The New Normal

Four-tenths of a degree doesn't seem like a lot but I guess that means that there are far more people running fevers than previously thought.

From Divine Caroline...

“What is your normal body temperature? It’s probably not 98.6° F, the oft-quoted average that was determined in the nineteenth century. A recent study has reported an average temperature of 98.2° F,” according to researcher, Allen Shoemaker.

So, where did we get 98.6° F in the first place?

The establishment of normal body temperature comes from the research of Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich. In 1861, he released data on the temperatures of twenty-five thousand people. Up until the 1990s, very little was done to refute his established norms.

Most researches have concluded that more sophisticated tools used to measure both Centigrade and Fahrenheit to highly accurate decimal points and the mathematical errors related to the previous data was what caused the miscalculation.

So it appears we have a new normal—98.2° F.

I guess the schools should get ready for a lot more absent students.