The only reason pandas can subsist on bamboo is because they're so incredibly lazy

Scientists have already told us giant pandas spend so much of their day hanging out eating bamboo, a food they can barely digest. Now, a new study published in _Science_ on Friday sheds more

light on how exactly they manage to survive on that diet. Turns out, there's an easy answer: Giant pandas hardly move. The sample size is small, but the wild pandas researchers studied

spent about one-half of the time physically active, compared to just one-third for their captive counterparts. "Giant pandas have exceptionally low [daily energy expenditure], which

may facilitate survival on their diet of bamboo," the authors wrote. SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple

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to your inbox. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Aside from sitting around all day, researchers

wrote factors like their low thyroid levels and small brains, livers, and kidneys make them low-energy. Presumably, they spend their oodles of downtime watching Netflix. Explore More STEM

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