Which Will Kill You First?

The body can get a whole lot colder - but not a whole lot hotter - before we die. Why is that?

LEARN MORE
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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
Hyperthermia: a medical condition where an individual's body temperature is elevated beyond normal
Hypothermia: a medical doncition that occurs when an individual's body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different
Denaturation: the alteration of a protein shape through some form of external stress (for example, heat), so that it can no longer carry out its cellular function

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CREDITS
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Kate Yoshida | Script Writer, Narrator and Director
Sarah Berman | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

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Sarah Berman • Arcadi Garcia Rius
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REFERENCES
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Lepock JR (2004). Role of nuclear protein denaturation and aggregation

Leuenberger, P, Ganscha S, Kahraman A, Cappelletti V, PJ Boersema, Mering Cv, Claassen M, Picotti P (2017). Cell-wide analysis of protein thermal unfolding reveals determinants of thermostability

[F_L_U_X]

I had a 107F fever as a kid. I just remember hallucinating and losing consciousness and having weird dreams and then not knowing if I was awake or asleep.

[z-beeblebrox]

Really appreciate the flex of posting on April 1st and actively ignoring the day

[DarkShadow]

I think I understood what you tried to explain. When we slowly warm up from being very cold, we can roast marshmallows with a bear. Right?

[self-proclaimednimwit]

As someone who lives in a tropical country, I can't stand heat! I feel like my brain is melting. Guess I picked the wrong place to live.

[rodrigotolosa]

Man, my mom used to talk about how afraid she got when I was a little kid and got sick, because 3 or 4 times I had 41°C fevers and I never really understood what that meant. This puts thing in perpective.

[dfpcmaia]

It took me a little while to realize 13C and 47C were internal body temps and not environment temps, for a second I was like whaaaat 13C isn’t too bad!

[kurumi]

Cold: starts off uncomfortable, then painful, then suddenly becomes relatively painless and loses consciousness
Hot: uncomfortable and sticky and sweaty until dying of dehydration
Yeah no thanks

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

"We are already playing with fire"
deep down inside, we are firebenders

[neAutumnLeaf]

Loving the Howls moving castle reference!

[Shatterverse]

I thought you were going to do _external_ temperature, which of course is a different story, and relies heavily on temperature differential rather than absolute temperature.

[Lightning_Lance]

"Ok-k-k-k-kay Rose, y-y-y-your time to hang on the d-d-d-door now. P-p-p-pull me up."
"Oh Jack, you're so brave. Thank you for your sacrifice."
"W-w-what? No Rose, p-p-pull me up, Rose...."

[mousermind]

1:53
_"Oh, two people in cold wa-_
_"OH, NO! YOU USED TITANIC FOR THIS. How could you? That's... awwwwh, man..."_

[Jessie_Helms]

Recently I caught covid for a _fourth time_ and hit 102.8 before taking some more fever reducers and going to sleep.

I had the most bizarre, unsettling, horrific dream of my life. Thousands of years passed, it was excruciating.

And then I woke up and just had to _deal_ with being a normal mortal human being who was moderately sick.

[lukasmickevicius]

I see you're a fan of Studio Ghibli! (Sophie & Calcifer from HMC)

[steffenvongrabau]

Instructions unclear, went camping with a bear. I'm now missing my right arm

[sketchykitten]

“What would kill you first, heat, or cold-ness”
Me: *a math test*

[ericyang]

"and things can go back to normal" * shows bear toasting marshmellows with human *
if that was intentional, it was perfect comedic timing XD

[Ens_wei]

I like how there were faces on the inner organs to hide the fact that freezing to death is a pretty horrible death.

[flyingbicycles]

I though this would be more of an analysis: at what speed could each temp kill you, and how close is it to your body temp? Like some sort of integral analysis of killing speed vs temperature. Obviously being superheated to 10, 000, 000 degrees will kill you instantly, as would superchilling you to 1K, but is there some sort of formula?

Eh, I learned a lot either way 😁

[cbsboyer]

My normal body temperature is about 2ºF cooler than the average, so it can be frustrating to explain to people why I feel awful when I'm "only" running a fever of 100-101ºF.