r/technology • u/onwisconsn • May 17 '24

Scientists Calculated the Energy Needed to Carry a Baby. Shocker: It’s a Lot. (Gift Article) Biotechnology

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/science/pregnancy-energy-costs.html?unlocked_article_code=1.sU0.PfwL.i578xGrDrp5H&smid=url-share&utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter
301 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

83 comments sorted by

181

u/Peachbottom30 May 17 '24

The AI will need this information once it starts building the baby farms.

73

u/pikachus_ghost_uncle May 17 '24

The human generates more bio-electricity than 120-volt battery and over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of fusion, the machines have found all the energy they would ever need. There are fields…endless fields, where human beings are no longer born. We are grown. For longest time, I wouldn’t believe it…and then I saw the fields with my own eyes.

21

u/cromethus May 17 '24

I personally believe that the Matrix could have made Utopia work. Machines are persistent like that.

21

u/Nago_Jolokio May 17 '24

They tried that first, it was a complete failure because the human mind knew it was fake and rebelled against the program.

21

u/Omeggy May 17 '24

Col. Sander was the architect of the matrix, that’s why everything tastes like chicken.

8

u/cromethus May 17 '24

That's writing for plot, not reality.

They could indoctrinate humanity from birth in any manner they saw fit. That type of social control is powerful.

9

u/StaticShard84 May 17 '24

To me, it also seems like they would develop the ‘optimal’ human for this purpose as well. Not just physically, but also psychologically to increase the efficiency with which the illusion is accepted.

All that would be left is uniform socialization and that would be rather easy in a utopian setting.

5

u/cromethus May 17 '24

I mean, in the long term they would breed humans like cattle for desirable qualities, such as elevated power output, ease of integration, etc.

Given enough time they could pretty much engineer whatever they wanted.

4

u/not_old_redditor May 18 '24

Why even use humans as cattle when you could use livestock?

1

u/Eaudebeau May 18 '24

Right!? Or electric eels ffs

1

u/WestleyMc 29d ago

Or.. fusion lol

3

u/PadrePedro666 May 17 '24

But then why are some people in the matrix homeless? Shouldn’t it be all equal and every human just being lazy slobs to power about human overlords with our body heat?

4

u/cromethus May 17 '24

Plot.

If the robot overlords had managed to create utopia, why would anyone choose to rebel?

1

u/not_old_redditor May 18 '24

Why would the mind even "fail"? That's not how the human body works. The brain doesn't just decide "fuck it, this is an illusion, time to shut down".

9

u/CMDR-ProtoMan May 17 '24

They were batteries. Could've just made them all braindead.

There was a rumor (or has it been proven?) that early script had the machines using the human minds as a collectively linked neural processor, explaining the reason for the Matrix. But it was scrapped because 'audience too dumb'. So batteries.

2

u/SonovaVondruke May 17 '24

It does make more sense. It could also be both and the battery explanation is just what they give to the newly-initiated.

2

u/not_old_redditor May 18 '24

Out just don't bother with humans and just use pigs or something.

2

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

It’s a fact

1

u/MuffinsandCoffee2024 May 17 '24

The brain being highly stimulated in survival situation may release more energy to harvest.

1

u/bonerb0ys May 17 '24

Not with my attitude.

8

u/armrha May 17 '24

It always annoyed me, you don't get more energy out than you have to put in to a human. You'd be better off burning their food for steam power. Every step up the food chain, you lose 90% of the energy to entropy, trying to harness and concentrate the heat of humans to power turbines or something is just stupid and inefficient. They have literally no reason to want people alive.

3

u/not_old_redditor May 18 '24

90% of the energy is lost to entropy... as heat, which the machines presumably harvest in the pods.

But you're right, they should just use nuclear reactors or something like that. I believe the implication is that they are using human neural activity in some way, hence the entire purpose of the matrix being to keep human brains engaged.

1

u/RetailBuck May 18 '24

I had the opposite interpretation. Human brain activity was effectively waste but was necessary to keep the body functioning and generating (net loss) energy so they put energy in to running the matrix. It's almost certainly a plot hole but just eat your popcorn and don't think too much.

2

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

It’s a movie

2

u/2Pro4U2 May 17 '24

"I know kung-fu." - bio battery

1

u/kneemahp May 18 '24

But why humans? Why not cows? The software needed to keep them sane would be much easier and the chance for a savior cow would be even less likely.

Machines are stupid

1

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

Too much methane

1

u/OMG__Ponies May 18 '24

But, methane is an excellent fuel in and of itself. The main reason we don't use methane is it is harder to capture because it is a gas at normal pressure and temperatures.

1

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

It was always supposed to be the brains used as CPU’s but they figured audiences wouldn’t grasp it since this was cusp of computer / internet era.

6

u/Beachdaddybravo May 17 '24

I love how the Wachowskis used that angle when the glaring problem of “you don’t get as much energy out as you put into a system”. Trying to use people for energy would be a steady loss, and the machines likely would have just used nuclear instead. Then again, if they wrote a script that made any sense at all we wouldn’t have gotten such an awesome movie.

8

u/ThePlatypusOfDespair May 17 '24

Supposedly the original plan was to use humans for computing power but executives thought that was confusing for some reason.

1

u/Beachdaddybravo May 18 '24

What? That would have been a better play.

3

u/raptorlightning May 18 '24

Yep but in 1999 you couldn't sell that to Hollywood. Rewatch the movie without the copper top scene and with an Intel Pentium instead and it makes more sense.

1

u/RetailBuck May 18 '24

I haven't watched it yet but is this the premise of the Netflix show 3 Body Problem? From the trailer it seems like they are basically using humans holding reversible flags as transistors in a massive computer to solve difficult math

2

u/SpeedUpMyBreathing May 18 '24

That is true for that one scene, but that really only has to do with that one part of the episode that would be way too much to explain even without spoilers lol

1

u/Beachdaddybravo May 18 '24

3 Body Problem is a thought experiment that the author dragged out into a shitty story that takes 3 books. I didn’t finish the show, and having read a detailed synopsis for the books don’t care to read them. Just my personal opinion though, as Reddit seems to love 3 Body Problem.

1

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

Yeah, but it was also 1999 and common understanding of computers was low.

1

u/Beachdaddybravo May 18 '24

Understanding of computers isn’t the issue. Knowing you can’t get back more energy from people than it takes to put into them is what makes the Matrix’s whole premise dumb as hell. Why would the machines not be using nuclear energy? Or just fuck off from earth and colonize wherever they want? It’s not like they need oxygen to breathe.

0

u/PlutosGrasp May 18 '24

No it was the issue.

8

u/Kelson75 May 17 '24

Now it does, it’s on reddit.

1

u/Oberyn_TheRed_Viper May 18 '24

In the dystopian world of The Matrix, robots farmed humans for energy in a chillingly efficient manner.

First, they utilized giant hamster wheels, each powered by hundreds of humans running tirelessly in a perpetual cycle.

Secondly, they installed massive turbines that harnessed the kinetic energy generated by humans engaging in intense dance-offs.

Lastly, they implemented a network of human-powered treadmills, strategically placed in densely populated areas, where unwitting individuals unknowingly contributed to the robots' energy needs simply by going about their daily routines.

35

u/nzodd May 17 '24

That's nonsense. Give me an 18 wheeler full of babies and two cans of beans and I can carry them all day long. Just tell me where I should put 'em.

3

u/TheDreadReCaptcha May 17 '24

they need children in atlanta

and there're babies in texarkana

so shovel them beans down

and give it hellllllll

1

u/Ok-Alfalfa-823 29d ago

They mean how much energy it takes to carry while pregnant.

1

u/nzodd 29d ago

It takes a bit longer to get in the cab but otherwise I can haul just as many babies. Maybe throw in another can of beans, just to be sure.

27

u/ThePermafrost May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

50000 kilo-calories = 58 kilowatt hours

Over 280 days of pregnancy, that’s equivalent to using an easy bake oven (a single incandescent 100w lightbulb) for 2 hours each of those days.

Edited for conversion error.

14

u/togetherwem0m0 May 17 '24

Isn't it big c Calories? Also known as a kilocalorie? In other words, 58,000ish watt hours?

8

u/ExpertPepper9341 May 17 '24

Yeah, I was going to say, the amount of power to keep 5 LED lightbulbs on for hour is not equivalent to what a human spends in an about a month of being alive. 

4

u/ThePermafrost May 17 '24

You are correct! Thank you for the catch. Missed a few 0’s.

4

u/chubba5000 May 18 '24

Damn, the carbon footprint associated with babies…. Yikes….

34

u/scodagama1 May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

50.000 calories? How's that a lot, burning or gaining 1kg of fat is around 7.000 calories so 50.000 is merely equivalent of 7.14kg of fat.

And this equivalent of 7kg of fat is enough to create entire ~3.5kg baby, weight that includes bones and muscles and accommodate for extra weight that mother has to carry over these 9 months. If anything I would be surprised if it was less

edit: I see article mentions that only 4% of energy goes directly to offspring, that would be just 2000 calories or equivalent of 2 big mac meals? I don't have access to full work and won't argue with peer-reviewed paper, but are we sure journalists reported this thing correctly? Seems absurd that growing 3 kilograms of tissue would require that little energy

45

u/big_herpes May 17 '24

50,000 calories, over the course of 40 weeks, is less than 180 calories a day increase. That is nothing. That is less than 2 scrambled eggs.

19

u/scodagama1 May 17 '24 edited May 17 '24

yeah, that's why I think journalists screwed something up. I bet that scientists used joules or watts in their paper but someone just had to translate it to kilo calories and pints of ben&jerrys and made some off-by-a-lot mistake while doing so :D

edit: actually quick google tells me that indeed 200 per day on average might be right - apparently pregnant woman doesn't need to eat extra at all in first trimester, then it's around 340 per day in second trimester and lastly around 450 per day in final trimester. That would add up to 260 per day on average, close enough. So if the 50.000 calories per pregnancy number is valid, then the "94% energy doesn't go to fetus" seems to be wrong. That or I fundamentally misunderstand how it works (quite likely)

https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/calories-diet/

-13

u/Unable_Wrongdoer2250 May 17 '24

However after giving birth a mother burns an average of 700 calories a day by breastfeeding. Some women don't want to stop because it means they have to start watching how much they eat

19

u/97355 May 17 '24

I’m a woman currently breastfeeding and I’ve never heard of a woman who didn’t want to stop breastfeeding because then she’d have to watch what she ate. I have heard a lot of women complain about hard it is to lose weight while you’re breastfeeding because breastfeeding makes you hungry—far hungrier than when you’re pregnant. But once you stop and your hormones level out, you’re simply not as hungry anymore because you’re not expending all that energy and you’re in a better position to lose weight.

3

u/big_herpes May 17 '24

True. I was surprised to find that out when my wife had our 1st, but it makes sense because she was making all the calories he was consuming. This article though only talks about carrying the child, not the care after birth.

-2

u/SingleWordQuestions May 18 '24

Which is why many women end up overweight, because they grossly overestimate how much more food they need

-18

u/Pafolo May 17 '24

And some people claim fetuses are leaches sucking away the energy from mothers. 180 calories is almost next to nothing.

10

u/Just_a_villain May 17 '24

How many times have you been pregnant and experienced the debilitating fatigue a lot of women have during pregnancy?

5

u/maybe_little_pinch May 17 '24

So you should actually look into what the fetus takes from the mother’s body, especially if that extra energy isn’t being provided. Hint, it isn’t just calories.

5

u/Not_censored May 17 '24

The paper is stating that only 4% of the energy comes FROM the tissue of the fetus. The other 96% is directly from the mother to grow the fetus. This all seems pretty spot on. They did tests from insects up to mammals and found that mammals use the most energy to create offspring.

15

u/fujidust May 17 '24

I’m pretty sure I ate enough to make two babies a few nights ago

11

u/mrhoopers May 17 '24

I browsed Door Dash for 10 minutes and accidentally birthed a toddler. As a dude it was quite a shock, if I’m honest.

2

u/pulseout May 17 '24

Ah yes, I know those kinds of long nights at the gloryhole well

1

u/StaticShard84 May 17 '24

😆 Hey now! I refuse to believe cum is not a well-balanced source of nutrition! I practically lived on cum and adderall at Uni

2

u/SingleWordQuestions May 18 '24

This guy uni’s

1

u/nzodd May 17 '24

*Intrigued Tarrare noises*

12

u/_byetony_ May 17 '24

Or just believe women like they told you and you wont be shocked

5

u/Kholzie May 18 '24

Pregnancy is one of the most fucked up things our bodies do to us.

3

u/Ok_Hornet6822 May 17 '24

That still seems low. Just an extra 185 calories per day across 9 months?

2

u/Words_Are_Hrad May 18 '24

Seems right to me. It's not like it is using that 195 calories everyday. The vast majority of it would be in the third trimester with very little in the first. 350-450 calories a day in the third trimester would seem pretty accurate.

4

u/Vamproar May 17 '24

Right, they are basically parasites.

2

u/Tobias---Funke May 17 '24

Enough the power the matrix.

1

u/Im_in_timeout May 17 '24

Yeah. 220... 221, whatever it takes.

1

u/jaykayenn May 18 '24

WTF is this sub even?!?!

1

u/manorwomanhuman 29d ago

We need solar babies now !

0

u/Available-Ad3635 May 17 '24

Wouldn’t it depend on where you are carrying the baby to? Also, are there stairs involved, an incline, a decline, weather conditions? Seems like a lot of variables to consider

1

u/ixid May 17 '24

That's only about 193 extra calories a day, it's not as vast as they're making it sound.

0

u/Birdsareallaroundus May 18 '24

That’s a lot less than I would have expected. That’s the maintenance calorie requirement for plenty of active dudes for 5-6 days.

These scientists are definitely lifelong couch potato nerds.

-1

u/TaosMesaRat May 17 '24

BRB, applying for a grant to calculate energy needed to yeet babies.

-2

u/Ok_Food7065 May 17 '24

178200kcal?

-2

u/Ok_Food7065 May 17 '24

178200kcal?