Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Anti-Frostidigitation: Heatpipe Gloves

Posted by michael on from the windchill-of-minus-20 dept.

Hettinga writes "A little casemod couture this morning, courtesy of Hongbin Ma, a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Missouri. He has developed heatpipe-driven gloves which pump therms from your toasty upper arm down to those aforementioned frosty digits. 'Each glove contains five small heat pipes, one for each finger, that are about 14 inches long and 1 mm x 2 mm in the cross section. Each pipe consists of three sections: an evaporating section, which is attached to the upper arm area; an adiabatic section, which is between the finger area and the arm area; and the condensing section, which is attached to the finger area.' Coming soon to a half-pipe near you..."

7 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Too bad... by bperkins · · Score: 5, Funny

    nature didn't provide us with some kind of fluid that automatically circulates throughout our body to distribute warmth and nutrients.

    1. Re:Too bad... by CGP314 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Too bad nature decides to shut it off in the hands when it gets cold.

      I can't imagine that little bit of lost heat was the difference between life and death for anyone. But, the fact that we have evolved the feature suggests it was.

      --
      In London? Need a Physics Tutor?

      American Weblog in London

    2. Re:Too bad... by hiryuu · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are those with poor circulation in the extremities whose bodies have some trouble warming hands and feet back up once they've gotten cold. Speaking as one of them, once my feet have gone cold, they stay that way for ages, even after getting into a warm (or even hot) envinronment, changing shoes/socks for warmer/dryer pairs, etc.

      --
      Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
    3. Re:Too bad... by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can't imagine that little bit of lost heat was the difference between life and death for anyone

      Let's say you don't have the option of going somewhere warm (ie, inside to a nice toasty fire)... Which do you have a more critical (ie, life-preserving) need for - To keep using your large muscles (legs, upper arms), which serves both the purpose of generating heat and might eventually move you to somewhere warmer; or, manual dexterity, which would only really help if you needed to operate a book of matches (something that didn't exist for 99.99999% of human history)?

      Our bodies decrease blood flow to the extremities for precisely that reason. Additionally, assuming the worst, we can live without a few fingers or toes or even an earlobe; Sacrificing them to keep our core body temperature high enough seems like a viable tradeoff under extreme circumstances. The fact that we now have thinsulate and heat-packs and almost always a warm place to go nearby, so having our fingers nice and toasty seems more useful than preventing the small heat loss from them, had no effect on how we evolved.


      But, the fact that we have evolved the feature suggests it was.

      Although this may seem in direct contradiction to my point above, I mention it only for clarity... Not all inherited traits "evolved" in the natural-selection sense. One of the fundamental ideas behind evolution says that mutations occur essentially at random, and those that increase our odds of reproducing (which dying young does not) get passed on. However, those traits that have no effect whatsoever on our chances of reproducing can also get passed on, just by blind chance. For a trivial example, Alzheimer's disease - It doesn't affect people until they've passed their reproductive prime, so as debilitating as it seems in later life, it doesn't reduce its own chances of remaining in the population.

  2. Inverse overclocking... by vudufixit · · Score: 5, Funny

    My fingers stiffen up and I can't type very well in chilly air. I'm rated at 73 WPM at standard room temperature. Imagine the productivity boost with these babies on! At least 5-10 WPM for sure!

  3. Keep your torso warm by me.at.work · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's actually better to keep your torso warm.
    The draining of blood and heat from your hands and feet happens when your core temperature starts dropping. This is done to protect the vital organs, heart, liver etc over the non-vital, hands, feet. If you can keep your core temperature normal you can actually work without gloves even below zero (celsius). This because the body is warm and needn't cut the heatloss from hands or feet.
    There was a good documentary on the Discovery channel about the very subject not long ago.
    So, while heatpumping gloves seem nice, I'd go with keeping my body warm and be rid of any gloves hindering my hands.

    Yeah, bring on the puns..

  4. Re:Furthermore ... by mangu · · Score: 5, Interesting
    These gloves work by shifting some of the heat from more core parts of your body to your extremities.


    Alcohol has the same effect. It dilates the blood vessels in your skin, making you feel warmer at the cost of increased heat loss. That, coupled with a general loss of sensibility and reasoning, causes many deaths in places where the temperature falls below freezing.