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posted by martyb on Monday January 20 2020, @02:38AM   Printer-friendly
from the you're-as-cold-as-ice dept.

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)


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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @02:46AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @02:46AM (#945621)

    Everybody feels warmer because their blood is cooler.
    Do I win an award?

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by RandomFactor on Monday January 20 2020, @02:52AM

      by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @02:52AM (#945624) Journal

      +1 Inevitable

      --
      В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @03:32AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @03:32AM (#945642)

      The earth isn't warming, we're just getting cooler

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @03:56AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @03:56AM (#945646)

        That...that was what they said...

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 20 2020, @10:43PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday January 20 2020, @10:43PM (#946040) Journal

      Yes, because clearly the way we are measuring multi-decadal single degree global changes in temperature is by going outside and saying if it's chilly or not.

      This joke would be a lot more funny if you weren't constantly making claims that are equal in stupidity to this one.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday January 20 2020, @03:07AM (3 children)

    by Gaaark (41) on Monday January 20 2020, @03:07AM (#945632) Journal

    maybe they can measure temperatures more accurately today?

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by RandomFactor on Monday January 20 2020, @03:20AM

      by RandomFactor (3682) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @03:20AM (#945638) Journal

      TFA mentions that

      As part of the study, the authors investigated the possibility that the decrease could reflect improvements in thermometer technology.

      --
      В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 20 2020, @06:43PM (1 child)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday January 20 2020, @06:43PM (#945911) Journal

      Of course, you would claim that was some kind of a conspiracy if this was a certain other scientific domain.

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:02AM

        by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:02AM (#946136) Journal

        No, what I would say is that what they are trying to measure doesn't exist, so why don't they start spending the money measuring something that MIGHT actually exist.

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Monday January 20 2020, @03:28AM (7 children)

    by looorg (578) on Monday January 20 2020, @03:28AM (#945641)

    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.

    Then how come she is always complaining about being cold and messing with the thermostat?

    ... changes in our environment over the past 200 years, which have in turn driven physiological changes

    Perhaps 200 years ago almost everybody had a job that would today be considered as heavy manual labor? While today a lot of people, at least in the west, have a job that mostly amounts to being quite still and perhaps type at a keyboard of some kind. Then we come home and sit on the couch and watch TV etc. We have just slowed down voluntarily.

    They also suggest the cooling may be due to a population-wide decline in inflammation, with our bodies subjected to fewer infections and diseases as a result of improvements in modern medicine.

    The stupid gluten free hipster diet, unless there is a massive increase in people with celiac disease I missed, is killing us all by freezing us to death.

    • (Score: 2) by looorg on Monday January 20 2020, @06:16AM (3 children)

      by looorg (578) on Monday January 20 2020, @06:16AM (#945690)

      I gather there is an optimal zone of temperature between say hypothermia (core below 35c) and hyperthermia (core above 37,5c). That said if normal is between 35c and 37,5c with the average being around 36,5c then there is a bit of a span and at least we are not getting hotter. So the question might be how bad is it to be at the top of of the cold meter, perhaps it's good. If the brain is the CPU of the body we can soon start overclocking ...

      After all if you are freezing, to a degree, you can always just put on more clothing, consume hot things, increase the surrounding temperature, move around a lot. Doing things to make you stay warm. Getting colder tho is in my opinion harder -- you can't get more naked then naked, you can only drink so much and unless you want to live in a refrigerator there just is so much you can do.

      That or the alien lizard infiltration has now reach such levels that they are having a significant effect on the averages.

      • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday January 20 2020, @06:43AM

        by mhajicek (51) on Monday January 20 2020, @06:43AM (#945695)

        That's what persperation is for.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @04:39PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @04:39PM (#945877)

        you can always just put on more clothing

        What an absolute fallacy. When I'm cold -- cold to the bone, especially -- I'm _cold_ and I'm not getting warmer. Putting on "extra clothes" just makes me _colder_ (they're room temperature, not warmer), and will reduce my temperature further as my body has to expend additional energy warming them up. The whole problem is I'm _cold_. Adding additional cold layers keeps me colder, and often enough insulates the cold in with me -- it's easier to warm the environment than warm my body.

        Next up, being outside, there are only so many layers that you can put on. Can you wear three pairs of gloves? I currently wear three coats for my bike ride to work. I can't realistically put on more. Leggings, anything too puffed out gets caught in the bike chain. I can't do more than one pair of boots. It has its limits.

        When I'm hot, I can always take things off: when I expose my skin to the environment, my body has a built-in cooling mechanism. Sweat beads to the surface of my skin and evaporates, VERY EFFECTIVELY cooling my body. Without being wrapped in layers and layers of cotton garb, my body has a method to provide for a hot environment, to something far outside core body temperature.

        Cold is terrible. Cold is something that my body cannot provide for. (Maybe yours can, which strikes me as weird, but mine most certainly can not.)

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:30AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @03:30AM (#946146)
          Warm your clothes up with a heater or hair dryer first then put them on?

          The fact is humans only have a narrow comfortable operating range. Too hot is also a big problem. Lots of people die in heatwaves too.

          That said it's probably easier to invent better insulation, heating and cold wear vs Antarctic levels of cold, whereas you're going to be stuck in air conditioned areas when ambient is 45C and humidity is high. And keep in mind all those air conditioners are pumping out heat making the area even hotter too...
    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @06:51AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @06:51AM (#945697)

      Then how come she is always complaining about being cold and messing with the thermostat?

      This is rather indelicate, but how well do you know this "she"? Some things do not transfer in gender re-assignment surgery.

      • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:53AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @11:53AM (#945753)

        I'm a crossdresser so I have experience with silky smooth skin. If I shave my entire body? I'll feel a LOT colder. It also doesn't help women's clothing is a lot thinner and more revealing than Joe's outfit.

        But I'll be damned if that deters me from 👗dressing👠 up.

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday January 20 2020, @06:08PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday January 20 2020, @06:08PM (#945903) Homepage

      Women feel colder because they suffer from anemia and other malnutrition due to their fad vegetarian diets. Eating more beef is a great way to solve that problem by both warming women as well as the environment around them.

  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @03:36AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @03:36AM (#945643)

    Slashdot has a post on this

    https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/01/18/013229/986-degrees-fahrenheit-isnt-the-average-anymore [slashdot.org]

    and the global warming joke was already posted there in the comments.

    Anyways the discussion there is worth going through.

    • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday January 20 2020, @06:46AM (2 children)

      by mhajicek (51) on Monday January 20 2020, @06:46AM (#945696)

      I had forgotten about Slashdot. Buck feta.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @06:53AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @06:53AM (#945699)

        What is this "Slashdot" of which you speak? Is it a Boomer thing? Was it once as mighty as a Buzzard, or GeoCities, Yahoo, and Pets.com? Oh, how the minty have fallen!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @02:13PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @02:13PM (#945813)

        Yeah, I stopped reading there when they prevented ACs from posting.

        What did I ever do to them?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @05:35AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @05:35AM (#945676)

    Things like this are a big part of the reason I tend to always obsess over unforeseen consequences. The activities we engage in, the foodstuffs (let alone pharmaceuticals) we consume, and many other topics are things we still do not really understand.

    The standard test for the safety of a product is it not causing grievous harm to you in a short period of time - 6 months on the high end. But this standard for safety is a complete joke. By that standard, cigarettes are perfectly safe. But more importantly than that, there are factors that may not immediately harm us but can affect us, or even our children, in ways that are nearly imperceptible on a micro-level. Lowered testosterone, lowered fertility, lowered IQ, [apparently] lowered body temps, and a million other things are all happening at once. Why? Where are these effects coming from? We can create a billion hypotheses but, as this paper mentions, it's practically impossible to definitively pin down cause and effect on these things. And in fact in some cases there may not even be a cause. Species, including ourselves, are constantly evolving over time in ways we have very limited control over anything other than dysgenic factors.

    The whole point of this is that if something seems like a bad idea to you, then don't do it - even if people insist it is safe. As an example, some folks tend to pop a tylenol/paracetamol at the slightest discomfort. Yet I find it disconcerting how we are still discovering new things about the effects of these drugs. And so I do not take pain killers in general, even though I've had a major back surgery which means pretty substantial pain flare ups are a regular part of life. I also tend to try to avoid meat loaded with antiobiotics and other artificial hormones. It's not hard - buy meats that aren't farm raised, such as venison or wild boar. Just so happens these meats are not only absurdly delicious but also surprisingly cheap. I also find it much more ethical than our commercial ranching systems.

    All in all - come up with your own ethos, after taking into consideration the breadth (or lack thereof) of knowledge on a topic. And then stick to it. The more folks sticking to precisely prescribed behavior, the more damaging it is as we continue to get such prescriptions completely wrong. Remember it wasn't long ago that leaded fuel exhaust was, according to science and the government, perfectly safe for you.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @06:55AM (2 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @06:55AM (#945700) Journal

      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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @07:41AM (#945712)

        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

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @01:00PM (#945778) Journal

          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.

  • (Score: 1) by Occam_s_blade_runner on Monday January 20 2020, @07:42AM (5 children)

    by Occam_s_blade_runner (9252) on Monday January 20 2020, @07:42AM (#945713)

    Over 100 years or so, there is supposedly a heavy trend of getting less and less daily calories from fat.
    A high fat diet turns your body into a furnace. Eskimos eat the blubber to achieve this. I am by default skeptical about science. I did it on me and it turned out to be true (but n = 1). You can test this yourself, the effect is very fast to observe.

    This is yet another example of the generally broken science process nowadays. Here specifically: the fact that scientists do not sufficiently read prior art before trying to publish something, the fact that they do not seek to apply Occam's razor principle systematically, but so many more problems like the ridiculous threshold for declaring a result statistically significant, the lack of mastery of technology developed by others, the lack of mastery of statistics, the fact that the principle investigator is all too often actually just a professional grant seeker and master of getting published with trendy buzzwords and not rigorously validating the work of his young servile scientists horde. Been there, done that, only as a young servile scientist though.

    • (Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Monday January 20 2020, @10:37AM (2 children)

      by shrewdsheep (5215) on Monday January 20 2020, @10:37AM (#945738)

      You seem to be a good scientist then. Working in academia, I can confirm that most of your criticism holds true, it is a social process after all not primarily dictated by scientific thinking let alone a rigorous thinking process. From a meta-perspective, you do not have to be as negative though. The wheel gets reinvented all the time, this way all areas get some love again after being forgotten for so long (that is very similar to how fashion works). This in turn brings old ideas into the current context which can leads to new things (neural networks, anyone?).
       

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 20 2020, @12:51PM (1 child)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 20 2020, @12:51PM (#945773) Journal

        They're busy reinventing the wheel, sure enough. Machinery has to be greased, if you expect it to last. Or, I should say "lubricated", since there are many lubricants besides grease. Anyway, Arburg has reinvented the grease nipple, or alamite, or grease xerk. They give you a stupid little indentation on the equipment where the grease is supposed to go, and a little tube that you insert into that indentation. Push a couple of times, and grease is supposed to flow. Supposed to, anyway. I've found almost-but-not-quite the same indentation on the new robots as well. Except that indentation isn't quite the same as Arburg's. So now, we have two new "grease guns" which are only good for those specific pieces of equipment.

        The purpose of these reinvented alamites? It can only be early failure, because you just can't push grease through them very well.

        Given the opportunity, I'll drill them out, tap them, and put proper alamites in them. But, my half-witted boss won't hear of it. "They did it like that for a reason!!" I'd love to stuff a whole bunch of those reasons up his ass.

        The only recent invention regarding lubrication that is worthwhile, is the locklube system. https://locknlube.com/products/locknlube-grease-coupler [locknlube.com] Lock that sucker onto the xerk, and you don't have to hold it. No leakage, you know that your grease is going inside the knuckle, bearing, or whatever it's supposed to lubricate. I love those things.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @01:48AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 21 2020, @01:48AM (#946113)

          I'll meet your xerk and raise you a Zerk.

          Thanks for the LocknLube link, if I was using my grease gun more often I'd buy one.

    • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday January 20 2020, @01:18PM (1 child)

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Monday January 20 2020, @01:18PM (#945788)

      > Over 100 years or so, there is supposedly a heavy trend of getting less and less daily calories from fat.

      What is your point? Are you saying that body temperature has not changed, and the measurements are wrong?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @07:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 20 2020, @07:35PM (#945929)

        Maybe you could read two sentences before you reply.

  • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Monday January 20 2020, @03:04PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Monday January 20 2020, @03:04PM (#945842)

    This is like many of the clinical projects I work on - take one things from decades ago and try and project human physiology.

    "Houses kept warmer since the Industrial Revolution" would be a proper title.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by stretch611 on Monday January 20 2020, @07:06PM

    by stretch611 (6199) on Monday January 20 2020, @07:06PM (#945919)

    What the summary is saying is that women are just not as hot as they used to be... what a bummer.

    Of course, I would like to turn that around and point out that if men are not as hot as they used to be, it must mean that older men are hotter...

    With all this being said, I would point out that I am a little older than others; and currently single as well. So now, on a site like SN, I expect all the women here to start fawning over me...

    What can go wrong?!?

    =)

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
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