The Science of Hobbit Gluttony

2021-08-26

[public] 224K views, 13.8K likes, dislikes audio only

Because smaller animals have to eat more relative to their bodyweight, Tolkein’s hobbits need to eat a lot - not for comfort, but for survival.

LEARN MORE

**************

To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:

Metabolism: The chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life.

Square-cube Law: A mathematical principle which describes the relationship between the volume and the surface area as a shape's size increases or decreases.

Kleiber’s Law: The observation that, for the vast majority of animals, an animal's metabolic rate scales to the 3⁄4 power of the animal's mass.

Calorie: Unit of energy. One food calorie equals 1 kilocalorie.

SUPPORT MINUTEEARTH

**************************

If you like what we do, you can help us!:

- Become our patron: https://patreon.com/MinuteEarth

- Share this video with your friends and family

- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

CREDITS

*********

Cameron Duke | Script Writer

David Goldenberg | Script Editor, Narrator and Director

Adam Thompson | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation

Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

https://neptunestudios.info

OUR STAFF

************

Sarah Berman • Arcadi Garcia i Rius

David Goldenberg • Julián Gustavo Gómez

Melissa Hayes • Alex Reich • Henry Reich • Peter Reich

Ever Salazar • Leonardo Souza • Kate Yoshida

OUR LINKS

************

Youtube | https://youtube.com/MinuteEarth

TikTok | https://tiktok.com/@minuteearth

Twitter | https://twitter.com/MinuteEarth

Instagram | https://instagram.com/minute_earth

Facebook | https://facebook.com/Minuteearth

Website | https://minuteearth.com

Apple Podcasts| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/minuteearth/id649211176

REFERENCES

**************

Kleiber, M. (1947). BODY SIZE AND METABOLIC RATE. Physiological Reviews, 27(4), 511–541. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.1947.27.4.511.

Dawson, N. (1967). The Surface-Area/Body-Weight Relationship in Mice. Australian Journal of Biological Sciences, 20(3), 687. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1071/bi9670687.

How Much Does an Elephant Weigh? (2019, September 26). Wonderopolis.org. Retrieved from: https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/how-much-does-an-elephant-weigh

Thommen, Albert, et al. “Body Size-Dependent Energy Storage Causes Kleiber’s Law Scaling of the Metabolic Rate in Planarians.” (2019) ELife, eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd, 4 Jan. 2019. Retrieved from: http://www.elifesciences.org/articles/38187.

West, G. B., Brown, J. H., & Enquist, B. J. (1997). A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology. Science, 276(5309), 122–126. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.276.5309.122.