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The Advertiser
4 hours ago
- Health
- The Advertiser
Ask Fuzzy: Who was Sister Elizabeth Kenny?
In June 1916, New York officially declared a polio epidemic and, in doing so, instigated a practice that we might find unacceptable today. Newspapers published the names and addresses of sufferers, placards were nailed to doors, and families quarantined. Australians too, were affected. Polio became a notifiable disease in Tasmania and other states by 1922. Despite these measures, polio incidents continued to rise until 1938, when in Australia the number of cases peaked at 39 per 100,000. Polio, sometimes called infantile paralysis, is a devastating disease that causes muscle fatigue and spasms in the limbs, often accompanied by severe pain. When Elizabeth Kenny first encountered the disease, the accepted practice was to immobilise the patient. With splints and plaster body casts to prevent muscle tightening, many paralysed patients lay for months at a time. Unfortunately this would often atrophy both affected and healthy muscles. The Australian Elizabeth Kenny (1880 -1952) became something of a maverick by developing what was then considered a radical treatment. In 1913 Kenny opened a small hospital in Queensland, where her method was reportedly used with success. To ease pain, she lay strips of hot moist cloth over the person's affected areas. And rather than immobilising her patients, she had them do exercises such as bending and flexing joints. Several times a day, they'd move them through a limited range of motion. In doing so, she went directly against the orthodoxy, but her methods are now thought to be a forerunner of modern physiotherapy. However Elizabeth Kenny remains a tricky subject. In some ways, she resembles today's self-appointed heroes who reveal their groundbreaking treatment that busts open the orthodoxy. Kenny appears to have been a skilled self-promoter. She became famous in the United States and her story even featured in a 1946 Hollywood movie. But some saw her as a tireless propagandist who manipulated, or even falsified, her results. She claimed to have achieved an astounding 80 per cent recovery rate, but this was based on observation and intuition rather than any scientific study. MORE ASK FUZZY: Her approach was based on a fundamental misconception that the problem was a muscular one that could be corrected through "muscle re-education". As some researchers thought at the time and has subsequently been proven, polio paralysis is actually a neurological condition. As someone with direct experience of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) and Frozen Shoulder (adhesive capsulitis), I cannot imagine a worse treatment than to stop a person exercising. Treatment today is more nuanced. As with the Kenny method, it includes hot moist packs and physical therapy. However, institutions such as the Mayo Clinic also include appropriate bed rest and even "splints or other devices to encourage good position of the spine and limbs". The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: In June 1916, New York officially declared a polio epidemic and, in doing so, instigated a practice that we might find unacceptable today. Newspapers published the names and addresses of sufferers, placards were nailed to doors, and families quarantined. Australians too, were affected. Polio became a notifiable disease in Tasmania and other states by 1922. Despite these measures, polio incidents continued to rise until 1938, when in Australia the number of cases peaked at 39 per 100,000. Polio, sometimes called infantile paralysis, is a devastating disease that causes muscle fatigue and spasms in the limbs, often accompanied by severe pain. When Elizabeth Kenny first encountered the disease, the accepted practice was to immobilise the patient. With splints and plaster body casts to prevent muscle tightening, many paralysed patients lay for months at a time. Unfortunately this would often atrophy both affected and healthy muscles. The Australian Elizabeth Kenny (1880 -1952) became something of a maverick by developing what was then considered a radical treatment. In 1913 Kenny opened a small hospital in Queensland, where her method was reportedly used with success. To ease pain, she lay strips of hot moist cloth over the person's affected areas. And rather than immobilising her patients, she had them do exercises such as bending and flexing joints. Several times a day, they'd move them through a limited range of motion. In doing so, she went directly against the orthodoxy, but her methods are now thought to be a forerunner of modern physiotherapy. However Elizabeth Kenny remains a tricky subject. In some ways, she resembles today's self-appointed heroes who reveal their groundbreaking treatment that busts open the orthodoxy. Kenny appears to have been a skilled self-promoter. She became famous in the United States and her story even featured in a 1946 Hollywood movie. But some saw her as a tireless propagandist who manipulated, or even falsified, her results. She claimed to have achieved an astounding 80 per cent recovery rate, but this was based on observation and intuition rather than any scientific study. MORE ASK FUZZY: Her approach was based on a fundamental misconception that the problem was a muscular one that could be corrected through "muscle re-education". As some researchers thought at the time and has subsequently been proven, polio paralysis is actually a neurological condition. As someone with direct experience of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) and Frozen Shoulder (adhesive capsulitis), I cannot imagine a worse treatment than to stop a person exercising. Treatment today is more nuanced. As with the Kenny method, it includes hot moist packs and physical therapy. However, institutions such as the Mayo Clinic also include appropriate bed rest and even "splints or other devices to encourage good position of the spine and limbs". The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: In June 1916, New York officially declared a polio epidemic and, in doing so, instigated a practice that we might find unacceptable today. Newspapers published the names and addresses of sufferers, placards were nailed to doors, and families quarantined. Australians too, were affected. Polio became a notifiable disease in Tasmania and other states by 1922. Despite these measures, polio incidents continued to rise until 1938, when in Australia the number of cases peaked at 39 per 100,000. Polio, sometimes called infantile paralysis, is a devastating disease that causes muscle fatigue and spasms in the limbs, often accompanied by severe pain. When Elizabeth Kenny first encountered the disease, the accepted practice was to immobilise the patient. With splints and plaster body casts to prevent muscle tightening, many paralysed patients lay for months at a time. Unfortunately this would often atrophy both affected and healthy muscles. The Australian Elizabeth Kenny (1880 -1952) became something of a maverick by developing what was then considered a radical treatment. In 1913 Kenny opened a small hospital in Queensland, where her method was reportedly used with success. To ease pain, she lay strips of hot moist cloth over the person's affected areas. And rather than immobilising her patients, she had them do exercises such as bending and flexing joints. Several times a day, they'd move them through a limited range of motion. In doing so, she went directly against the orthodoxy, but her methods are now thought to be a forerunner of modern physiotherapy. However Elizabeth Kenny remains a tricky subject. In some ways, she resembles today's self-appointed heroes who reveal their groundbreaking treatment that busts open the orthodoxy. Kenny appears to have been a skilled self-promoter. She became famous in the United States and her story even featured in a 1946 Hollywood movie. But some saw her as a tireless propagandist who manipulated, or even falsified, her results. She claimed to have achieved an astounding 80 per cent recovery rate, but this was based on observation and intuition rather than any scientific study. MORE ASK FUZZY: Her approach was based on a fundamental misconception that the problem was a muscular one that could be corrected through "muscle re-education". As some researchers thought at the time and has subsequently been proven, polio paralysis is actually a neurological condition. As someone with direct experience of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) and Frozen Shoulder (adhesive capsulitis), I cannot imagine a worse treatment than to stop a person exercising. Treatment today is more nuanced. As with the Kenny method, it includes hot moist packs and physical therapy. However, institutions such as the Mayo Clinic also include appropriate bed rest and even "splints or other devices to encourage good position of the spine and limbs". The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: In June 1916, New York officially declared a polio epidemic and, in doing so, instigated a practice that we might find unacceptable today. Newspapers published the names and addresses of sufferers, placards were nailed to doors, and families quarantined. Australians too, were affected. Polio became a notifiable disease in Tasmania and other states by 1922. Despite these measures, polio incidents continued to rise until 1938, when in Australia the number of cases peaked at 39 per 100,000. Polio, sometimes called infantile paralysis, is a devastating disease that causes muscle fatigue and spasms in the limbs, often accompanied by severe pain. When Elizabeth Kenny first encountered the disease, the accepted practice was to immobilise the patient. With splints and plaster body casts to prevent muscle tightening, many paralysed patients lay for months at a time. Unfortunately this would often atrophy both affected and healthy muscles. The Australian Elizabeth Kenny (1880 -1952) became something of a maverick by developing what was then considered a radical treatment. In 1913 Kenny opened a small hospital in Queensland, where her method was reportedly used with success. To ease pain, she lay strips of hot moist cloth over the person's affected areas. And rather than immobilising her patients, she had them do exercises such as bending and flexing joints. Several times a day, they'd move them through a limited range of motion. In doing so, she went directly against the orthodoxy, but her methods are now thought to be a forerunner of modern physiotherapy. However Elizabeth Kenny remains a tricky subject. In some ways, she resembles today's self-appointed heroes who reveal their groundbreaking treatment that busts open the orthodoxy. Kenny appears to have been a skilled self-promoter. She became famous in the United States and her story even featured in a 1946 Hollywood movie. But some saw her as a tireless propagandist who manipulated, or even falsified, her results. She claimed to have achieved an astounding 80 per cent recovery rate, but this was based on observation and intuition rather than any scientific study. MORE ASK FUZZY: Her approach was based on a fundamental misconception that the problem was a muscular one that could be corrected through "muscle re-education". As some researchers thought at the time and has subsequently been proven, polio paralysis is actually a neurological condition. As someone with direct experience of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) and Frozen Shoulder (adhesive capsulitis), I cannot imagine a worse treatment than to stop a person exercising. Treatment today is more nuanced. As with the Kenny method, it includes hot moist packs and physical therapy. However, institutions such as the Mayo Clinic also include appropriate bed rest and even "splints or other devices to encourage good position of the spine and limbs". The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast:
The Advertiser
7 days ago
- Science
- The Advertiser
Ask Fuzzy: What's happening to Jupiter's spot?
While there are many truly beautiful objects in the night sky, arguably the most stunning is Jupiter. Seen up close from spacecraft such as Cassini, the swirling textured surface looks like something that Van Gogh might have painted. The fifth planet from the Sun is easily visible to the naked eye and is more than twice as massive as the other planets combined. If it were a hollow shell, a thousand Earths could fit inside. Curiously for such a large object, Jupiter also has the shortest day in the solar system, being only 10 hours long. Jupiter's size and rapid spin generates a huge coriolis effect - the same force that shapes cyclones and hurricanes on Earth. The striking colours in thick bands across Jupiter are thought to be plumes of sulphur and phosphorus gases. While it might be beautiful, it would not be a happy place to visit. Aside from being a long way, the atmosphere that includes ammonia ice and ammonium hydrosulfide crystals is not recommended. The planet's rotation causes cyclonic storms with winds over 500 kilometres per hour, forming bands of colour, with spots scattered from pole to pole. With no solid surface to slow them down, these spots persist for many years. The first person to observe a spot on Jupiter was Giovanni Cassini in 1672 when he drew pictures using his primitive telescope. By today's standards telescopes were still unsophisticated in the 1800s when the Great Red Spot was first seen. A drawing from 1831 shows a large oval shape that we now know is a giant storm, twice as wide as Earth. MORE ASK FUZZY: Through the 300 years it's been observed, Jupiter's patterns have been constantly evolving. In recent times, three smaller ovals merged to form the Little Red Spot which is about half the size. Now it seems the Great Red Spot is shrinking. In the late 1800s it spanned about 41,000km and in 1979 the NASA Voyager measured it at 23,335 km. Today, the spot's waistline is only 16,500 km, and getting smaller by 1000 kilometres per year. At this rate it could disappear in the near future. It might be sad for our photogenic neighbour to lose its beauty spot, but who knows, it'll probably grow a new one. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: While there are many truly beautiful objects in the night sky, arguably the most stunning is Jupiter. Seen up close from spacecraft such as Cassini, the swirling textured surface looks like something that Van Gogh might have painted. The fifth planet from the Sun is easily visible to the naked eye and is more than twice as massive as the other planets combined. If it were a hollow shell, a thousand Earths could fit inside. Curiously for such a large object, Jupiter also has the shortest day in the solar system, being only 10 hours long. Jupiter's size and rapid spin generates a huge coriolis effect - the same force that shapes cyclones and hurricanes on Earth. The striking colours in thick bands across Jupiter are thought to be plumes of sulphur and phosphorus gases. While it might be beautiful, it would not be a happy place to visit. Aside from being a long way, the atmosphere that includes ammonia ice and ammonium hydrosulfide crystals is not recommended. The planet's rotation causes cyclonic storms with winds over 500 kilometres per hour, forming bands of colour, with spots scattered from pole to pole. With no solid surface to slow them down, these spots persist for many years. The first person to observe a spot on Jupiter was Giovanni Cassini in 1672 when he drew pictures using his primitive telescope. By today's standards telescopes were still unsophisticated in the 1800s when the Great Red Spot was first seen. A drawing from 1831 shows a large oval shape that we now know is a giant storm, twice as wide as Earth. MORE ASK FUZZY: Through the 300 years it's been observed, Jupiter's patterns have been constantly evolving. In recent times, three smaller ovals merged to form the Little Red Spot which is about half the size. Now it seems the Great Red Spot is shrinking. In the late 1800s it spanned about 41,000km and in 1979 the NASA Voyager measured it at 23,335 km. Today, the spot's waistline is only 16,500 km, and getting smaller by 1000 kilometres per year. At this rate it could disappear in the near future. It might be sad for our photogenic neighbour to lose its beauty spot, but who knows, it'll probably grow a new one. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: While there are many truly beautiful objects in the night sky, arguably the most stunning is Jupiter. Seen up close from spacecraft such as Cassini, the swirling textured surface looks like something that Van Gogh might have painted. The fifth planet from the Sun is easily visible to the naked eye and is more than twice as massive as the other planets combined. If it were a hollow shell, a thousand Earths could fit inside. Curiously for such a large object, Jupiter also has the shortest day in the solar system, being only 10 hours long. Jupiter's size and rapid spin generates a huge coriolis effect - the same force that shapes cyclones and hurricanes on Earth. The striking colours in thick bands across Jupiter are thought to be plumes of sulphur and phosphorus gases. While it might be beautiful, it would not be a happy place to visit. Aside from being a long way, the atmosphere that includes ammonia ice and ammonium hydrosulfide crystals is not recommended. The planet's rotation causes cyclonic storms with winds over 500 kilometres per hour, forming bands of colour, with spots scattered from pole to pole. With no solid surface to slow them down, these spots persist for many years. The first person to observe a spot on Jupiter was Giovanni Cassini in 1672 when he drew pictures using his primitive telescope. By today's standards telescopes were still unsophisticated in the 1800s when the Great Red Spot was first seen. A drawing from 1831 shows a large oval shape that we now know is a giant storm, twice as wide as Earth. MORE ASK FUZZY: Through the 300 years it's been observed, Jupiter's patterns have been constantly evolving. In recent times, three smaller ovals merged to form the Little Red Spot which is about half the size. Now it seems the Great Red Spot is shrinking. In the late 1800s it spanned about 41,000km and in 1979 the NASA Voyager measured it at 23,335 km. Today, the spot's waistline is only 16,500 km, and getting smaller by 1000 kilometres per year. At this rate it could disappear in the near future. It might be sad for our photogenic neighbour to lose its beauty spot, but who knows, it'll probably grow a new one. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: While there are many truly beautiful objects in the night sky, arguably the most stunning is Jupiter. Seen up close from spacecraft such as Cassini, the swirling textured surface looks like something that Van Gogh might have painted. The fifth planet from the Sun is easily visible to the naked eye and is more than twice as massive as the other planets combined. If it were a hollow shell, a thousand Earths could fit inside. Curiously for such a large object, Jupiter also has the shortest day in the solar system, being only 10 hours long. Jupiter's size and rapid spin generates a huge coriolis effect - the same force that shapes cyclones and hurricanes on Earth. The striking colours in thick bands across Jupiter are thought to be plumes of sulphur and phosphorus gases. While it might be beautiful, it would not be a happy place to visit. Aside from being a long way, the atmosphere that includes ammonia ice and ammonium hydrosulfide crystals is not recommended. The planet's rotation causes cyclonic storms with winds over 500 kilometres per hour, forming bands of colour, with spots scattered from pole to pole. With no solid surface to slow them down, these spots persist for many years. The first person to observe a spot on Jupiter was Giovanni Cassini in 1672 when he drew pictures using his primitive telescope. By today's standards telescopes were still unsophisticated in the 1800s when the Great Red Spot was first seen. A drawing from 1831 shows a large oval shape that we now know is a giant storm, twice as wide as Earth. MORE ASK FUZZY: Through the 300 years it's been observed, Jupiter's patterns have been constantly evolving. In recent times, three smaller ovals merged to form the Little Red Spot which is about half the size. Now it seems the Great Red Spot is shrinking. In the late 1800s it spanned about 41,000km and in 1979 the NASA Voyager measured it at 23,335 km. Today, the spot's waistline is only 16,500 km, and getting smaller by 1000 kilometres per year. At this rate it could disappear in the near future. It might be sad for our photogenic neighbour to lose its beauty spot, but who knows, it'll probably grow a new one. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast:
The Advertiser
21-05-2025
- Science
- The Advertiser
Ask Fuzzy: What happens when you cook meat?
It's thought that, between 2.6 and 2.5 million years ago, our distant human ancestors were subsisting mostly on fruits, leaves, seeds, flowers and tubers. Then, when the Earth became significantly hotter and drier, forests were replaced by great grasslands. Nutritious plants became scarce, forcing hominins to find new sources of energy. Meanwhile the growing number of grazing herbivores across the savanna grasslands meant there was also more meat. Evidence uncovered by archaeologists reveals cut marks from crude stone tools in the bones of large herbivores 2.5 million years ago. Without sophisticated tools they wouldn't have been capable hunters, but there were sabre-toothed cats. Even if those were efficient killers, they were probably also messy eaters, leaving enough meat for hominin scavenging. The earliest evidence of widespread human meat-eating coincides with the emergence of Homo habilis, the "handyman" of early humans. At a 2 million-year-old site in Kenya, flaked stone blades and hammers were found near piles of bone fragments. Butcher marks show that Homo habilis used their crude stone tools to strip flesh off a carcass and crack open bones to get at the marrow. That meat would literally have been a tough transition because, even though they had stronger jaws and larger teeth, they were not adapted to eating raw meat. Their mouths and guts were designed more for grinding and digesting plants. MORE ASK FUZZY: Something that they (in fact, all life) had to deal with is that you have to spend energy to get energy. Cooking changes this balance by making it easier to extract nutrients. The earliest clear evidence of cooking dates back roughly 800,000 years ago, although it could have begun sooner. This has been crucial to human evolution because our brains are far larger than that of other primates and three times the size of our distant ancestors, Australopithecus. Those big brains are expensive, consuming 20 per cent of our body's total energy. That's far more than other mammals, whose brains only use about 4 per cent of their energy. Cooking also has reduced the need for a long digestive tract and, over hundreds of thousands of years, the human gut has shrunk. This makes cooking another one of those apparently ordinary technologies that have been integral to the rise of humans and, ultimately, to civilisation. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: It's thought that, between 2.6 and 2.5 million years ago, our distant human ancestors were subsisting mostly on fruits, leaves, seeds, flowers and tubers. Then, when the Earth became significantly hotter and drier, forests were replaced by great grasslands. Nutritious plants became scarce, forcing hominins to find new sources of energy. Meanwhile the growing number of grazing herbivores across the savanna grasslands meant there was also more meat. Evidence uncovered by archaeologists reveals cut marks from crude stone tools in the bones of large herbivores 2.5 million years ago. Without sophisticated tools they wouldn't have been capable hunters, but there were sabre-toothed cats. Even if those were efficient killers, they were probably also messy eaters, leaving enough meat for hominin scavenging. The earliest evidence of widespread human meat-eating coincides with the emergence of Homo habilis, the "handyman" of early humans. At a 2 million-year-old site in Kenya, flaked stone blades and hammers were found near piles of bone fragments. Butcher marks show that Homo habilis used their crude stone tools to strip flesh off a carcass and crack open bones to get at the marrow. That meat would literally have been a tough transition because, even though they had stronger jaws and larger teeth, they were not adapted to eating raw meat. Their mouths and guts were designed more for grinding and digesting plants. MORE ASK FUZZY: Something that they (in fact, all life) had to deal with is that you have to spend energy to get energy. Cooking changes this balance by making it easier to extract nutrients. The earliest clear evidence of cooking dates back roughly 800,000 years ago, although it could have begun sooner. This has been crucial to human evolution because our brains are far larger than that of other primates and three times the size of our distant ancestors, Australopithecus. Those big brains are expensive, consuming 20 per cent of our body's total energy. That's far more than other mammals, whose brains only use about 4 per cent of their energy. Cooking also has reduced the need for a long digestive tract and, over hundreds of thousands of years, the human gut has shrunk. This makes cooking another one of those apparently ordinary technologies that have been integral to the rise of humans and, ultimately, to civilisation. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: It's thought that, between 2.6 and 2.5 million years ago, our distant human ancestors were subsisting mostly on fruits, leaves, seeds, flowers and tubers. Then, when the Earth became significantly hotter and drier, forests were replaced by great grasslands. Nutritious plants became scarce, forcing hominins to find new sources of energy. Meanwhile the growing number of grazing herbivores across the savanna grasslands meant there was also more meat. Evidence uncovered by archaeologists reveals cut marks from crude stone tools in the bones of large herbivores 2.5 million years ago. Without sophisticated tools they wouldn't have been capable hunters, but there were sabre-toothed cats. Even if those were efficient killers, they were probably also messy eaters, leaving enough meat for hominin scavenging. The earliest evidence of widespread human meat-eating coincides with the emergence of Homo habilis, the "handyman" of early humans. At a 2 million-year-old site in Kenya, flaked stone blades and hammers were found near piles of bone fragments. Butcher marks show that Homo habilis used their crude stone tools to strip flesh off a carcass and crack open bones to get at the marrow. That meat would literally have been a tough transition because, even though they had stronger jaws and larger teeth, they were not adapted to eating raw meat. Their mouths and guts were designed more for grinding and digesting plants. MORE ASK FUZZY: Something that they (in fact, all life) had to deal with is that you have to spend energy to get energy. Cooking changes this balance by making it easier to extract nutrients. The earliest clear evidence of cooking dates back roughly 800,000 years ago, although it could have begun sooner. This has been crucial to human evolution because our brains are far larger than that of other primates and three times the size of our distant ancestors, Australopithecus. Those big brains are expensive, consuming 20 per cent of our body's total energy. That's far more than other mammals, whose brains only use about 4 per cent of their energy. Cooking also has reduced the need for a long digestive tract and, over hundreds of thousands of years, the human gut has shrunk. This makes cooking another one of those apparently ordinary technologies that have been integral to the rise of humans and, ultimately, to civilisation. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: It's thought that, between 2.6 and 2.5 million years ago, our distant human ancestors were subsisting mostly on fruits, leaves, seeds, flowers and tubers. Then, when the Earth became significantly hotter and drier, forests were replaced by great grasslands. Nutritious plants became scarce, forcing hominins to find new sources of energy. Meanwhile the growing number of grazing herbivores across the savanna grasslands meant there was also more meat. Evidence uncovered by archaeologists reveals cut marks from crude stone tools in the bones of large herbivores 2.5 million years ago. Without sophisticated tools they wouldn't have been capable hunters, but there were sabre-toothed cats. Even if those were efficient killers, they were probably also messy eaters, leaving enough meat for hominin scavenging. The earliest evidence of widespread human meat-eating coincides with the emergence of Homo habilis, the "handyman" of early humans. At a 2 million-year-old site in Kenya, flaked stone blades and hammers were found near piles of bone fragments. Butcher marks show that Homo habilis used their crude stone tools to strip flesh off a carcass and crack open bones to get at the marrow. That meat would literally have been a tough transition because, even though they had stronger jaws and larger teeth, they were not adapted to eating raw meat. Their mouths and guts were designed more for grinding and digesting plants. MORE ASK FUZZY: Something that they (in fact, all life) had to deal with is that you have to spend energy to get energy. Cooking changes this balance by making it easier to extract nutrients. The earliest clear evidence of cooking dates back roughly 800,000 years ago, although it could have begun sooner. This has been crucial to human evolution because our brains are far larger than that of other primates and three times the size of our distant ancestors, Australopithecus. Those big brains are expensive, consuming 20 per cent of our body's total energy. That's far more than other mammals, whose brains only use about 4 per cent of their energy. Cooking also has reduced the need for a long digestive tract and, over hundreds of thousands of years, the human gut has shrunk. This makes cooking another one of those apparently ordinary technologies that have been integral to the rise of humans and, ultimately, to civilisation. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast:
The Advertiser
14-05-2025
- Science
- The Advertiser
Ask Fuzzy: How does an induction cooker work?
You can usually tell whether a device is inefficient by the amount of wasted heat. An obvious example is the internal combustion engine which burns more than half its fuel doing nothing more than getting hot. The best that most cars can manage is about 20-40 per cent efficiency. That means 60-80 per cent is wasted. Great if you want to cook sausages, but it doesn't you get anywhere. Televisions, computers and power charges all get warm to varying degrees and, in each case, that means wasted energy. Then there are kitchen stoves such as gas and those with old-style heater elements. They certainly get hot but, as with cars, much of that goes into heating itself and the air around it without doing any useful work. A good indicator that induction cooktops are highly efficient (about 84 per cent) is that the "hot plates" are often cool enough to touch (carefully) shortly after they finish cooking. The history of electromagnetic induction goes back to 1820 when Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted discovered that an electric current generates a magnetic field. Then in 1821 English physicist Michael Faraday made a primitive electric motor by placing a magnet near a piece of wire. When he fed an electric current into the wire, it generated a magnetic field, pushing itself away from the permanent magnet. In 1831, he flipped the idea around by rotating a coil of wire through a magnetic field to induce an electric current, thus inventing the electricity generator. MORE ASK FUZZY: Now we see induction used in electric toothbrushes cradles and wireless phone chargers. As the name implies, induction stoves work on the same principle. An alternating current running through the tightly wound metal coil inside a cooking zone induces a high-frequency alternating magnetic field. That produces whirling electrical currents inside the pan. The repeated magnetising and demagnetising (magnetic hysteresis) turns it into a heater. The beauty of this is that it heats the pan directly instead of an element and the air around it. If there's no pan on the cooking zone, the cooking zone stays cold. Although your home power supply alternates at 50Hz, an induction cooktop is 20-40kHz, which is 500 to 1000 times faster. That offers a couple of advantages. One is that being above the range of hearing, stops any annoying buzzing. The other is that it prevents your pots from dancing around on the cooktop. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: You can usually tell whether a device is inefficient by the amount of wasted heat. An obvious example is the internal combustion engine which burns more than half its fuel doing nothing more than getting hot. The best that most cars can manage is about 20-40 per cent efficiency. That means 60-80 per cent is wasted. Great if you want to cook sausages, but it doesn't you get anywhere. Televisions, computers and power charges all get warm to varying degrees and, in each case, that means wasted energy. Then there are kitchen stoves such as gas and those with old-style heater elements. They certainly get hot but, as with cars, much of that goes into heating itself and the air around it without doing any useful work. A good indicator that induction cooktops are highly efficient (about 84 per cent) is that the "hot plates" are often cool enough to touch (carefully) shortly after they finish cooking. The history of electromagnetic induction goes back to 1820 when Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted discovered that an electric current generates a magnetic field. Then in 1821 English physicist Michael Faraday made a primitive electric motor by placing a magnet near a piece of wire. When he fed an electric current into the wire, it generated a magnetic field, pushing itself away from the permanent magnet. In 1831, he flipped the idea around by rotating a coil of wire through a magnetic field to induce an electric current, thus inventing the electricity generator. MORE ASK FUZZY: Now we see induction used in electric toothbrushes cradles and wireless phone chargers. As the name implies, induction stoves work on the same principle. An alternating current running through the tightly wound metal coil inside a cooking zone induces a high-frequency alternating magnetic field. That produces whirling electrical currents inside the pan. The repeated magnetising and demagnetising (magnetic hysteresis) turns it into a heater. The beauty of this is that it heats the pan directly instead of an element and the air around it. If there's no pan on the cooking zone, the cooking zone stays cold. Although your home power supply alternates at 50Hz, an induction cooktop is 20-40kHz, which is 500 to 1000 times faster. That offers a couple of advantages. One is that being above the range of hearing, stops any annoying buzzing. The other is that it prevents your pots from dancing around on the cooktop. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: You can usually tell whether a device is inefficient by the amount of wasted heat. An obvious example is the internal combustion engine which burns more than half its fuel doing nothing more than getting hot. The best that most cars can manage is about 20-40 per cent efficiency. That means 60-80 per cent is wasted. Great if you want to cook sausages, but it doesn't you get anywhere. Televisions, computers and power charges all get warm to varying degrees and, in each case, that means wasted energy. Then there are kitchen stoves such as gas and those with old-style heater elements. They certainly get hot but, as with cars, much of that goes into heating itself and the air around it without doing any useful work. A good indicator that induction cooktops are highly efficient (about 84 per cent) is that the "hot plates" are often cool enough to touch (carefully) shortly after they finish cooking. The history of electromagnetic induction goes back to 1820 when Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted discovered that an electric current generates a magnetic field. Then in 1821 English physicist Michael Faraday made a primitive electric motor by placing a magnet near a piece of wire. When he fed an electric current into the wire, it generated a magnetic field, pushing itself away from the permanent magnet. In 1831, he flipped the idea around by rotating a coil of wire through a magnetic field to induce an electric current, thus inventing the electricity generator. MORE ASK FUZZY: Now we see induction used in electric toothbrushes cradles and wireless phone chargers. As the name implies, induction stoves work on the same principle. An alternating current running through the tightly wound metal coil inside a cooking zone induces a high-frequency alternating magnetic field. That produces whirling electrical currents inside the pan. The repeated magnetising and demagnetising (magnetic hysteresis) turns it into a heater. The beauty of this is that it heats the pan directly instead of an element and the air around it. If there's no pan on the cooking zone, the cooking zone stays cold. Although your home power supply alternates at 50Hz, an induction cooktop is 20-40kHz, which is 500 to 1000 times faster. That offers a couple of advantages. One is that being above the range of hearing, stops any annoying buzzing. The other is that it prevents your pots from dancing around on the cooktop. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast: You can usually tell whether a device is inefficient by the amount of wasted heat. An obvious example is the internal combustion engine which burns more than half its fuel doing nothing more than getting hot. The best that most cars can manage is about 20-40 per cent efficiency. That means 60-80 per cent is wasted. Great if you want to cook sausages, but it doesn't you get anywhere. Televisions, computers and power charges all get warm to varying degrees and, in each case, that means wasted energy. Then there are kitchen stoves such as gas and those with old-style heater elements. They certainly get hot but, as with cars, much of that goes into heating itself and the air around it without doing any useful work. A good indicator that induction cooktops are highly efficient (about 84 per cent) is that the "hot plates" are often cool enough to touch (carefully) shortly after they finish cooking. The history of electromagnetic induction goes back to 1820 when Danish physicist Hans Christian Oersted discovered that an electric current generates a magnetic field. Then in 1821 English physicist Michael Faraday made a primitive electric motor by placing a magnet near a piece of wire. When he fed an electric current into the wire, it generated a magnetic field, pushing itself away from the permanent magnet. In 1831, he flipped the idea around by rotating a coil of wire through a magnetic field to induce an electric current, thus inventing the electricity generator. MORE ASK FUZZY: Now we see induction used in electric toothbrushes cradles and wireless phone chargers. As the name implies, induction stoves work on the same principle. An alternating current running through the tightly wound metal coil inside a cooking zone induces a high-frequency alternating magnetic field. That produces whirling electrical currents inside the pan. The repeated magnetising and demagnetising (magnetic hysteresis) turns it into a heater. The beauty of this is that it heats the pan directly instead of an element and the air around it. If there's no pan on the cooking zone, the cooking zone stays cold. Although your home power supply alternates at 50Hz, an induction cooktop is 20-40kHz, which is 500 to 1000 times faster. That offers a couple of advantages. One is that being above the range of hearing, stops any annoying buzzing. The other is that it prevents your pots from dancing around on the cooktop. The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@ Podcast:
