Cool as a cucumber, at least compared to your Great Grandpa.
Credit: Deposit Photo

The next time you take your temperature, don’t worry if it’s not exactly what the doctor ordered—98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is just a number. That’s the message of a host of new research that shows human temperature is malleable, unique, and anything but average.

One new study from Stanford University researchers finds that we seem to be colder, on average, than our forebears. The difference they detected isn’t huge—between 1.06 degrees Fahrenheit lower, on average, for men born today compared to those born in the early 1800s, and 0.58 degrees Fahrenheit for women born today compared to those born around 1890—but it adds to a growing body of evidence that body temperature is a lot more flexible than previously thought.

German doctor named Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich set the standard on human body temperature in 1851, deeming 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit the norm. But scientists have […]