For all our wondrous adaptations as a species – our big brains, our capacity for language, our opposable thumbs – we humans are not well-equipped to deal with the cold. Take us out of our insulated dwellings, take away our winter clothes, and things can get dicey fast. From frostbite to hypothermia, the cold can settle into our bones, leading us down a path where injury or death are possible outcomes. In this episode, we explore that path: how our meager cold-survival adaptations are vastly outshone by other animal species, the long and grim history of hypothermia in war, and what exactly is happening inside your body when your temperature drops. Tune in to this unexpectedly strange grab-bag of an episode.
| History | Biology |
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| Auteri, Giorgia G. “A conceptual framework to integrate cold-survival strategies: Torpor, resistance and seasonal migration.” Biology Letters 18.5 (2022): 20220050. | Turk, E.E., 2010. Hypothermia. Forensic science, medicine, and pathology, 6(2), pp.106-115. |
| Blix, Arnoldus Schytte. “Adaptations to polar life in mammals and birds.” Journal of Experimental Biology 219.8 (2016): 1093-1105. | Danzl, D.F. and Pozos, R.S., 1994. Accidental hypothermia. New England Journal of Medicine, 331(26), pp.1756-1760. |
| Davis, P. R., and M. Byers. “Accidental hypothermia.” BMJ Military Health 151.4 (2005): 223-233. | Paal, P., Pasquier, M., Darocha, T., Lechner, R., Kosinski, S., Wallner, B., Zafren, K. and Brugger, H., 2022. Accidental hypothermia: 2021 update. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(1), p.501. |
| Gilbert, Mads, et al. “Resuscitation from accidental hypothermia of 13· 7 C with circulatory arrest.” The Lancet 355.9201 (2000): 375-376. | McCullough, L. and Arora, S., 2004. Diagnosis and treatment of hypothermia. American family physician, 70(12), pp.2325-2332. |
| Guly, Henry. “History of accidental hypothermia.” Resuscitation 82.1 (2011): 122-125. | Sheridan, R.L., Goverman, J.M. and Walker, T.G., 2022. Diagnosis and treatment of frostbite. New England Journal of Medicine, 386(23), pp.2213-2220. |
| Lankford, Harvey V. “Dull brains and frozen feet: a historical essay on cold.” Wilderness & Environmental Medicine 27.4 (2016): 526-532. | Regli, I.B., Oberhammer, R., Zafren, K., Brugger, H. and Strapazzon, G., 2023. Frostbite treatment: a systematic review with meta-analyses. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, 31(1), p.96. |
| Larson, Don J., et al. “Wood frog adaptations to overwintering in Alaska: new limits to freezing tolerance.” Journal of Experimental Biology 217.12 (2014): 2193-2200. | Persitz, J., Essa, A., Ner, E.B., Assaraf, E. and Avisar, E., 2022. Frostbite of the extremities–recognition, evaluation and treatment. Injury, 53(10), pp.3088-3093. |
| Mylopotamitaki, Dorothea, et al. “Homo sapiens reached the higher latitudes of Europe by 45,000 years ago.” Nature 626.7998 (2024): 341-346. | |
| O’Sullivan, S. T., M. O’Shaughnessy, and T. P. F. O’Connor. “Baron Larrey and cold injury during the campaigns of Napoleon.” Annals of plastic surgery 34.4 (1995): 446-449. | |
| Paton, Bruce C. “Cold, casualties, and conquests: the effects of cold on warfare.” Medical aspects of harsh environments 1 (2001): 313-349. | |
| Pavlov, Pavel, John Inge Svendsen, and Svein Indrelid. “Human presence in the European Arctic nearly 40,000 years ago.” Nature 413.6851 (2001): 64-67. | |
| Schieber, Alexandria M. Palaferri, and Janelle S. Ayres. “Thermoregulation as a disease tolerance defense strategy.” Pathogens and disease 74.9 (2016): ftw106. | |
| Storey, Kenneth B., and Janet M. Storey. “Natural freeze tolerance in ectothermic vertebrates.” Annual review of physiology 54.1 (1992): 619-637. | |
| Voituron, Yann, et al. “To freeze or not to freeze? An evolutionary perspective on the cold-hardiness strategies of overwintering ectotherms.” The American Naturalist 160.2 (2002): 255-270. |
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