Spherical cows help to dump metabolism law
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - 20:28
in Biology & Nature
Apparently, the mysterious "3/4 law of metabolism" -- proposed by Max Kleiber in 1932, printed in biology textbooks for decades, and described as "extended to all life forms" from bacteria to whales -- is just plain wrong. "Actually, it's two-thirds," says University of Vermont mathematician Peter Dodds. A new paper of his helps overturn almost 80 years of near-mystical belief in a 3/4 exponent used to describe the relationship between the size of animals and their resting metabolism.