“The key takeaway is that we’re really just not seeing large benefits around these student outcomes and, if anything, we’re seeing negative outcomes,” said Elizabeth Day, a research assistant professor at the University of Oregon and one of the review’s authors

Lauren Goss, a track and field historian at the University of Oregon, talked about whether these sorts of unofficial events have any precedent

The emissions are "the equivalent of a cosmic burp," as Yvette Cendes, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Oregon, wrote in Scientific American.

Brad Wilkins, a human physiologist at the University of Oregon, described the testing and something more “squishy,” as he describes it — the capacity to show psychological resilience when suffering physically.

"We saw that hot water immersion was the most impactful in increasing core body temperature, which is the main stimulus for these subsequent responses," said study lead author Jessica Atencio, a doctoral student in the lab of Christopher Minson.