On the quest for the limit to human endurance, we learn,
The conclusions are pretty technical but the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances highlights one feature in particular that makes people unique among primates: their physical endurance is indeed extraordinary.
It is probably something we inherited from hunter-gatherers over the course of two million years, the researchers say. In a nutshell, when it comes to pushing one’s body to the limit, humans run circles around monkeys.
The limit to human endurance is measured in multiples of something called basal metabolism, which is the minimum energy, counted in calories, that is expended by the body to keep itself going for one minute.
Ivan Couronne , “Scientists seek out limit to human endurance” at Agence Presse France
It’s not just metabolism. Clearly, the reason humans can endure longer than monkeys is in large part the effect of human intelligence. The real nature of human endurance, captured:
Terry Fox could marshall the resources he did because, as a human being with a mind, he knew why he was doing what he did.
Note: What they don’t tell you is that all the Canadian cancer boffins opposed Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope. But Canadians, who heard of it by chance, lined the roadsides, offering cash to fight cancer. Remember that when you are told to “trust” the boffins. They are sometimes right. But often not when it matters most.
See also: Researcher: Ancient people were NOT all dead by 30 years of age This matter is worth clarifying because people arguing dubious claims about the mindset of ancient man sometimes assume that few people were around much beyond thirty years of age. But enough of them were around that the lifespan of 70 to 80 years was accepted as the norm for a human being, irrespective of the percentage of the population that reached it.
Is aging a “disease” or does it have an “evolutionary purpose”?
Study: Religiously affiliated people lived “9.45 and 5.64 years longer…”
and
Anomaly: Human mortality hits a plateau after 105 years of age From Discover Magazine: “ That is, you aren’t any more likely to die at 110 than at 105. It’s a contradictory finding, because mortality ticks steadily upward as we get older at all previous ages.”
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