Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
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temperature is compared. If there is a discrepancy between
the two, an error signal is generated which activates heat loss or heat
production mechanisms to return actual body temperature closer to set
temperature. The comparator, or signal mixer that compares the
two, in other words the thermostat, has been localized in the
hypothalamus……E Satinoff (1983) A reevaluation of the concept of the homeostatic organization of temperature regulation. In: Handbook of Behavioral Neurobiology (Eds: E Satinoff and P Teitelbaum) vol 6 pp 443-472 Plenum Press, New York.
Deep hibernation…is homeostasis in slow motion.
C P Lyman (1990) Pharmacological aspects of mammalian hibernation. In: Thermoregulation. Physiology and biochemistry. Eds: E Schonbaum and P Lomax Pergamon Press, New York pp415-436
By midnight the wind was straight out of the west and he heard
the moan leap to bellowing, a terrible wind out of the catalog of
winds. A wind related to the Blue Norther, the frigid Blaast and
the Landlash. A cousin to the Bull’s-eye squall that
started in a small cloud with a ruddy corner, mother-in-law to the
Vinds-gnyr of the Norse sagas, the three-day Nor’easters of
maritime New England. An uncle wind to the Alaskan Williwaw and
Ireland’s wild Doinionn. Stepsister to the Koshava that
assaults the Yugoslavian plains with Russian snow, the Steppenwind, and
the violent Buran from the great steppes of central Asia, the Cricetz,
the frigid Viugas and Purgas of Siberia, and from the north of Russia
the ferocious Myatel. A blood brother of the prairie Blizzard, the
Canadian arctic screamer known simply as Northwind, and the Pittarak
smoking down off Greenland’s ice fields. This nameless wind
scraping the Rock with an edge like steel. E Annie Proulx (1993) The Shipping News. Fourth Estate, London.
Ironically, the characteristics that most strongly distinguish us from other animals, especially other primates, are seldom mentioned or considered in most of the commentaries we see. One such is our ability to run on two legs. Unlike our closest relatives, we do not merely scurry along for short distances with the help of our knuckles – we can race flat out for miles using only our legs and feet. A second characteristic is our nudity, our essentially furless bodies, tufted for the most part on the head and in the interstices of the limbs and torso. A third characteristic is our ability to sweat profusely. Our boastful phrases “ sweat like a pig” or “ sweat like a horse” are essentially meaningless, since we sweat much more than either of these animals. Running, sweating, and nudity were born of the African savanna, perhaps at the time that our ancestors moved out of the forests to become the slim and graceful Australopithicines. Out in the African sun, away from the trees, we needed to keep cool, hence our sweating, naked bodies, and we needed to protect the overactive brains that since have done so much damage to our planet, hence our thatches of hair.
E M Thomas (2002) Nature and the art of running. New York Review of Books, vol 49, pp31-32