# Body Temperature **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 3, 2014, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927 "2014-06-03T14:26:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/21 "2014-06-03T17:30:44Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > There’s an old joke about a guy who got rid of the speedometer in his car because he didn’t need it. When asked how he knew how fast he was going, he said At 30MPH the doors rattle, at 40MPH the hood also rattles, at 50MPH the steering wheel rattles, too, and at 60MPH, I rattle along with the rest. There was a story I once read about a musician who was nicked for speeding in his vintage car which had no working speedometer. In court he explained that he could tell what speed he was doing by the sound of the gearbox, and at 30 mph it whined at A flat. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/22 "2014-06-03T18:10:09Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > A friend of mine is a Dr. I asked him once where the heater in our body was and he started telling me about a gland that regulates our temp. I said I was not interested in the thermostat I wanted to know about the heater. He got very frustrated and said," why are you asking me this". He didn’t know how to explain it I assume. I have always assumed that oxygen was binding with nitrogen and hydrogen compounds stripping them of carbon somehow creating heat durring the reaction, but really have no idea for sure. Carbohydrates provide the bulk of the fuel for our bodies. They are “burned” with oxygen (releasing heat) and turn into water and Carbon Dioxide. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/23 "2014-06-03T18:13:23Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > I asked her, jokingly, if I was dead and she was not amused. Happened to me last time I was in my doctor’s office for a checkup and the nurse had trouble finding my pulse. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/24 "2014-06-03T18:23:04Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > There was a story I once read about a musician who was nicked for speeding in his vintage car which had no working speedometer. In court he explained that he could tell what speed he was doing by the sound of the gearbox, and at 30 mph it whined at A flat. No trouble believing that, at all. Fun ‘n’ E-Z experiment you can try at home: next time you’re humming a tune in the shower, after you towel off, grab yer blow-dryer and see if what you’re humming can match the pitch of yer BD. If you reach the pitch, (women will have a better time than men as their voices are higher) the humming will sound twice as loud in your head, and if you can waver a little above or below the pitch, you’ll get nifty vibes in your head. I freaked out Mrs. Burpo with that last week (She has a Master’s in music, and didn’t know some things have their own pitch–the things they teach in college, nowadays! 😃 ) Big laffs! ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/25 "2014-06-03T19:28:40Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Not only is everything in your body a heater, but everything, period, is a heater. Well, everything that involves energy in any way, at least. If you eat 3000 Calories worth of food, by the end of the day, almost all of those Calories have been converted to heat. If your computer draws 100 watts, then every thousand seconds (16 minutes 40 seconds), it has produced 100 kJ of heat. If you burn ten gallons of gasoline in a road trip in your car, when you pull back into your driveway you’ve converted the entire energy content of 10 gallons of gasoline into heat. So… Why aren 't “cold blooded” animals (snakes come to mind) able to heat themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/26 "2014-06-03T19:34:40Z")
They do, but for whatever reason they have not evolved the same mechanisms that ‘warm-blooded’ animals have for regulating and keeping that heat. They just lose it to the environment. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/27 "2014-06-03T21:22:23Z")
> [@Inna\_Minnit](#): > > So… Why aren 't “cold blooded” animals (snakes come to mind) able to heat themselves? They do: if they are very active their bodies heat up just like a mammal’s body would. What they don’t is a thermostat. When a mammal gets cold, it speeds up its metabolic processes to generate more heat to stay at the same temperature (and also does a bunch of other things to retain generated heat). A snake just lets itself get cold. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/28 "2014-06-03T21:39:32Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > there is brown fat which has the purpose of generating heat. Also, shivering. Shivering is just your body making otherwise useless muscle movements for the purpose of generating waste heat. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/29 "2014-06-03T22:03:42Z")
Most “warm-blooded” creatures also have insulation like fur or feathers, which most “cold-blooded” creatures lack. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/30 "2014-06-04T03:47:10Z")
As well as sweat glands, etc. to shed excess heat, which is equally crucial. In fact, that’s what makes us naked, sweaty humans the best endurance runners on the planet. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/31 "2014-06-04T04:44:35Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > No heat organ? Well, no, there’s no organ whose only purpose is to generate heat, but most of your organs generate heat in the process of functioning. Even more so when you are actively using them. Actually, we do too have a specific “heat organ” – lots of them, in fact, strategically distributed throughout the body. They are called [del]midi-chlorians[/del] mitochondria (singular: [mitochondrion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion)), and most cells contain or or many of them. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/32 "2014-06-04T15:28:10Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > They do: if they are very active their bodies heat up just like a mammal’s body would. > > What they don’t is a thermostat. When a mammal gets cold, it speeds up its metabolic processes to generate more heat to stay at the same temperature (and also does a bunch of other things to retain generated heat). A snake just lets itself get cold. Not to get too metaphysical, but when a snake, eg, gets “cold,” does it feel cold, ie, uncomfortable, … Hell, any sensation like those that snakes do have? Or does it–usually? always?–slow down its metabolism (ie, “always” means that’s the way it’s built) so it all evens out in the end? I always sort of wondered this since I was a kid. Thanks to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/33 "2014-06-04T15:42:33Z")
A word I’ve always loved and don’t get to use much: when the temp drops, “cold-blooded” animals go into **[torpor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpor)**. Not sure, but I don’t believe “cold-blooded” animals have any kind of fat deposits to draw on. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/34 "2014-06-04T21:35:53Z")
Cold-blooded animals are exothermic;i.e., they get their heat from the environment. Warm-blooded animals are endothermic; i.e., they produce their own heat. Endothermics need a lot of food to produce heat. They have to eat at least once daily. Exothermics, not so much, and their need for food is not daily. For instance, an alligator can go for weeks without eating. That is why you see turtles and ducks and other water life next to a gator. They seem to know when it is not hungry. In the cold mornings, exothermics are not active. They wait for the heat of the day to warm them up sufficiently. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927/35 "2014-06-04T22:22:21Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > A word I’ve always loved and don’t get to use much: when the temp drops, “cold-blooded” animals go into **[torpor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpor)**. > > Not sure, but I don’t believe “cold-blooded” animals have any kind of fat deposits to draw on. IIRC some lizards have large fat reserves in their tail to buffer against hungry periods. I’d suspect other lizards do too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/body-temperature/689927.md?page=1)