StanfordReadings from nearly 190,000 people put normal adult temperature near 36.39C.

Doctors have judged fever against Carl Wunderlich’s 37C benchmark since the 1860s.

Stanford’s Julie Parsonnet says fewer infections burn fewer calories, and calories are heat, while air conditioning spares the body work.

Philip Mackowiak says Wunderlich’s thermometer was calibrated roughly 2C higher than modern ones, which could explain the gap.

Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine and UpToDate have already rethought the special status of 37C.

How each outlet framed it
BBC
frames Wunderlich's 1860s dataset as the benchmark and asks whether the baseline was wrong or biology is changing

Sources: BBC