Genetic Evidence for High-Altitude Adaptation in Tibet

Identified EPAS1 as the strongest signal of natural selection in Tibetan genomes, explaining their blunted hemoglobin response to high altitude. Tibetans avoid the excessive red blood cell production seen in Andean highlanders, achieving the same functional outcome through a different mechanism.

This demonstrates that convergence on function doesn't require convergence on mechanism - multiple paths can lead to the same fitness peak. For business, companies may converge on outcomes (e.g., telehealth access) while diverging on implementation (human physicians vs. AI triage).