Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Why is an orange used to represent a human body in the experiment, Investigate the 'Death' of an Orange: How is Rate of Heat Loss Based on the Surrounding Temperature?

Hello kawaiihawaii,

The object used to represent a human body in this experiment doesn't have to be an orange. It could be an apple, a pineapple, a grapefruit, a wet ball of paper towels.
Whatever is used, it's suitable to have it contain a majority of water since that's what a human body consists of. By using an object smaller than a human, it will cool faster and get the experiment done faster.
The "body" will cool faster if its surroundings are cooler.

wendellwiggins wrote:It could be an apple, a pineapple, a grapefruit, a wet ball of paper towels.

Human bodies have thin skin layers. Apples, oranges, and grapefruit also have a thin "skin" or peel layer. This "skin" helps contain the water content within that object.

A pineapple has a very thick celulose outer layer and a ball of wet paper towels have no protective layer. The pineapple has too much "insulation" by comparison and the wet paper towels lack a moisture barrier, so neither of these is a very good stand in for the human body in this experiment.

I understand what you have just said but is there any sources you can supply me with to prove your statements?

Craig_Bridge wrote:Human bodies have thin skin layers

You should be able to find lots of human anatomy resources to back up that statement.

Craig_Bridge wrote: Apples, oranges, and grapefruit also have a thin "skin" or peel layer.

You should be able to find lots of articles comparing varitals of these fruits to back up that statement. You can also disect an apple, an orange, and a grapefruit yourself and prove the statement at least for the samples you disected.

Craig_Bridge wrote:This "skin" helps contain the water content within that object.

You should be able to find scientific articles on burn patients and other injuries that compromise large areas of skin that discuss fluid loss. For apples, oranges, and grapefruit, you can run an experiment to compare peeled and un-peeled samples for moisture content.

The experts on this forum are volunteers to help you, but you still need to think and research on your own and do your own experimentation.

The project idea https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p079.shtml offers some ideas on an area of scientific investigation that you can do on your own that may have similarities to forensic science that you can't experiment with. If you haven't read the articles in the bibliography, you should.

Thank you!