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 　　When summer hits, I dread¹ jogging outside. But a study finds that elephants can be in true danger in the heat. As creatures get bigger, they have smaller surface area to body volumn ratios. Fully-grown Asian eleplants thus pack a lot of mass into a body with a relatively² small surface area. And surface area limits how much body heat you can dissipate. For the study, two female elephants in the Audubon zoo in New Orleans walked around a half mile track under various conditions. The outdoor temperature during the sessions ranged from a chilly³ 8 degree celsius⁴ to a scorching⁵ 35 degrees. Sunny hot day is where the worst. The already limited hide is now itself heated by the sun. With the equivlent of a busted⁶ radiator⁷, the elephants retained 56% to 100% of their body heat internally, which could make a mere⁸ four hours of exercise, fatal. The research on the elephant exertion⁹ is in the journal of Experimenal Biology. Fortunately, elephants have ways to beat the heat: shift activity to after-dark and, of course, go for a dip.