Explorer-researcher Christian Clot is launching an appeal to all those who wish to advance science. This is the first phase of a larger study that will continue next summer, at the European level.
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As the heat descends on the country and on Monday July 29, 39 departments were placed on orange heatwave alert by Météo France, the explorer and researcher, Christian Clot, is offering all French people who wish to participate in a major scientific study for one month. A study to understand how the human body adapts to heat.
For those who don’t know him, Christian Clot, a Franco-Swiss explorer, has conducted the Deep Time and Deep Climate studies in recent years. We observed the behavior of volunteers locked in a cave for 40 days. They also spent 40 days in the Amazon jungle, then 40 days in the polar cold and finally 40 days in the desert. This time, Christian Clot is proposing something easier. If you are over 18, you are all welcome to participate in a study that should help us understand how you and I live and feel heat. This study is called Heatadapt.
To participate, you must register on the website “adaptation-institute.com”. Then every day for four weeks, via the internet, you will be asked a few questions about how you feel the heat or not, to find out if you sleep well. This lasts about a minute. The researchers will make the connection between the real temperatures in your region and your feelings, this will allow us to understand how you experience the heat. Each week, there will also be a questionnaire that takes 15-20 minutes to complete. You will be asked, for example, what are your tips for avoiding the heat, your strategies for cooling down. The goal is to understand with the temperatures that will continue to increase in the coming years what are the risks for the human body, the consequences on your brain, your irritability, but also the solutions. This is an area that is very poorly informed, and we are poorly prepared for it, explains Christian Clot.
It is not necessary to start the study on August 1st. It is possible to start on any date you want, you just have to stick to the calendar for four weeks. It is even possible to start in September, because it will still be warm then. This summer is the first phase of a larger study that will continue next summer, at the European level.
By then, in the fall, Christian Clot should reveal the first results of Deep Climate. The first lessons are that it was in the desert that the participants were least successful in managing the climate. Furthermore, the hotter it is, the less sociable we are, apparently. One more reason to study the effect of heat on our bodies and our moods.