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How the Turner twins are mythbusting modern technical apparel

329 points by greedo

by pinkmuffinere

7 subcomments

> During their simulation of Mallory’s Everest expedition, the data showed that on summit night, the average body temperature difference between the twin in modern down and the twin in complicated layers of silk, wool, and gabardine was a staggering 1.8°C.
The human body self-regulates, and is pretty sensitive to dramatic temperature swings. So, conditioned on the fact that they both survived the adventure, we should expect their temperature differences to be relatively small. This doesn't mean the clothing is great, it means [their body] + [their clothing] is adequate.
Additionally, I'm not a doctor but 1.8 C is not small compared to normal human variation! Normal body temperature ranges between 36 and 37 C, a "high fever" starts around 39 C [0], and hypothermia is anything below 35 C [1]. The comfortable range of human temperature is 1 deg C, and the "outside of this is concerning" range is only 4 C wide. 1.8 C is quite big from that perspective.
[0] https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/treat...
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hypothermia/s...

by aidenn0

3 subcomments

So other than being easier to use, cheaper to buy, lighter, and warmer: modern apparel isn't any better than old apparel.

by jldugger

3 subcomments

> the data showed that on summit night, the average body temperature difference between the twin in modern down and the twin in complicated layers of silk, wool, and gabardine was a staggering 1.8°C. > “In a hundred years, you’ve gained—arguably—one degree of efficiency per 50 years,” Ross reveals.
Depending on where the baseline is, 1.8 degrees could be huge! But more importantly, heat dissapation is a non-linear function. The warmer you are relative to your environment, the more energy is lost. While Shackleton's kit forms a lower baseline, it probably makes sense to imagine how some imaginary perfect vacuum insulated sleeping bag would perform.

by orangewindies

1 subcomments

For really low temperatures some of the traditional materials work really well. For example, at -30 °C you don't need a waterproof shell but you want something that's very windproof and breathable. So at the British Antarctic Survey in the late 90s we were still using cotton Ventile[0], it's tough and effective.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventile

by jancsika

1 subcomments

Important-- when they say "cotton" in the article they're talking about gabardine cotton as a water repellent layer.
Neither one of these dudes is wearing cotton base layers, midlayers, socks, etc. It's too slow to evaporate moisture which can cause blisters on feet and rapid drop of body temperature drop in cool/cold weather.

by dtj1123

1 subcomments

This is a massive oversimplification.
The challenges of technical gear are:
1. managing active body temperature by radiating heat effectively
2. managing passive body temperature by retaining heat effectively
3. managing internally generated moisture by allowing evaporation
4. managing externally generated moisture by preventing absorption
5. minimising weight
6. maximising toughness
This article talks about point 1 as though it's the entire story, but maintaining a comfortable active body temperature is by far the easiest point. You can do it with a tshirt under most circumstances. Wools do have an advantage with regard to point 3, which is why a lot of technical gear is now made of merino wool. The entire selling point of goretex is that it provides a reasonable degree of 3 whilst giving an excellent degree of 4, which is simply not possible with antique gear.
Modern technical gear is genuinely incredible stuff, it's possible to pack something that will keep you warm and dry down to 8°C in a space less than a large cup of coffee and a weight less than a glossy magazine.
Not to mention that from a scientific perspective, experimenting on a single pair of twins adds essentially zero statistical power to the results. This is theatre.

by jancsika

2 subcomments

Key paragraph:
> The data proves that the gear of the past is capable, but it has a narrower operating window. If you stop moving in Mallory’s kit at 8,000 meters, you will freeze quickly. Modern gear buys you a safety margin if you become static.

by rkagerer

3 subcomments

Did anyone else feel like something is off with this content? Like it was written as an ad or something?

by aetherspawn

0 subcomment

I was wondering if they’ve taken into account that one of the test subjects had a prior fractured vertebrae (and the other not). I know a lot of time has passed, but I expect that it would probably never be possible to fully recover from an injury like this? And therefore there would be differences in overall fitness between them?
For example … skeletal and muscular compensation. Nerve damage. Damage to lymph system due to surgeries.

by obsidianbases1

0 subcomment

I thought weight would be where the modern wear performed best.
More surprisingly, the footwear of yore was apparently lighter

by CWuestefeld

0 subcomment

I'm waiting for an article that explains what it means for my pants or my belt to be "tactical".

by embedding-shape

1 subcomments

> Today, their biometrics are tracked by ingestible sensor pills that monitor core temperature from the inside out
I wonder if those are pills they've developed themselves, or if it's an existing product available to consumer?

by blacklion

0 subcomment

Conclusions in article are strange.
1) 1.8⁰C on body is very big difference, it is like difference between person who is slightly warm and one who barely can move because of cold. It is huge.
2) Tone like «we are victims of marketing, we can use simple equipment instead of high-tech one» is in same article as «Custom boots for Mallory were been developed for many month». Yep, very simple equipment, of course.

by eleveriven

1 subcomments

Identical twins is a neat idea, but it still feels like a very small sample size for drawing broader conclusions about "a century of innovation"

by modeless

0 subcomment

This video on the subject of testing old vs. new camping gear is pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Us6AVVkx_8

by croisillon

1 subcomments

nice pics, nice font, pity the text went through translopification

by world2vec

1 subcomments

Awful llm writing for what it seems to be some sort of ad but I can't quite figure out what's the ad for...

0 subcomment

by eagsalazar2

4 subcomments

I remember sleeping in old canvas tents - in the heavy rain - on boyscout camping trips around seattle as a kid. I remember waking up in a puddle, cotton lined bag soaked through, not being dry even after 12 hours of laying it out after the rain stopped.
By comparison my RIE UL2 is 100x, no 1000x better in every single way. Same for my 15 degree duck down mummy.
Are sweaters better now than then?? I don't know, maybe. But seriously, get out of here with the general notion that 19** is within a hundred miles of good modern backpacking gear.
About boots, unless you are in snow, boots are scam. Period full stop with whatever expansive definition you want to use. Comfy $30 sneakers from Big 5 are great. I do have some trail running shoes I use personally that cost me about $100. I'm sure they had great options 100 years ago.

by dehrmann

1 subcomments

> On the vast, blinding expanse of the Greenland Ice Cap
But not double-blinding. If I were the twin in the retro gear, I'd subconsciously be trying harder to try to make a point.

by tigen

0 subcomment

If you like this stuff, have a look at the Vikings and their logistical problems.
https://www.quora.com/While-at-the-sea-what-did-Vikings-do-f...

by XorNot

3 subcomments

I feel like downplaying 1.8 degrees C of performance is a weird choice in the article.
1.8 degrees C is a huge temperature change in biology. Human bodies keep thermal equilibrium in a margin smaller then that.

by ChrisMarshallNY

3 subcomments

That's pretty cool. They talk about how getting period clothes basically required custom work.
Must be pricey.

by ehaveman

0 subcomment

really interesting - except the charts are impossible to read for colour blind people.

by CyberDildonics

0 subcomment

People are trying to pick this apart technically instead of realizing it's an AI generated ad.

by arbirk

1 subcomments

Is that an iPad?

by DeathArrow

0 subcomment

I generally prefer natural materials for both look and feel. If I wear hiking boots with Gore-Tex in the summer, my feet will sweat and boil. But hiking boots with leather lining are much more comfortable.

by exq

1 subcomments

> it’s not cosplay; it’s rigorous historical reconstruction
...
Taking it at face value, this is more theatre than science for a few reasons:
- twins don't magically mean two identical bodies
- food intake has a much greater effect from thermogenesis than most laymen realize; I don't see that the two men consumed the same diet at the same meal times each day, nor does the article mention what they ate at all?
- no control for their own body quirks, they should swap gear every so often
- the focus seems to be on warmth and moisture management, but in a weird way. Was the historical gear twin actually cold on summit day, or are we just assuming warmer=better? Warmth alone is useless. In my circles, good gear performs well at the intersection of performance(warmth per weight for insulation, as high moisture vapor transmission rate with as low cubic feet per minute airflow per weight for windshells, ability to shed external moisture while avoiding internal moisture buildup per weight for outer weather layers, breathability and speed of drying per weight for base layers) crossed with durability and your price point.
>Modern gear allows for a “set and forget” mentality
No the heck it doesn't!!! Every climber, long distance backpacker, and mountaineer reading this article surely got hit with a blast of Gell-Mann Amnesia just like I did. Layering for active and static usage and frequent adjustments to clothing/gear according to changes in body temperature and weather are still very much part of the game!
If you're comparing the pinnacle of gear tech 100 years ago to today, you can't compare to generic off the shelf Patagonia and Arcteryx clothing. A more apt comparison would be a modern ultralight kit with bespoke gear made by cottage companies like Timmermade.
I posit the primary function of modern gear is not that it performs better as a rule, rather it weighs less while performing the same or better. Other commenters have minimized the weight savings of 2kg with modern gear. As someone who regularly backpacks in winter conditions, I must say 2 kilos is a LOT of weight to shrug your shoulders at. It's over two full days of food at 4,000 calories per day. It's more than my snowshoes and spikes weigh combined!
I think this may sound smart and counterfactual to common knowledge as a layman, but to anyone who regularly goes outdoors in extreme conditions, this article and experiment is horseshit.

by sneak

1 subcomments

The idea that full grown identical twins are identical humans for purposes of analysis is also fundamentally flawed. Just because they share DNA and look the same doesn’t mean anything about their relative health, fitness, metabolic rates, etc.

by jauntywundrkind

1 subcomments

On the one hand I think critical assessment & deep review is vital.
But this feels so not far from anti-Wayland pro-X11/Xorg grumblers. You'll hook 15% of people by being against the modern world. Theres a niche demanding rejection of modernity, current offering. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448328
There are some valid areas of investigation. I want deep critique. But mostly it's just noise, is filler, to give people their outlet against reasonability. Mostly it's not serious. It doesn't have to be: these marks want to believe. And alas alas, that 15% of fans you have against modernity: they are hot to go be loudly obnoxious against any and everything new or popular. They will be unreasonably loud for you.
How humanity copes with basically anti-informed vice-signalling is our most outstanding problem of the 21st century, is our noospheric challenge.

by sam_goody

0 subcomment

TL;DR Modern gear is actually much better than what they wore a few generations ago. More flexible, waterproof, requiring less thought, better and overall lighter. Even with lots more effort and investment, there remains a significant difference between two brothers when one insists on wearing recreated ancient gear.
Well, whadaya know!
But I bet you didn't know that you can find modern pro hiking shoes that are even heavier than the old ones they recreated!

0 subcomment

by dekhn

2 subcomments

absolutely terrible writing.

by bwv848

0 subcomment

Fun experiment, but it doesn’t really prove anything. On a good day, elite runners like Tyler Andrews can run up Mera and more difficult peaks with minimal gear. Next time, try testing them on a cold, windy, and wet ridgeline traverse.

by gorgoiler

0 subcomment

”[The twins] realized they possessed the ultimate scientific tool: a perfect control subject and a perfect variable. Ross wore modern kit while Hugo wore historic replicas. Any difference in performance could be attributed solely to the gear, not genetics.”
It’s a great idea and these men are undoubtedly incredible athletes, but I’m not sure “ultimate” and “perfect” are the right words here.
A killjoy would bring up double-blinding or n>1 and I don’t want to sap the fun out of this being about an interesting people-centric piece.
There’s no mention though of a more basic trick: having them alternate clothes every expedition or season! Pfizer it ain’t, but it would still take it up a notch on the scale of interesting/fun to “ultimate/perfect”.