I read a fascinating article in Physics Today during lunch. About power laws in biological systems. It was so interesting, and so unavailable at the Physics Today website, that I'm gonna blog it for you all. A bit at a time, so I can do work, too ;)
Among mammals, average resting heart rate goes rougly like: Beats per minute = A* Mass^(-1/4), while life span goes roughly like Minutes per lifetime = B*Mass^(1/4), so that the total number of heart beats over a lifetime is roughly Beats per minute*minutes per lifetime = Beats per lifetime = A*Mass^(-1/4) *B*Mass^(1/4) = A*B, roughly constant!
Pretty cool, and this kind of thing pops up all over the place in biology. More on this, later. Back to the grind I go.
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