- Email: [email protected]
Paradoxical undressing
The word
Bookends
Paradoxical undressing
It’s up to us
JAMES BALOG/GETTY
STRANDED on a freezing mountainside, wouldn’t you welcome a rescuer’s thermal blanket? Perhaps not. Your first instinct might be to throw it aside, and you might even have removed some of your own clothing before the rescue team got to you. Paradoxical undressing certainly lives up to its name. Between 20 and 50 per cent of deaths from hypothermia involve paradoxical undressing of some kind. Mountain rescuers are trained to expect it, and the spell of severe cold weather in North America earlier this year produced a handful of wellpublicised cases. The cause is not known for sure; it is, after all, paradoxical. One explanation is that it is the result of the fine blood vessels near the surface of the skin reacting to cold by contracting. This limits heat loss and diverts blood to the vital organs. Eventually, the theory goes, muscles keeping the vessels contracted become exhausted. Blood rushes into the skin, producing a deep flush and a sensation of being too hot. Shedding a layer or two of clothing suddenly seems like a good idea. The clouded judgement that comes with hypothermia makes it unlikely that a person will see the paradox of their undressing. Another theory points the finger at the brain, suggesting that the almond-sized hypothalamus that functions as our thermostat gets dangerously confused. Either way, once someone has removed their clothes, the hypothermia gets
How to Live a Low-Carbon Life by Chris Goodall, Earthscan, £14.99/$24.95, ISBN 9781844074266 Reviewed by Fred Pearce
“Your first instinct might be to throw a rescuer’s thermal blanket aside” worse – and faster. Another bizarre behaviour can occur in which the victim desperately tries to tunnel into his or her surroundings. Hide-and-die syndrome, also known as terminal burrowing behaviour, is the reason that people are found dead behind wardrobes, under beds or on shelves. Once again, the exact mechanism behind the behaviour is unknown, not least because hypothermia is an area of physiology that does not allow for ethical experiment. Hide-and-die syndrome seems to be a remnant of a deep instinct seen in most animals, from cats to cockroaches. When things
get really bad, find somewhere to hide. Perhaps it is also behind our occasional desire to “curl up and die”. Paradoxical undressing and terminal burrowing behaviour in combination can produce mysteries worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. In one case described in 2001 in The Medical Journal of Australia (vol 175, p 621) an elderly man was found dead at home in winter. He was only partly dressed, bruised on his head and limbs, and surrounded by upturned furniture. His house was locked from the inside. The police suspected a struggle with an attacker, but an autopsy revealed the telltale stomach lesions that indicate hypothermia. The temperature had been below 15 °C and the house’s heating was not working. A tragedy, but more believable than an attacker who had walked through walls and left no trace. ●
a ring so that each digit at the right-hand end of one card as seen from the inside of the ring matches that at the left-hand end of its neighbour, going clockwise. What is the greatest number of digits I can have in the ring?
The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1439, New Scientist, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (include your postal address). The winner of Enigma 1433 is David Hirst of Papakura, New Zealand.
£15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Tuesday 22 May.
Answer to 1433 A cribbed idea 1, 2, 2, 5; 1, 1, 3, 3; 1, 5, 5, 5.
Enigma Ring of powers No. 1439 Adrian Somerfield I HAVE made a number of cards, and have written on them all the nine-digit ninth powers, all the eight-digit eighth powers and so on down to the single-digit first powers. I have arranged these cards to form 50 | NewScientist | 21 April 2007
070421_Op_TheWord_Eg.indd 50
THIS is the definitive guide to reducing your carbon footprint. Chris Goodall studies our cosy western lives in painstaking detail and explains how we can cut our carbon usage by 75 per cent without making drastic lifestyle changes (with one exception: no air travel). He dissects everything: tumble dryers (not as bad as you thought); trains (not as good as you thought); SUVs (don’t go there). His bottom line is that economics alone will not fix the problem. Fossil fuels will remain too cheap, and governments and corporations only follow what we want. Saving the world is down to us, individually.
Head cases Making Up the Mind: How the brain creates our mental world by Chris Frith, Blackwell, £14.99/$24.95, ISBN 9781405160223 Reviewed by Helen Phillips
NEUROSCIENCE and psychology often struggle to answer the really interesting questions about the mind, but in this fascinating book, Chris Frith shows that science can finally start explaining how and why we experience the world as we do. Anyone interested in human nature – not just the nuts and bolts of neural circuits – will find his storytelling compelling. Frith delves into topics such as delusions, illusions, imagination and imitation, bringing clarity and insight to the simplest observations and most complex experiments alike.
www.newscientist.com
13/4/07 11:46:06 am
Bookends
Paradoxical undressing
It’s up to us
JAMES BALOG/GETTY
STRANDED on a freezing mountainside, wouldn’t you welcome a rescuer’s thermal blanket? Perhaps not. Your first instinct might be to throw it aside, and you might even have removed some of your own clothing before the rescue team got to you. Paradoxical undressing certainly lives up to its name. Between 20 and 50 per cent of deaths from hypothermia involve paradoxical undressing of some kind. Mountain rescuers are trained to expect it, and the spell of severe cold weather in North America earlier this year produced a handful of wellpublicised cases. The cause is not known for sure; it is, after all, paradoxical. One explanation is that it is the result of the fine blood vessels near the surface of the skin reacting to cold by contracting. This limits heat loss and diverts blood to the vital organs. Eventually, the theory goes, muscles keeping the vessels contracted become exhausted. Blood rushes into the skin, producing a deep flush and a sensation of being too hot. Shedding a layer or two of clothing suddenly seems like a good idea. The clouded judgement that comes with hypothermia makes it unlikely that a person will see the paradox of their undressing. Another theory points the finger at the brain, suggesting that the almond-sized hypothalamus that functions as our thermostat gets dangerously confused. Either way, once someone has removed their clothes, the hypothermia gets
How to Live a Low-Carbon Life by Chris Goodall, Earthscan, £14.99/$24.95, ISBN 9781844074266 Reviewed by Fred Pearce
“Your first instinct might be to throw a rescuer’s thermal blanket aside” worse – and faster. Another bizarre behaviour can occur in which the victim desperately tries to tunnel into his or her surroundings. Hide-and-die syndrome, also known as terminal burrowing behaviour, is the reason that people are found dead behind wardrobes, under beds or on shelves. Once again, the exact mechanism behind the behaviour is unknown, not least because hypothermia is an area of physiology that does not allow for ethical experiment. Hide-and-die syndrome seems to be a remnant of a deep instinct seen in most animals, from cats to cockroaches. When things
get really bad, find somewhere to hide. Perhaps it is also behind our occasional desire to “curl up and die”. Paradoxical undressing and terminal burrowing behaviour in combination can produce mysteries worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. In one case described in 2001 in The Medical Journal of Australia (vol 175, p 621) an elderly man was found dead at home in winter. He was only partly dressed, bruised on his head and limbs, and surrounded by upturned furniture. His house was locked from the inside. The police suspected a struggle with an attacker, but an autopsy revealed the telltale stomach lesions that indicate hypothermia. The temperature had been below 15 °C and the house’s heating was not working. A tragedy, but more believable than an attacker who had walked through walls and left no trace. ●
a ring so that each digit at the right-hand end of one card as seen from the inside of the ring matches that at the left-hand end of its neighbour, going clockwise. What is the greatest number of digits I can have in the ring?
The Editor’s decision is final. Please send entries to Enigma 1439, New Scientist, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to [email protected] (include your postal address). The winner of Enigma 1433 is David Hirst of Papakura, New Zealand.
£15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct answer opened on Tuesday 22 May.
Answer to 1433 A cribbed idea 1, 2, 2, 5; 1, 1, 3, 3; 1, 5, 5, 5.
Enigma Ring of powers No. 1439 Adrian Somerfield I HAVE made a number of cards, and have written on them all the nine-digit ninth powers, all the eight-digit eighth powers and so on down to the single-digit first powers. I have arranged these cards to form 50 | NewScientist | 21 April 2007
070421_Op_TheWord_Eg.indd 50
THIS is the definitive guide to reducing your carbon footprint. Chris Goodall studies our cosy western lives in painstaking detail and explains how we can cut our carbon usage by 75 per cent without making drastic lifestyle changes (with one exception: no air travel). He dissects everything: tumble dryers (not as bad as you thought); trains (not as good as you thought); SUVs (don’t go there). His bottom line is that economics alone will not fix the problem. Fossil fuels will remain too cheap, and governments and corporations only follow what we want. Saving the world is down to us, individually.
Head cases Making Up the Mind: How the brain creates our mental world by Chris Frith, Blackwell, £14.99/$24.95, ISBN 9781405160223 Reviewed by Helen Phillips
NEUROSCIENCE and psychology often struggle to answer the really interesting questions about the mind, but in this fascinating book, Chris Frith shows that science can finally start explaining how and why we experience the world as we do. Anyone interested in human nature – not just the nuts and bolts of neural circuits – will find his storytelling compelling. Frith delves into topics such as delusions, illusions, imagination and imitation, bringing clarity and insight to the simplest observations and most complex experiments alike.
www.newscientist.com
13/4/07 11:46:06 am