Scientists: hot pavement will burn you like something hot

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/30/scientists-hot-pavement-will.html

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Dogs. Keep dogs off the pavement or get them those silly booties. Better yet, do their walks in the early morning. A lot of dogs end up with burned pads on their feet.
Cats typically have more sense.

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Scientists Anyone who’s ever felt hot pavement: hot pavement will burn you like something hot

How can this possibly be news to anyone? It’s not “like” something hot, it is something hot.

Scientists: Standing in a filled bathtub will get your feet wet.

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There was a story maybe in the last three years about a man detained by police while standing in a black asphalt parking lot. This was in the southwest U.S. somewhere. He ended up with very serious burns. IIRC the police gave not a damn about his screaming. (Found the article. Pictures are grim. Third-degree burns over his face arm and chest. 100-degree day in Cali.)

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Ex-FL kid here. Barefoot pretty much every day. Pavement taught me how to run really fast in the summer to get to my friend’s house.

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Yeah, me too. Stand there for five minutes? Ha! More like a second or two in a Florida summer, and so you jump back into the grass where you are viciously attacked by sandspurs and fire ants.

That’s why you never go out without your flip-flops on.

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This is a problem with ‘publish or perish’ - we have so many junk studies - and most of them are based on taking data from other studies and than massaging it to get results that look interesting.

This is a failure of many systems - but begins with Universities requiring published papers from people who should be left alone to do their jobs.

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Thanks for bringing up nasty, nasty memories. When a single black ant crawls onto one of my NE raised kids they cry out and shake it off. I’ve tried to explain the experience of accidentally stepping into a mound of sand which turns out to be a fire ant colony and trying to brush off as many as you can before they get you (but many always do). Spoiled.

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My big childhood summer pavement discovery was that if you sat on your bike long enough with the kickstand down you’d fall over. Wrecked a good bit of pavement that way one year.

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Scientists: hot pavement will burn you like something hot

Yes, and in other news water has been found to be wet, almost always.

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Heat capacity. 200F air is uncomfortable but you expose yourself to that extreme every time you take something out of the oven. 200F water, hurts even if you splash a small amount onto yourself and a cup full of it can lead to significant burns. 140F pavement on a sunny day can release back a significant amount of energy and even radiates infrared far enough away to affect joggers and cyclists causing heat stroke.

Temperature isn’t the same as energy.

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If you are fucking stupid enough to ride barefoot then you deserve burns on the feet from the pavement.

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Not to defend people who can’t grasp that hot pavement is hot, but a friend recently gave me a solar box cooker. I have burned myself more than once after looking right at the built-in thermometer that says 350 degrees F and reaching in with my bare hand. There’s a weird psychological thing about heat from the sun. Maybe we’re so used to it being benign that we have a hard time accepting that it isn’t, always.

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who needs barbar que

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Thanks for the reminder…I learned that surprising fact from this genius

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Heh - I was playing around in a clay pit one summer, slipped and started skidding down the slope. The nearest thing to grab was a clump of grass (that’s what we call it in Florida, everwhere else it’s called crabgrass).

Anyway, it stopped my fall, but to my horror when I looked up at my hand, it was crawling with gigantic red fire ants.

Needless to say I quickly realized sliding all the way to the bottom (while frantically shaking them off my hand) was a much better option - but man those things hurt like hell.

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Scientists: hot pavement will burn you like something hot

Next up: The floor is not actually lava.

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Who keeps letting grampa fucking talk in front of everyone?

On his best day, he’s rambling senioritis.

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Former Vegas resident here. I can tell from personal experience that sidewalks and pavement get insanely hot during summer, and also something people wouldn’t think about: Astroturf is the god damn devil. Which is a common lawn alternative in the Nevada desert, it essentially becomes as hot as a million suns. Seriously, do not touch astroturf that’s been in the sun all day.

Cars can be just as bad, you learn very quickly that things left in the car will die, melt, burn, explode, etc.

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