NASCAR drivers compete in a 'moving oven'

+ how dialects affect our genes US Edition - Today's top story: Think being a NASCAR driver isn't as physically demanding as other sports? Think again [View in browser]( US Edition | 29 June 2023 [The Conversation] [The Conversation]( Top headlines: - [When candidates dodge debates, democracy suffers]( - [Ice sheets are more vulnerable than previously thought]( - [How to reroute traffic after massive]([infrastructure disruptions]( Lead story: This weekend, Chicago will be hosting the NASCAR Grant Park 220 – the first street race in a U.S. city in 60 years. As someone who admittedly has never watched a NASCAR race, I always viewed driving as a sport of precision, strategy and hand-eye coordination – which it is. But I had no idea about the physical toll racing took on drivers. Michael Reid, a physiologist at the University of Florida, has been studying how race car driving puts immense stress on the body’s muscles and heart. He and his team have discovered that the metabolic demands are the same as playing basketball – and that’s without taking into account the layers of protective equipment drivers must wear. He takes readers inside the [steaming cockpit of a stock car](, where drivers compete “in what’s essentially a moving oven.” City races like the one in Chicago this weekend can be especially brutal on the body, especially when they’re held in the dog days of summer. “Compared to oval tracks, heart rates are higher on road courses and street races,” he writes, due to “the extra work required for hard braking and sharp turns.” [[Science from the scientists themselves. Sign up here to our weekly science email newsletter.](] Nick Lehr Arts + Culture Editor Race car drivers compete in full-body safety gear while sitting in a piping hot car, which puts tremendous strain on the heart. Grant Halverson/Getty Images for NASCAR [Think being a NASCAR driver isn’t as physically demanding as other sports? Think again]( Michael Reid, University of Florida Imagine an NBA game played outdoors in August, with no substitutions and players wearing snowsuits, gloves and ski masks. Race car drivers routinely compete under similar conditions. Environment + Energy - [Meltwater is hydro-fracking Greenland’s ice sheet through millions of hairline cracks – destabilizing its internal structure]( Alun Hubbard, University of Tromsø Glaciologists are discovering new ways surface meltwater alters the internal structure of ice sheets, and raising an alarm that sea level rise could be much more abrupt than current models forecast. - [Bridge collapses, road repairs, evacuations: How transportation agencies plan for large-scale traffic disruptions]( Lee D. Han, University of Tennessee When a major roadway or bridge needs fixing, all that traffic has to go somewhere. 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