More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Vaclav Smil
Read between
April 15 - July 22, 2023
And if you think that you have a high chance to make it to 100 because some of your ancestors lived that long, you should know that the estimated heritability of lifespan is modest, between 15 and 30 percent.
in one hour, a horse can lose about 100 grams of water per square meter of skin, and a camel can lose up to 250 g/m2. However, a human being can easily shed 500 g/m2, enough to remove between 550 and 600 watts’ worth of heat.
Humans can tolerate considerable temporary dehydration providing that we rehydrate in a day or so. In fact, the best marathon runners drink only about 200 milliliters per hour during a race.
Infant mortality is an excellent proxy for a wide range of conditions, including income, quality of housing, nutrition, education, and investment in healthcare.
So how does the United States rank among the world’s roughly 200 nations? The latest available comparison shows that with 6 of every 1,000 live-born babies dying in the first year of life, the US does not figure among the top 25 nations.