Raymond B. Huey, The Quarterly Review of Biology

After reading the title of this book, I was not sure whether to expect a soft-core novel or a treatise on biophysics and physiology. My uncertainty was amplified when I spotted an opening quote from The Doors ("Come on baby, light my fire"). Reading further, I soon discovered that this was a soft-core science book on how and why temperature is an integral part of the lives of humans, animals, and even plants. Readers should not expect a scholarly treatise. This is a light read intended for the general science audience. It is largely an eclectic collection of thermal anecdotes and stories intended to convince readers that temperature matters to life. It does that very well and entertainingly.

For me, the most enjoyable aspect of the book is its diversity of examples. They are not detailed, but the rapid turnover kept me interested and wondering what would come next. Blumberg's volume is indeed wide ranging and introduces the biophysics of heat flux, Roman thermae (hot and cold tubs), endothermal insects, febrile lizards, linguistics, hot sex, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT), hot chilies, hot flashes, and even ultrasonic crying in rat pups. In the final section, he shifts gears somewhat, and explores energy balance (fat, leptin, and anorexia) and sleep, topics of Blumberg's own research.

As a specialist in thermal biology who shares the author's passion for all things thermal, I wished that the examplessome of which were new to mewere better referenced. Moreover, I would have given more attention to field and conceptual issues and would have revised the treatment of some topics (e.g., the Surface Law). Given that Blumberg wrote for a general audience, such complaints of a specialist should not detract from this book (except as a caveat to other specialists).

Blumberg obviously enjoyed researching and writing this volume, and his enthusiasm is infectious. His book effectively personalizes the many ways that heat influences and governs life on Earth.

 

Jonathan Kingdon, The Times Literary Supplement

Mark S. Blumberg, in Body Heat , also takes the role of temperature in human affairs onto a global stage, but his metaphors, languages and conclusions are neither biblical nor prophetic. Instead he wants to remind us just how narrow our margins of tolerance are against that ultimate enemy: cold...Blumberg loves his subject, is convinced of its importance, and he wants to put across the intrinsic interest of temperature physiology to a larger audience. He retains a light touch--and because he is an active researcher in his own right, is able to bring new information and new insights to his pages.

 

2Think.org

Similar in many ways to Philip Ball's Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water, Blumberg takes a subject that you think you know a great deal about and that seems uninteresting on the surface and turns it into an outstanding book. The reader finds him- or herself discovering, in an enjoyable manner, much about something that didn't seem so important beforehand. You're left feeling grateful for having picked up this unassuming book to read.

Not only do readers learn a lot about the big-picture concepts of heat (and the lack thereof) but numerous tips are offered in the process. For instance, if you suffer from cold hands during the winter you're better off with a snug pair of mittens than a loose-fitting pair of gloves. Why? Well, you'll just have to read the book to find out. There are many items that Blumberg points out that I had a vague idea about previously but didn't know the whole story. An example is how winter feels so much harsher when it begins than it does after a few months. I always thought I just "got used to it." But it turns out that our body makes hormonal and other kinds of adjustments to increase our tolerance to cold.

The writing is brilliant, concise, clear, and occasionally funny. You'll learn loads of important and useful information when it comes to fevers and sleeplessness. If you're only interested in sex, or if hot peppers are your thing, then there is something here for you too. Body Heat: Temperature and Life on Earth is an engrossing book that is sure to please; it is popular science at its best. Like a guest at a party who tells one fascinating story after another, you are riveted to their every word and don't want the party to ever end. Such is the nature of Blumberg here in Body Heat.

 

Lawrence Wang, The Physiologist

The author has done an admirable job integrating physical science, physiology of temperature regulation and energy metabolism, comparative animal physiology, and evolutionary biology to illustrate the permeating effects of temperature against Life on Earth. He gave clear explanations on the principles of heat flow and thermodynamics, how temperature affects life processes, how animals select and regulate preferred body temperatures in nature and survive the utmost extreme conditions, and how the shelter of civilization has on the one hand enabled the expansion of human species to all corners of the globe but cruelly remind us on the other hand that when absent, how meager and vulnerable the human species really is when confronted by seasonal cold and heat. To the lay people, this book is an excellent introduction, integration and illustration of how temperature affects all life forms on earth.

This book is also of value to specialists in biology even those in thermal biology. The author was able to explain difficult concepts clearly with good everyday relatable examples. The evolutionary theme is clear and the illustrated biodiversity consequent to thermal selection is wide and fascinating. Although many students may have read or studied thermoadaptation in animals and plants, this book nicely integrated some of the most exotic examples to demonstrate the power of selection and adaptation, both in physiology and behavior. To a potential doctoral degree candidate, this book could be a timely review before the dreaded candidacy or qualifying examination.

For future edition updates and improvements, it would be a plus if each specific examples can be appropriately referenced (rather than listing selected references after each chapter). This will clarify which work is done by the author and his students/colleagues and which is done by other scientists who share similar research interests.

I enjoyed reading the book. I congratulate the author for having communicated what he intended to with rich materials and flowing lucidity. 

 

M. A. Palladino, Choice

Most of us spend so much time in climate-controlled environments that it is easy to overlook the biological mechanisms influencing body temperature. Blumberg (psychology, Univ. of Iowa) presents a thoroughly interesting book on body temperature and its many influences, loaded with a marvelously broad range of topics related to the biology of body temperature. From structural adaptations, such as ear size, circulatory patterns, and body shape that have evolved to help maintain body temperature, to psychological effects of temperature, the physiology of fevers, and even sexual-thermal metaphors used in everyday conversation, Blumberg presents many simple, effective, and humorous examples. A host of fascinating aspects of how species respond to temperature changes are also discussed. For example, he explores the complexity of African termite nests that are exquisitely designed to circulate warm air and provide adequate ventilation. Body Heat is great reading, certain to produce an enlightened appreciation for how body temperature control is critical for all organisms. General readers; upper-division undergraduates through professionals. -- M. A. Palladino, Monmouth University

 

Netsurfer Science

Mark Blumberg's compact little work is a treat. Like others of our favorites - One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw or James Burke's Connections - Body Heat takes us on a delightful and intriguing trip through the rationales and accidents of history of that which we take for granted. We'll never think of being warm-blooded in quite the same way again, not the least because Blumberg's colloquial style is a perfect match for the complexities he limns with such clarity. His gift is the ability to take the small facts and observations of science and knit them into larger cohesive and comprehensive sense. No, you won't earn your doctorate in physiology with Body Heat as your principal text - but you'll smile your way through the pages and come away with a richer understanding of just how remarkable is life on Earth.

 

John Bonner, New Scientist

Death by Degrees

FUNERAL directors could be the unexpected beneficiaries of global warming. If average temperatures increase by just 1 ÁC, there will be an estimated 24,000 more murders each year in the US as Americans become hotter under the collar.

But temperature change is a life-and-death issue for every inhabitant of a small planet teetering on a knife edge between the scorching heat of the inner Solar System and the frigid depths of space. The need to maintain body temperature within a narrow range is the biggest single influence on physiology and behaviour, as Mark Blumberg explains in this little gem of a book, Body Heat.

A professor of psychology at the University of Iowa, Blumberg describes the exquisite mechanisms developed by different species to generate, conserve or lose body heat. And this book is not just about organisms that live in extreme climates. Many temperate species also face the challenge of keeping specific organs at a different temperature from the rest of the body. Not surprisingly, the most intriguing insights come when the machinery breaks down. Failures in thermoregulation underlie a startling range of conditions: sudden infant death syndrome, the toxic effects of ecstasy abuse and even anorexia nervosa.

No organism is ever safe from the effects of temperature swings, even in the most protected environment. Witness the devastating developmental abnormalities that occur when mammalian embryos are briefly exposed to raised temperature in the uterus. It's a stark reminder that genes alone do not determine our destiny.

 

Emma Crichton-Miller, The Sunday Telegraph

Too Hot to Handle

HAVE YOU ever wondered why wading birds have such long legs or why Napoleon was defeated by Russia or why a habanero pepper makes you feel as if you are on fire? The answer to these questions and, at times it seems, to all life, love and the universe, is, according to Mark Blumberg, Professor of Psychology at the University of Iowa, temperature.

This is one of those books that leaves you for a few heady days in possession of a new key to all mysteries. Written entertainingly for a popular audience, the book argues that the evolved behaviour and physical characteristics of most creatures, from the tiniest nematode worm to the largest whale, is governed by the need to maintain a comfortable body temperature.

Though there are fish with antifreeze in their blood swimming in Antarctic waters and sulphur-consuming bacteria swarm a mile below the surface of the Pacific Ocean in water heated to 85 degrees centigrade by vents in the earth's crust, most terrestrial creatures prefer to keep their body temperature between 30 and 41 degrees, depending upon the species, and risk death if they gain or lose as little as 4-6 degrees either side of their ideal. Given the extremes possible even on our temperate planet, it is no wonder that this has been a major factor in evolution. The ingenuity of Emperor penguins and the energy budget of the United States are equally driven by the need to outwit the laws of thermodynamics.

Blumberg begins by giving us a quick and clear guide to the physics of heat: how we measure it and how it flows in and out of our bodies. He then shows how everything - from goose bumps on human arms to the extraordinary architecture of an African termite mound, from the black skin and white coat of the genial polar bears who greet us on the book cover to the huge ears of African elephants - is designed to exploit those laws.

For one glorious moment at the opening of chapter three it seems as if even the gene, the current king of explanations, will have to take second place. Not only does body temperature have a fundamental influence on nearly all aspects of biological function, including the activity of enzymes, the rate and force of contraction of muscles and the way neurons fire in the brain, it ultimately controls the way many genes are expressed.

Nor is body temperature one overall constant, as a thermometer under the tongue might lead you to believe. Perhaps the most revelatory chapter explains how a wonderfully simple but effective mechanism called countercurrent-heat-exchange keeps the bodies of wading birds warm while their feet are immersed in freezing water. A similar process keeps the bee's thorax warmer than its abdomen, so that its wing muscles are always ready for flight, and allows the scrotum of male mammals to keep the testes a good 2-9 degrees centigrade cooler than the abdomen, preserving the sperm from genetic mutation.

A refinement of this mechanism can be found in species as diverse as tuna, sharks, birds, gazelles and lions, allowing them to keep the brain working at its optimum temperature as the body undergoes rapid temperature changes caused by sudden exertion or changes in environment.

Anyone who has ever sat in an English garden on an uncertain summer day knows intimately our human sensitivity to changes in body temperature. Most languages are rich with metaphors linking temperature to mood, character and our feelings about things. Blumberg examines the physiological roots of these associations in the vulnerability of new-born infants to extremes of heat and cold, in the complex workings of our metabolism and immune system and in the influence temperature has even over our sleep patterns. At this point, however, the vast size of what he has taken on slightly overwhelms the project. Having opened the door for us to the wealth of research in this area already underway and still to be done, he wisely draws this fascinating and suggestive book to a close.

 

Susan Salter Reynolds, The Los Angeles Times, Sunday, April 14, 2002:

There's a little twinkle in Mark S. Blumberg's eye as he explains the role of temperatures in life on Earth, that essential gleam that makes books about science successful and appealing rather than dull and exclusive. Because temperature presents our greatest environmental challenge, it seems important to understand its properties. Blumberg explains what temperature is and its ways of moving: conduction, radiation, evaporation and convection. He explains the concept of surface area--skin, tree branches, lungs and alveoli--and the effect of temperature on genes, sex determination, the brain, the heart and blood, as well as the role of fevers in fighting disease. He writes a bit about the future, though this is not a book on global warming: "[I]t may be possible," he writes, "to use the gravitational energy of a large asteroid to nudge the Earth's orbit outward just enough to increase its distance from the Sun and thereby maintain Earth's temperature at a suitable level." His writing is clear, a fine balance of explanation, example and ideas.

 

Publishers Weekly

Some species like it hot and some like it cold, and biopsychologist Blumberg explains why in this somewhat jargon-laden exploration of how temperature defines the existence of everything on earth, from the Antarctica ice mass to deep ocean bacteria, from babies in the womb to plants that can melt snow. Despite clever chapter headings "Then Bake at 98.6F for 400,000 Minutes"; "Cold New World"; "Fever All Through the Night"; "Livin' off the Fat" the author's prose can sometimes be heavy going and even patronizing, particularly in early chapters when he attempts to explain the various laws of thermodynamics. But a reader's perseverance will pay off. By braiding together a spectrum of disciplines including anthropology, ecology, physics, geography, medicine and psychology Blumberg investigates how extremes of heat and cold dictate life's limits; by book's end, he has constructed an engrossing, fact-filled account of why all life is merely a matter of degrees. Among those facts: why hot peppers make us sweat, how fire walking works, the evolutionary roots of goose bumps and genital hair, and the function of fevers. He also notes connections between temperature and such human conditions as sleeplessness, jet lag, sex determination, anorexia and sudden infant death syndrome, information that makes the book more than just a collection of intriguing anecdotes. One hot topic not covered is global warming, though Blumberg alludes throughout his otherwise illuminating text to how fragile everything on earth is. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.