Nautilus

Gasoline and Fertility

The most basic function of a living organism is to take in energy and spend it on survival and reproduction. If humans are unique, then so must our energy use be. What we know today is that our energy use has both deep similarities to, and differences from, that of other animals.

Part of our energy budget is dedicated to biological metabolism, which is the set of processes through which our bodies produce and spend energy derived from the food we eat. This we share in common with all other animals. Unlike all other mammals, however, humans also use extra-biological energy, and a lot of it. The

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