As a bitter winter storm rages on the east coast, it’s hard to knock being warm-blooded. But what about the metabolic cost of maintaining a high body temperature? Well, a new study finds that we and many other mammals keep up such a ____1____ temp because it’s a Goldilocks situation—98.6 is just right.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine researchers previously showed that every one degree Celsius rise in body temperature ____2____ about 6 percent more fungal species. So tens of thousands of fungi can infect reptiles and amphibians, but we can only be invaded by a few hundred fungi.
In the new work, the researchers created a mathematical model that ____3____ the fungal protection benefits versus the metabolic cost of high body temperature. And the optimal temperature was 98.1, ____4____. The research was published in the open-access journal mBio.
Too low a temperature and we’re ____5____ fungal infections. Too high a temperature and we’d spend all our time taking in fuel to burn. So 98.6, like that middle bowl of porridge, is just right.
【視聽版科學(xué)小組榮譽(yù)出品】
torrid wards off weighed quite close to what evolution figured out far more susceptible to
華氏98.6度促進(jìn)新陳代謝，防止真菌感染 美國東海岸現(xiàn)在正是數(shù)九寒冬、風(fēng)雪肆虐，對于溫血?jiǎng)游锒赃@可真難熬。不過若想保持一個(gè)較高的體溫，不知代謝值會怎樣？一項(xiàng)新研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，我們和許多其他哺乳動物保持這樣一個(gè)高熱體溫是因?yàn)槿A氏98.6度不多不少剛剛好。 阿爾伯特?愛因斯坦醫(yī)學(xué)院的研究人員先前發(fā)現(xiàn)，體溫每上升一攝氏度，可抵御真菌的數(shù)量就會增加6%左右。所以爬行動物和兩棲動物會感染上數(shù)以萬計(jì)的真菌，而我們只會被幾百種真菌侵害。 在新研究中，研究人員創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)數(shù)學(xué)模型來衡量抵御真菌的保護(hù)效益和高體溫代謝值。最理想的溫度為華氏98.1度，非常接近進(jìn)化結(jié)果。這項(xiàng)研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在開放獲取期刊《分子生物技術(shù)》（mBio）上。 體溫過低時(shí)，我們更易受到真菌感染。而體溫過高時(shí)，我們會將時(shí)間全花在尋找食物以供新陳代謝上。因此，華氏98.6度，就像一碗麥片粥，恰到好處。