Phil’s project

Temperature Torture

To cope with extreme cold should you be fat or fit?  Lunching on lard or Weetabix? Clothed in cotton or Gore Tex?  Phil will be trying to understand how humans survive temperatures as low as -90c (plus wind chill of course!).  The team will be lending their bodies to the study and while surviving in Antarctica will have their faces and hands regularly plunged into iced water to see if it really does cause the heart rate to slow. The ice will not be the only thing that is blue!

Below are some pictures taken from testing at Portsmouth University Department of Sport and Exercise Science in May 2007.  Many thanks to Mike Tipton and his team. 

 

University of Portsmouth Spinnaker Building

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 University of Portsmouth Environmental Research Suite

 

 Cold Injury test

Phil has temperature sensors attached to both his feet before his left foot is plunged into cold water.  The computer monitor in the background monitors the difference in temperature between right and left foot over a fifteen minute period.

   Ruth doing the Null Zone Test   Amy Null Zone Test Ruth's Null Zone Results

Ruth and Amy are fitted with various sensors which detect levels of oxygen uptake and levels of carbon dioxide that are exhaled.  Other sensors detect core body temperature and skin temperatures.  The girls were placed in a giant refrigerator, asked to cycle for twenty minutes until they started to sweat and then told to sit there until they began to shiver. They each endured one hour!

 Ruth doing the Cold Injury test 

Ruth undertakes a cold injury test.  The middle finger of her left hand is in icy cold water to assess vasoconstriction and vasodilation – the process by which blood vessels in the body close/become wider and hence restrict/allow blood flow. She’s still smiling so the water mustn’t be that cold!

Ian does thermal sensitivity test  

Ian tries the thermal sensitivity test.  The blue box varies the amount of heat or cold on the metal pad and Ian has to say when he can detect a change in temperature.

  Ian VO2 Max Test  Amy VO2 Max Test Phil VO2 Max Test    Ruth VO2 Max Test  

All four teachers had to undertake a VO2 max test. This is a measure of fitness.  During the test, expired gases and gas volume were continuously measured.  Heart rate was monitored and samples of capillary blood were collected and analaysed for blood lactate concentration.

 

Visit Phil’s website for more information on his project.http://www.antarctic-teacher.co.uk/