Elsewhere, the possibility has been mooted of using huskies, treated with a mitochondrial uncoupler so that the make more heat, to warm a room. Ultimately, though, the limit will be set by how fast a dog can dissipate heat, especially in a non- arctic setting.

This suggests, obviously, a combined heat and weight-loss system in the form of a radiative heart-lung machine. To use the RHLM, simply plumb it into your blood supply, Your nice warm blood now circulates through a large wall-mounted radiator, heating your room.

The returning blood will, of course, be very cool, but your body will work to rectify this, burning extra calories to compensate. Net result: effortless weight loss in a warm room.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 07 2020

// the limit will be set by how fast a dog can dissipate heat// - you say that as if you haven't measured the thermal conductivity of huskies
-- hippo, Jan 07 2020


You have no idea how much ...
-- 8th of 7, Jan 07 2020


//haven't measured the thermal conductivity of huskies//

In water, with a heat pump, pretty high.
-- bs0u0155, Jan 07 2020


I love this idea. Let's use racks of hamsters (since I just learned how to connect them).
-- tatterdemalion, Jan 08 2020


You're proposing to use your own body heat to warm up a cold room.

How is this better than just taking some clothes off?
-- pertinax, Jan 09 2020


//How is this better than just taking some clothes off?//

It bypasses the body's ability to avoid wasting heat. Just take six aspirin before you use it.
-- Voice, Jan 09 2020


I think this might be pretty rough on the huskies. Or your own body, whichever.

It might be easier in the long run to deal with the heat dissipation bottleneck with a genetically engineering and breeding programme with a goal of hairless black huskies with naturally leaky mitochondria.

And are we actually wedded to specifically using huskies?
Feeding them meat is naturally expensive and wasteful.

Tatterdemalion suggests hamsters, and these would have several advantages - but gerbils are perhaps superior for this purpose, since they are more social and apparently don't hibernate. They eat primarily vegetable matter, and also are smaller than huskies, allowing more granular temperature regulation. As a fringe benefit they're probably easier to fit into a heating system, and enjoy tunnels.

So I vote for black hairless overclocked gerbils.
-- Loris, Jan 09 2020


// How is this better than just taking some clothes off? //

Because many humans look deeply unattractive even with clothes; removing them just makes things worse.
-- 8th of 7, Jan 09 2020


If the purpose of warming the room is to warm the humans within it, is chilling their blood before returning it to them not a tad counterproductive?
-- BunsenHoneydew, Feb 02 2020


I think it runs on the hired help.
-- Voice, Feb 04 2020


... or it's an alternative to ghost stories, for people who don't want to be complicit in the negative stereotyping of ghosts.
-- pertinax, Feb 04 2020


I've heard some people like to sit in the sauna for a while and then go outside and roll in the snow. I've also heard that that can cause heart attacks or something like that, due to the heart suddenly getting a bunch of quite cold blood returning from the extremities. I don't know if it's the coldness or the suddenness that's the problem. If it's the coldness, this arrangement could lead to serious complications and likely death, especially if the room starts pretty cold.
-- notexactly, Mar 15 2020



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