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The planet may be warming, but a recent study indicates that mankind is going the other direction.
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have established that people's bodies are now typically cooler than the textbook figure of 37C, first established by German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich in 1868.
The study shows that modern-day men have a body temperature 0.58C lower than their 19th century counterparts, while women's are 0.32C lower.
This decrease has been attributed to "changes in our environment over the past 200 years, which have in turn driven physiological changes". However, the study acknowledges that establishing cause and effect remains "inherently unprovable".
The rate of decline is about 0.03°C per birth decade. Body temperature is a marker for metabolic rate and could partially explain changes in human health and longevity over time.
Journal Reference:
Myroslava Protsiv, Catherine Ley, Joanna Lankester, Trevor Hastie, Julie Parsonnet. Decreasing human body temperature in the United States since the Industrial Revolution, (DOI: doi:10.7554/eLife.49555)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @06:55AM (2 children)
Thalidomide, anyone?
This photo gallery is worth perusing.
https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/thalidomide?sort=mostpopular&mediatype=photography&phrase=thalidomide [gettyimages.com]
I started school with a pretty little girl, Susan, who had half a right arm, and less than half her left arm. I didn't know enough to ask her how or why that happened, but it seems reasonable that she was a thalidomide victim. Mama took bad drugs while she was pregnant.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @07:41AM (1 child)
Also explains Runaway's half a dick. Mourning sickness was the least of his mother's worries.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @01:00PM
You heard the lady wrong. It's not "half a dick", it's "half a mule's dick". Next time you're driving along, and see a mule with his dick hanging to the ground, you just think about me.