balloons after it ... @npr.org and put tickets in the subject line. Next up: Do you know that pythons ...

Still, these infrequent but humongous meals are actually normal for the python. A python's heart gets far larger and stronger after it gorges, and scientists are trying to understand how that ...

In people, high triglyceride levels are dangerous. But the python heart was burning fat so rapidly that it did not affect the arteries at all. A key enzyme that protects the heart from damage rose ...

However, the time-frame of this increased heart performance of a python blows away even the most physically-fit distance runner, Secor said. "Instead of experiencing elevated cardiac performance ...

When a Burmese python swallows a tasty rat dinner, the reptile makes new heart muscle to help digest the big meal, biologists have found. The predator has a special protein to expand its cardiac ...

(Read: Why a Giant Python Regurgitated a Lizard Half Its Size.) Scientists in California say the snakes experience a 40 percent increase in heart muscle mass within 48 hours of feeding. The change ...