Deer, foxes, rabbits, etc. are all warm blooded mammals that regularly experience sub-freezing temperatures that would kill humans in a matter of hours. How do they survive?
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One of the most under-appreciated answers is **brown fat.** Brown fat is a lot like body fat, but it has nerves. When signaled by the brain or spine or whatever, these special fat cells start burning calories. They’re not doing work in the conventional sense, so all the calories they’re burning are released in the form of heat applied directly inside the body and bloodstream.
Its presence in humans was thought to be limited to babies, but more recent studies have found that it lingers to some extent later in life, this is determined by your genes, and the proportion of brown fat you retain is inversely correlated to obesity.
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