Humans hot, sweaty, natural-born runners

http://www.physorg.com/news95954919.html

by 6ren • 14 years ago

143 88 14 years ago

physorg.com

user2459• 14 years ago

"We’re the tortoises of the animal kingdom"

... That might be the deepest thing I've ever read.

Also, here's Attenborough narrating this article http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o

wowoc• 14 years ago

Yeah, I'd say the tortoises are the tortoises of the animal kingdom.

phylofx• 14 years ago

"We’re the tortoises of the animal kingdom" such a beautiful and witty analogy, isn't it?

bwldrbst• 14 years ago

That's what separates us from the animals. Except for the weasel.

robinwarren• 14 years ago

There is an annual 22 mile race held in Llanwrtyd Wells in Wales called Man vs Horse. I was surprised when I first heard about it that there was even any chance a human could win but apparently they have 2 times in recent years. The horses I understand have a check up half way round (11 miles) to make sure they are still safe to race.

drats• 14 years ago

Presumably the horse has a human on its back which is a fairly significant encumbrance. "Man vs Horse+Man" might be a better name in that case.

mahmud• 14 years ago

that race would only be fair if it was a manned horse vs a man with a horse on his back.

jeroen2• 14 years ago

Video of one of those races here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_otWXz7vU8

Spoiler: the race is won by a relay team of 4 humans. The first solo runner doesn't beat the first horse.

69_years_and• 14 years ago

That was an inspiring story, now days, it's brain agility and endurance that wins the day and feeds the family.

J3L2404• 14 years ago

Programming often resembles persistence hunting.

jrockway• 14 years ago

Especially the part where I sit at my desk and eat M&Ms.

drostie5• 14 years ago

I've been compiling a list of these things which "set us apart" from most other mammals: the "ones I'm more sure about" column contains: we can form complex vocal patterns, we walk upright, we don't tiptoe everywhere, we're essentially naked, we have large brains, we bleed when we menstruate, our causal intuitions have come detached from their immediate objects. (There's also a "less sure about" column which contains things like "we sing for the hell of it" and "our hearts are distinctly on the left.")

The tiptoeing one comes from when I was trying to discuss evolution with some intelligent design enthusiasts in the US (shudder). So the point they were making was, you can't possibly say that we look similar to dogs. And with my laptop I started pulling up skeletal diagrams of us and dogs, and showing that pretty much the entire logical structure of dogs' skeletons is identical to that of humans' skeletons, from shoulderblades to legs, if you think of them as standing on their tiptoes. It also points out a clear parallel between our arms, which have the same logical structure as our legs, and common ancestry suggests an elegant solution -- once, there was no difference between arms and legs, so of course they had the same structure -- natural selection just stole the recipe for one leg and used it four times.

Anyway, it's very interesting to see that these observations about our nudity and non-tiptoe bipedal walk come from such a simple, easily-expressible underlying story. Thanks.

britta• 14 years ago

A number of people lead normal lives with hearts on the right sides of their bodies - there is dextrocardia (just the heart reversed) and situs inversus with dextrocardia (most internal organs reversed). Pretty neat.

jeroen2• 14 years ago

To make the picture complete there is also situs inverses incompletus, which means that everything but the heart is mirrored.

arthurbrown• 14 years ago

There's an amazing talk given by Robert Sapolsky (Stanford Neurologist), discussing similar concepts. The talk has more to do with different behaviors that emerge between species and how the brain plays a role in that; rather than simply physical characteristics such as bleeding or movement.

I'd highly reccomend watching it if at all interested

http://youtu.be/YWZAL64E0DI

derrida• 14 years ago

Wait, 'we bleed when we menstruate'. Other animals don't?

drostie5• 14 years ago

I'm surprised that this is even a question -- when's the last time you knew a cat or dog owner who was like, "yeah it's that time of the month for her, she's bleeding all over the house." But yes, for those of us who didn't grow up on farms, most animals reabsorb their menses and do not bleed externally. It might be one reason why pastoral farmers[1] thought that women were "unclean", and I'd be interested to know whether goddess-worship comes from more agrarian than pastoral societies.

[1] The example I'm thinking of here is actually just the Torah. The Cain and Abel story clearly establishes that the authors are pastoral farmers who distrust those sneaky evil agriculturalists; and they also have an extensive code of cleanliness which includes a woman as unclean during menstruation.

darklajid• 14 years ago

"we bleed when we menstruate" sounded way too weird. Maybe it still is valid if you set the emphasis on 'set apart from _most_' but it's nothing humans are unique in - according to a couple simple search terms.

(See 1 - if Wikipedia is to believe what we consider normal menstruation _is_ common mostly for humans and our close relatives in the animal kingdom, but also happens in simians and .. erm.. bats?)

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation_%28mammal%29

2: https://myperiodblog.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/do-other-anima...

drostie5• 14 years ago

"Most" is indeed key. For example, as far as "complex vocal patterns" go, there are birds which can learn to duplicate human speech and therefore have the vocal capacity of humans. Or, as far as bipedalism goes, you have the kangaroo -- and actually, if I count the animals that I've seen take a few steps on their hind legs, I'd have to also include dogs, a rabbit, a gerbil, and an elephant that was trying to get his mating on. Even our nakedness is shared by other species -- one of them is called the naked mole rat.

ars5• 14 years ago

It would be better phrased as hidden estrus, which virtually no other animal has.

Can you imagine a world when you always knew if the women around you were menstruating? It would be tough to maintain equal rights in an environment like that - that change alone is a huge one for human culture - much larger than it appears at first.

ars5• 14 years ago

Another change for you is the birthing process for humans is much harder than that of any other animal.

A human female is completely helpless for a much longer time during birth than any other animal - this requires a strong social structure to defend her.

Another change is the enormous amount of time it takes a human to mature. Again, this requires a complex social structure to provide for children for a long time.

Can you sense a pattern here?

eatmyshorts• 14 years ago

I guess you're not familiar with the Kiwi bird, then. I think they qualify as the longest birthing process, with their eggs weighing about 1/4 the weight of the entire bird, and where laying an egg incapacitates the female for months. Of course, as with many birds, kiwis have a strong social structure, mating for life, and with the male participating the birthing process through incubating.

It's almost as if some animals have strong and complex social structures, too. Humans are indeed like other animals.

Can you sense a pattern here?

bane2• 14 years ago

"we don't tiptoe everywhere"

Strangely enough it's actually something we share in common with bears, along with being omnivores.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantigrade

philwelch• 14 years ago

"We build computer networks and use them to argue about what sets us apart from other mammals".

drostie5• 14 years ago

Both of those are covered under "our causal intuitions have come detached from their immediate objects." ;-)

brazzy• 14 years ago

"Even nature’s best animal distance runners — such as horses and dogs — will run similar distances only if forced to do so, and the startling evidence is that humans are better at it, Lieberman said. "

That doesn't seem to be true for sled dogs though, who can easily outrun humans over long distances and are very eager to run.

Then again, they've been bred and trained by humans to do that, and they usually run under conditions where overheating is not a problem.

waivej• 14 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. My sister used to ride a bike with her dog. It could go 20 miles at a fast clip before getting tired. It was in hot weather with a thick coat of fur. Maybe they were good partners in hunting.

sw007• 14 years ago

As someone who is currently trying to run all 450 miles of the London Underground for charity I think that the greatest challenge of running is mental and not physical. Whilst I take his point we are built better to run long distances - I would love for there to be some analysis on the mental side of running. An animal may not be able to run 26 miles for physical reasons but I firmly believe humans can only run 26 miles if they have cause. If they are inspired. If they are so inspired that giving up is not an option. There is not a hope in hell I could run the distances I am running without being massively inspired by the cause I am running for - that for me is what sets us apart.

defrost• 14 years ago

Not so sure about having to have a deep compelling cause, the first time Cliff Young fronted up for an endurance race I believe it was because he just wanted to have a go.

My father, now 77, has walked a 1000km track pretty much every year for the past decade now. He doesn't run but he does carry a pack and sets a pretty mean pace. His initial motivation was the death of my mother and the hole it left in his life, now it's just another of his regular activities.

Cliff Young: http://www.elitefeet.com/the-legend-of-cliff-young

bad_user• 14 years ago

According to the article, humans developed these abilities for hunting. I'm pretty sure that having an empty stomach and starving children at home is a really good and inspiring reason.

And the difference between these early humans and animals might have been the much stronger social structure we have. As noted by other people in this thread, consider how pregnancies take 9 months, or the years it takes a newborn to reach maturity. So most probably, early humans that took care of their family better, were most apt to survive.

noelwelsh2• 14 years ago

Almost the first sentence in the article set a bad tone:

Even nature’s best animal distance runners — such as horses and dogs — will run similar distances only if forced to do so

This sentence is meaningless. When does a dog do anything uncomfortable without coercion? It's not like a dog will voluntarily, say, go without food because it needs to lose weight. Similarly, humans don't spontaneously run marathons. There is a huge psychological build-up required, of which this article is a part. It's notable that most Kenyan marathon champions don't continue running once they retire. They get plenty of physical activity on the farm and don't have the Western obsession with endurance sports.

----

This article does not exist in a vacuum. There is a whole barefoot running / endurance running movement that is taking over conventional sports shoes at the moment. The general premise is:

- humans evolved to run without shoes, so you should (or better, with expensive shoes with minimal heals)

- humans evolved to run long distances, so you should

I don't disagree with the statements, but I think it's oversimplified. I say this as someone who wears Vivo Barefoot shoes. In particular, persistence hunting (the form of hunting that relied on long distance running) was not widely used outside of some specific niches (really hot places, for instance) and a lot of humans have adapted away from endurance activities (which is obvious is look at a Kenyan marathon runner next to a Scandinavian strong-man competitor).

ars5• 14 years ago

> When does a dog do anything uncomfortable without coercion?

I think it means a dog won't run a long distance for a positive reason, only for a negative one. I.e. it won't run far to get food, but it will to avoid pain.

But a human will run far to get food which no other animal will do.

AkThhhpppt2• 14 years ago

Um... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_hunting

tomelders2• 14 years ago

Id say that running without shoes is only a good idea if you plan to die quite young, and therefore wont be needing your feet, ankles and knees in old age.

jd2• 14 years ago

Nobody advocates running barefoot on asphalt. And yes, running can wear out your joints, but even if you wear running shoes.

pmahoney• 14 years ago

I'm not an expert by any means, but I've scanned the literature using what tools I have, and the impression I get is this: (sorry, I don't have all my references handy)

* Running (with shoes) is not a predictor of osteoarthritis (see http://www.jaoa.org/content/106/6/342.full). Elite athletes (running vastly more than typical recreational runners) do exhibit more signs visible in X-Rays, but do not report symptoms at a higher rate than any other group.

* Reliable predictors of acute injury are "too much, too soon", history of past injury, and, oddly, old shoes. (See http://www.time-to-run.com/footwear/mechanisms.htm). Matching the type of shoe to type of gait (as running shoes stores often attempt to do) has never been shown to reduce injury rate.

* It is possible to run with shoes and without injury. (I did it for 10 years; my old coach for 30+).

* It is possible to run barefoot on concrete and asphalt without injury. (I've done it for 5 years; others have for longer).

Those last two anecdotes don't speak to long-term injury, but I'm not terribly worried for two reasons: The first is the lack of correlation between running in shoes and osteoarthritis. The second is that the foot-achilles-knee is a spring-like appendage with vastly more play than 1/2 inch of EVA foam. Anecdotally again, I feel no pounding when running barefoot on concrete.

bane2• 14 years ago

"In particular, persistence hunting (the form of hunting that relied on long distance running)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

Here it is in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o

harscoat• 14 years ago

"Persistence hunting" is a fantastic sales approach for startups (once of course you are good at qualifying and aiming the right prey for you). Because in startups: we have no big weapons (exotic seminar to invite prospects, big cars or offices to impress...), we are naked!

But if you are determined enough and get you and your team ready for a tough decisive journey, I guarantee, somebody, something, will get tired before you do, and you will win. Think if you are in a competitive sale. Your "incumbent" competitor thinks they closed it, they "arrived", because they nuked your pricing, your reputation, or they sent their big gun CEO in, and they are already celebrating the end of negotiations, but you keep on making the extra-mile (it really hurts (I do know that) to bite the bullet but keep at it). I have many instances to prove it worked for me (my 1st jobs) or the cos I worked for (Edit with specifics: Vivisimo US based startup, 3 Employees at that time in Europe won Enterprise deals against Autonomy (based in the UK) for Airbus, Organon (now Merck), against the French based Exalead for Danone; we did it again for WorldWide famous consultancy firm).

For our current startup (rejected by YC this nov11, huge blow, but we kept at it) we only got our 1st paying client last week. While we started running over 1.5 years ago... But hopefully will be profitable ramen before end of August... if I just apply what I have just been telling you of course... AirBnB story is huge inspiration for us - AutoMotivational post for the new starting week

latch• 14 years ago

I thought it was already well-established that our species has long been king of long distance running.

To me, what's interesting now, is how fast can the human body actually go. Horse, dog and women sprinters all largely topped out in the 70s. Men's 100m is expected to drop a bit more.

Both women and men are expected to continue to break marathon records, but women seem to be doing it at a faster pace.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/08/how-fast-can-a-...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081128082831.ht...

RyanMcGreal2• 14 years ago

Obligatory plug for Chris McDougall's great book _Born To Run_:

http://www.chrismcdougall.com/

mechnik• 14 years ago

Fascinating story. One of this book's main characters, Micah True aka Caballo Blanco, died last week on a remote Western wilderness run. Don't know if he had his boots on. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hZ-OB7jl7Y...

Zdkroot4• 14 years ago

That is so sad :( I feel like I should say thanks because I probably wouldn't have found out about it any other way.

rehack• 14 years ago

RIP Caballo Blanco. Chris Mcdougal's tweet gives a fitting tribute to him, from his id @McDougallChris :

"caballo had the only funeral he would have wanted: his friends spent days running in the wilderness in his honor."

eneveu• 14 years ago

His TED talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_mcdougall_are_we_born_t...

RyanMcGreal2• 14 years ago

Thanks for sharing! I didn't know he had a TED talk.

Zdkroot4• 14 years ago

http://www.amazon.com/Born-Run-Superathletes-Greatest-Vintag...

There is a whole book written about this. There are several conversations in the book with this same professor. I would definitely say this book has changed my life.

In more than a few places, I was pretty sure that book was written specifically for me. My dad was in the process of getting knee surgery right when I picked it up. There was a section that detailed a doctor visit the author had, where the doctor told him his only recourse was to have the same surgery my dad was having. Two years later, the author (who didn't have the surgery) is still running barefoot around central park, yes on asphalt and concrete and any other substrate you can imagine. My dad is not. My dad used to come home and run for hours every day after work. Now he doesn't run at all.

Just thought I'd share some points in the book that I love and find relevant to this discussion so far...

Not mentioned in the article but Lieberman talks about it in the book, is the fact that all four-legged animals can only breath one time per stride. A running cheetah operates like a large bellows. When he extends, his diaphragm (which is attached to the pelvis) pulls back and forces the lungs open, forced inhale. When they stride, all their organs literally slosh forward in their horizontal bodies, compressing the diaphragm, forcing an exhale. Humans standing upright allows us to breath whenever we feel like it while running. No other animal can do that.

Also about the Man vs Horse race. Unless the dude sitting on the horses back is a sumo wrestler, it probably doesn't count for much. A horse that is 1200lbs of muscle has a 150lb man sitting on his back. That's equivalent to wearing a 10lb backpack. I'm not saying you wouldn't notice it, but you can't blame the backpack for losing the race. The real reason is that a horse can only outrun a human for 10-15 miles, at which point the horse has to slow down to a maintainable pace, or die. Humans have no such restriction.

And as for running on asphalt - we have the best shock absorbers science has ever seen...they're called knees. Air cushioned soles and arch support, pronation and supination control, torsion bars, built in computer chips to monitor your (incorrect) foot strike and adjust the shoe on the fly are all awesome - if you won't be needing your feet ankles and knees in old age.

I don't recommend many books, but read this one. Even if you don't run, hate running, have never run in your life. You will love your feet when you're done.

cfontes• 14 years ago

I am a CS graduate and also a Biologist and there so much nonsense in this article that I cannot believe it was published.

"Even nature’s best animal distance runners — such as horses and dogs — will run similar distances only if forced to do so"

Those sentences are meaningless as arguments, we humans run for fun because we CAN spend calories as much as we like OR because we do it for food or we die like African long-range hunters, ask those guys to run 50km for fun. They do it because otherwise they will die hungry, we can be as heat efficient as we like, give us a small brain and we are DEAD.

Today we have an impossible large amount of food and medicine available thanks to human civilization. A horse run for his life when needed and that's it, there is no point in spending calories if everything is OK he will need to work a lot to get them back inside.

How can a person conclude that we are the best long-range runners in the nature with such a comparison ? What about scale ? I bet you that an Ant can run in a day more that any human can bare.

A professional runner does only one single thing with it's energy RUN, he doesn't need to hunt, or run for his life, get injured and heal for himself without medicine aid and they can have the chance to sleep 8 or more hours at night. Try being a gazelle and doing that, you will last 5 seconds in nature, same thing for African long-range hunters they can sleep for 8 hours and rest... try sleeping 15 minute periods and eating and drinking only what you find on the run for all your life and chase a gazelle, good luck with that.

We are good at it, but the best in the planet ? I very much doubt it... most of the animals have evolved millions of years to endure nature in it's full power ( some got lucky and didn't had a very strong evolution force behind them like Lemurs in Madagascar) they are probably better than we are in every single thing besides thinking.

skittles• 14 years ago

Sounds like you think humans aren't animals that have evolved to endure nature's full power. The article made some dumb statements, but the overall idea is sound. Humans can run prey animals into the ground in the same way that the wild dogs of Africa do.

Zdkroot4• 14 years ago

So much nonsense? Where? I agree the "only if forced to" sentiment feels misplaced, but that sentence is in the third paragraph out of more than 15. Did you actually finish reading it or stop there? He didn't conclude that humans are the best runners cause herp derp dogs don't run that far unless they have to.

> ask those guys to run 50km for fun

The Indian tribe in born to run play a game similar to soccer. The course is about 20 miles long and the game lasts upwards of 48 solid hours, with players joining and leaving as they feel. So yes, they do it for fun. And we are still talking about present day Africa, this is not millions of years ago. The persistence hunters there have weapons, they have bows and arrows, they will not starve if they don't hunt this particular way. It's their way of life.

Most of the animals have evolved millions of years...and, humans didn't? I think there is so much nonsense in your comment that I cant believe it was published :p

saalweachter• 14 years ago

If humans did evolve to persistence hunt, to run indefinitely in pursuit of our prey until it gives up and dies, I wonder how that has shaped us relative to a baseline alien civilization. I can imagine one alien telling another, "Don't mess with humans -- they will hunt you down."

jscipione• 14 years ago

I disagree with the statement made in this paper. Humans are not hot, sweaty, natural-born runners -- we are hot, sweaty, natural-born swimmers. Although the theory is speculative, human evolution taking place in a semi-aquatic rather than plains environment explains our upright posture to stay above the water, our near hairless bodies to make us streamlined while swimming, our webbed fingers and toes, the ability of human babies having the innate ability to swim.

nisse72• 14 years ago

"While animals get rid of excess heat by panting, they can’t pant when they gallop"

Why can't animals pant and gallop at the same time?

Humans hot, sweaty, natural-born runners

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