You are significantly cooler than Abe Lincoln

You are cooler than your great grandparents.  You are also cooler than Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant.

Partly because you like better music and you can quote popular movies. Your haircuts are better, your sunglasses look sharper and your social media profile is better. You don't wear a goofy stovepipe hat (I'm talking about your great-grandmother, not Lincoln!).

But the main reason you are cooler is because you are literally cooler.

The normal body temperature for humans has dropped more than 1 degree over the past 150 years.

Seriously.

Pretty soon we'll be as cool as the other side of the pillow. And we'll continue to get cooler, presumably.

Remember when you learned that the normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees? That was an immutable fact, like that water boils at 212 degrees, water freezes at 32 degrees, bad-tasting medicine is good for you and the Dodgers lose in October.

Facts. Especially the facts about the freezing temperature of water and the Dodgers in October.

However, Stanford University researchers recently discovered that the average body temperature for humans is 97.5 degrees.

It's fallen by more than 1 degree!

The 98.6 standard is so 19th century. If someone tells you that's the normal temperature, I hope they're riding in a stagecoach, planting crops at  their homestead and worrying about getting consumption.

The 98.6-degree standard, which seemed set in stone, came from a 1851 study, when German doctor Carl Wunderlich studied the average armpit temperature of 25,000 patients. (That 25,000 Germans were willing to let a doctor stick a foot-long mercury-filled thermometer in their armpit for 20 minutes in 1851 might go a long way toward explaining a World War I and World War II, right?)

Wunderlich published a study on his findings in 1868. Modern researchers reviewed his work, then studied data from subsequent studies.  While they couldn't vouch for all the specifics of the earlier studies, nothing jumped out as an outlier. The studies seemed legitimate.

People in 1851 did have an average temperature of 98.6 degrees.

But over time, humans cooled down. Now the average temperature of  97.5 degrees.

Our temperature is dropping.

Of course, as all doctors will tell you when pressed, there's no "normal" temperature. Just like there's no "normal" childhood, "normal" hair or "normal" obsession about 1970s and 1980s pop culture and sports. (The last may have been something I've said to myself.)

There's no normal, but there's an average.

Here's something else you might not know: Our temperature varies over the course of a day.

A 1992 study found that people's temperature varied, starting lower and hitting a peak in the late afternoon. That, by the way, is remarkably similar to summer days.

But the big news here is that human temperatures have dropped.

Scientists suggest several possible reasons. We now spend more time in climate-controlled settings. We get fewer infectious diseases (at least until this year). We have better clothing. Our bodies can literally chill, compared to those of our 1851 ancestors.

As our society has progressed, our bodies have cooled.

As we continue through the strangest year of our lives, threatened by a worldwide pandemic, we can take comfort in some good news.

We are cooler than our great grandmothers. We are likely cooler than our grandfathers.

There may have been some cool people in the 1800s and early 1900s, but we're cooler than them.

But let me make this much clear: If your normal body temperature is 97.5, mine is probably 97.1.

Because I'm cooler than Abraham Lincoln. And I'm cooler than you.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.