{"id":3597,"date":"2025-11-24T20:11:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T01:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/?p=3597"},"modified":"2025-11-24T20:11:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T01:11:25","slug":"reflection-2-uncoupler-proteins-in-babies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/2025\/11\/24\/reflection-2-uncoupler-proteins-in-babies\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflection #2: Uncoupler Proteins in Babies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the summer, I got to meet my baby cousin for the first time. At the time, he was just under three months old, and, to be honest, I was a little nervous to meet him. He was by far the youngest person I\u2019ve ever interacted with, and I had to make a good (though likely unmemorable) first impression. After getting to hold him, two thoughts immediately popped into my mind. Firstly, I was really hoping he did not get my shirt messy, as it was brand new. Secondly, and more importantly for this discussion, I noticed he was a lot warmer than I had expected him to be. I had known that babies run hot, but I did not necessarily know why.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In class, when we began to learn about uncoupler proteins, I thought back to that moment and began to wonder if uncoupler proteins could have played a role. Babies have an increased amount of uncoupler proteins so that they can maintain their body temperature via non-shivering thermogenesis in the outside world, as it is far cooler than the 37\u00baC they are used to living in. Additionally, babies have a faster metabolism than adults, as they are constantly growing and developing, a process that requires more energy than in a relatively stable adult body. This combination of a faster metabolism and the presence of uncoupler proteins corresponds to the extra heat that I noticed. This understanding provides me with a greater understanding of how certain biochemical processes and differences present as noticeable, physiological changes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the summer, I got to meet my baby cousin for the first time. At the time, he was just under three months old, and, to be honest, I was a little nervous to meet him. He was by far &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/2025\/11\/24\/reflection-2-uncoupler-proteins-in-babies\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18341,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[349081],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3598,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597\/revisions\/3598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/bc362\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}