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Physiology

The pitfalls of power laws

The conundrum of how an animal's metabolic rate is related to its size continues to exercise biologists. A possible solution that takes into account differences during rest and exercise deserves attention.

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Figure 1: The allometric dependence of metabolic rate on body size has been a controversial subject, with no agreement on the value of the power-law exponent.

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Correspondence to Ewald R. Weibel.

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Weibel, E. The pitfalls of power laws. Nature 417, 131–132 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/417131a

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