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The September heatwave currently encasing large parts of the UK is certainly bringing out a lot of emotions. Some are relishing a few extra days of summer but others have had quite enough. Anyone passing through The Conversation’s London HQ this week will have seen a file of editors wilting from room to room in a desperate bid to find a space cool enough to have a meeting.
We survive in these climes thanks to the miracle that is the human body, which comes equipped with all kinds of fabulous mechanisms to prevent it from overheating. Did you know, for example, that even an inactive adult sweats about 450ml of liquid per day? It’s an essential function if we’re to stay cool. This guide to your internal functions shows all the different ways your body is getting you through this sizzling September. Bring on the vasodilation!
It does, however, appear that not all of you are quite so roasting as I am right now. I know this because one of our more popular articles this week has, rather surprisingly, been this explainer on what happens to your body in extreme cold. I’m not sure what you’re doing to need this information and what you get up to in your own time is your own business. But just know that while I’m over here vasodilating, you’ll be looking to vasoconstrict to keep warm. Don’t
worry though, again, your body does it all on your behalf.
Our ongoing women’s health series has this week been seeking to end the silence on vulva diseases. The female anatomy is disturbingly overlooked in medicine and women’s pain is often underestimated. That leaves too many people suffering unnecessarily with treatable conditions. The testimonies make for troubling reading but the hope is that confronting our lack of knowledge about pretty basic stuff can help turn the tide.
Is North Korea supplying arms to Russia? Both parties say no but there are plenty of signs that suggest otherwise, not least a recent high-profile visit to Pyongyang by Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu. If this relationship flourishes, it would be a dangerous development in the Ukraine war, as we found out thanks to this expert.
Also this week we looked back at 15 years of nudge theory, talked to a therapist about what it really means to be “friends with benefits”, and learned via corpus linguistics that Shakespeare called flowers “bastards”.
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