[HN Gopher] How the Turner twins are mythbusting modern technica...
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How the Turner twins are mythbusting modern technical apparel
Author : greedo
Score : 63 points
Date : 2026-03-17 19:19 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.carryology.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.carryology.com)
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > Today, their biometrics are tracked by ingestible sensor pills
| that monitor core temperature from the inside out
|
| I wonder if those are pills they've developed themselves, or if
| it's an existing product available to consumer?
| suzzer99 wrote:
| I've read about them being used in other studies.
| XorNot wrote:
| I feel like downplaying 1.8 degrees C of performance is a weird
| choice in the article.
|
| 1.8 degrees C is a _huge_ temperature change in biology. Human
| bodies keep thermal equilibrium in a margin smaller then that.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| Also: Freezing right away when you stop moving at 8k altitude?
| I was just skiing at 11k and it never even crossed my mind.
| ghaff wrote:
| Not right away. But a lot depends on the wind.
| jhellan wrote:
| The article says meters, not feet.
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| Yes. They were talking about 8,000 _metres_ of altitude.
| (Talking about Mallory should have been a clue too.)
| Scarblac wrote:
| 8k meters. There is no place at 11k where you can ski.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| You could be on skis they might make it harder to control
| your parachute.
| adonovan wrote:
| Also weird phrasing: "a staggering 1.8 degrees" begs the reader
| to think of it as a large number (which in fact it is, as you
| point out) yet their intent seems to be, ironically and
| paradoxically, to diminish it.
| jldugger wrote:
| > the data showed that on summit night, the average body
| temperature difference between the twin in modern down and the
| twin in complicated layers of silk, wool, and gabardine was a
| staggering 1.8degC. > "In a hundred years, you've gained--
| arguably--one degree of efficiency per 50 years," Ross reveals.
|
| Depending on where the baseline is, 1.8 degrees could be huge!
| But more importantly, heat dissapation is a non-linear function.
| The warmer you are relative to your environment, the more energy
| is lost. While Shackleton's kit forms a lower baseline, it
| probably makes sense to imagine how some imaginary perfect vacuum
| insulated sleeping bag would perform.
| margalabargala wrote:
| This whole article is kind of a straw man anyway.
|
| Warmth of clothing isn't actually what people care about. What
| people care about, and what the article does not mention, is
| warmth per unit weight.
| stevejb wrote:
| Their bar graph showed that in almost every category except
| for accessories, the weights were pretty much identical.
| margalabargala wrote:
| "Pretty much identical"
|
| Add up the numbers in the bar graph and you'll see that the
| old gear sums to _two kilograms_ heavier than the modern
| gear.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Isn't there a chart showing weight by body part midway
| through the article?
| margalabargala wrote:
| Yeah, it shows the old gear is about two kilograms heavier
| than the new gear, which is huge.
|
| Considering that someone carrying 2 extra kilos will also
| be generating more body heat etc, the focus on heat over
| the rest of the article is in question.
| altairprime wrote:
| To clarify slightly: it shows the old gear is
| significantly heavier in three areas: head, hands, and
| 'accessories'. I think that suggests where investment in
| technical fabric has been most successful at improving
| the burden of _mass_ in surviving extreme cold.
| altairprime wrote:
| I disagree. People also _may_ care about the cognitive load
| of thermal management. As the article notes:
|
| > _the gear of the past is capable, but it has a narrower
| operating window. If you stop moving in Mallory's kit at
| 8,000 meters, you will freeze quickly. Modern gear buys you a
| safety margin if you become static._
|
| In modern terms, this means that stopping to take a photo --
| whether Ansel or selfie -- would carry a material risk of
| harm in the classic gear that is addressed by modern gear.
| The example of a selfie is perhaps too easily dismissed
| unconsidered, but the cognitive load _is_ real for casual
| hikers, and _is_ a benefit to modern gear that deserves the
| mention it gets. If I had to choose between a cap that has
| perfect heat management and a cap that weighs 10g less but
| requires me to constantly take it off and put it on every
| five minutes to allow evaporation, _I_ would choose the
| heavier and lower annoyance cap. Each person's preferences
| and skills apply; if one seeks to minmax weight /thermal then
| that's a negligible price to pay to improve -- but only
| _some_ truly do strive for the limit of lowest mass without
| regards to complexity.
|
| There was an enviro-scifi book from the eighties that noted
| that a few people will pursue 'one piece of apparel serves
| all functions' skinsuit to the exclusion of all other
| concerns (such as natural fabrics or apparel design), at
| which point we would plausibly expect to see at one extreme
| the folks who make a discount-ultralight vented bodysuit out
| of FedEx envelopes. I am taking for granted that someone has
| tried this, because of _course_ someone has tried this! And
| that starts to verge on why, in a different enviro-scifi book
| of that same relative era, the stillsuit existed: the
| _lightest_ way to have _convenient_ purified water in an
| absurd climates. Even the stillsuit as we see it described
| prioritizes convenience, the sip tube, over a more efficient
| system that doesn't expend calories on pumping water up.
| That's purely because human beings have a cognitive annoyance
| limit; and we do variably prioritize convenience when
| assessing the weight-complexity tradeoff.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Is that really core body temperature?
|
| Normal core body temperature is around 37C.
|
| Hypothermia starts around 35C, only 2C less.
|
| If they're actually measuring body temperature (using that
| swallowed pill they mention?) then 1.8C is a huge difference.
|
| This whole article does feel like they started with a
| conclusion and they were going to report that conclusion
| regardless of what they measured or experienced. Content that
| claims to debunk things is hot right now.
| systemsweird wrote:
| Also the body will increase metabolic rate in the cold to
| maintain body temperate which is an externality they aren't
| measuring. The user of the worse clothing is very likely
| burning more calories and still not as warm. This would mean
| increased fatigue and greater food weight on expeditions.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That's pretty cool. They talk about how getting period clothes
| basically required custom work.
|
| Must be pricey.
| tenuousemphasis wrote:
| There was a time not all that long ago that the most expensive
| thing most people owned was clothing.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| > During their simulation of Mallory's Everest expedition, the
| data showed that on summit night, the average body temperature
| difference between the twin in modern down and the twin in
| complicated layers of silk, wool, and gabardine was a staggering
| 1.8degC.
|
| The human body self-regulates, and is pretty sensitive to
| dramatic temperature swings. So, conditioned on the fact that
| they both survived the adventure, we should expect their
| temperature differences to be relatively small. This doesn't mean
| the clothing is great, it means [their body] + [their clothing]
| is adequate.
|
| Additionally, I'm not a doctor but 1.8 C is not small compared to
| normal human variation! Normal body temperature ranges between 36
| and 37 C, a "high fever" starts around 39 C [0], and hypothermia
| is anything below 35 C [1]. The comfortable range of human
| temperature is 1 deg C, and the "outside of this is concerning"
| range is only 4 C wide. 1.8 C is quite big from that perspective.
|
| [0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-
| conditions/treat...
|
| [1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
| conditions/hypothermia/s...
| sneak wrote:
| The idea that full grown identical twins are identical humans for
| purposes of analysis is also fundamentally flawed. Just because
| they share DNA and look the same doesn't mean anything about
| their relative health, fitness, metabolic rates, etc.
| obsidianbases1 wrote:
| I thought weight would be where the modern wear performed best.
|
| More surprisingly, the footwear of yore was apparently lighter
| amelius wrote:
| It honestly seems more like they are in it for the photoshoots.
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