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How Redheads Work · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and I am Chuck Bryant. Hey, Chuck.
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  Speaker 1: How's that? It was good? Good? Yeah, I'm working on
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  Speaker 1: my radio thing. I like it. Your voice is smooth?
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  Speaker 1: So is good? Smooth? Is spider smelt? Spider silk spun
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: from goats milk? Nothing? How's that right? So? Um? As
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: you know, I am a huge fan of Dr Werner
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  Speaker 1: hobber Mill. I did know that, did you? Yeah? But
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  Speaker 1: I don't think any of anyone else did. Wow. I
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  Speaker 1: had never told anybody that before. Is it that obvious?
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  Speaker 1: I just had a sense it's my T shirt? Isn't right? Well?
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  Speaker 1: For those of you who don't know who Dr harber
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  Speaker 1: Mill is, he is a sex researcher at the Universe
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  Speaker 1: City of Hamburg in Germany. Hello Germany. Uh and um
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  Speaker 1: Dr hopper Mill Uh did a study that I read
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  Speaker 1: about recently on the Daily Mail. So basically I'm just
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  Speaker 1: letting it all hang out here. I followed the careers
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  Speaker 1: of clinical sex researchers, and I read the Daily mail. Um,
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  Speaker 1: but there there was a study he he did that
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  Speaker 1: I ran across um where he compared the sex lives
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  Speaker 1: of redheads with the sex lives of brunettes and blonds.
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  Speaker 1: And he found just statistically speaking, he he didn't really
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  Speaker 1: actually sadly, he did pose uh an idea of why
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  Speaker 1: because the case. We'll get to that in a second.
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  Speaker 1: But he he found that redheads um have a noticeably
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  Speaker 1: act much more active sex life than any other people
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  Speaker 1: with any other hair color. Interesting, and the thing that
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  Speaker 1: that kind of got me was that, um, the same
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  Speaker 1: goes for people who die their hair red. And and
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  Speaker 1: get this, uh, the the esteem doctor said that women
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  Speaker 1: who are in a committed relationship and dye their hair red,
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  Speaker 1: that is a really big red flag to the guy.
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  Speaker 1: Oh that they may be stepping out there looking right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So Emily ever done that? Uh yeah she
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  Speaker 1: she she went red a little for for a time.
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  Speaker 1: What was this? I think it was before we were married. Okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: right exactly. You're like, I knew my kid looked like
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  Speaker 1: the male man. Yeah, so um, this is what what
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  Speaker 1: were you getting at here? Well? Here, you're ready? So
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  Speaker 1: so the doctor basically says, well, redheads have a fiery
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  Speaker 1: temperament and and they're they're very passionate, which is just
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  Speaker 1: so it is, and it's not necessarily true. And the
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  Speaker 1: more I looked into it, the more I lies that
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  Speaker 1: redheads are among the most maligned and stereotyped people of
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  Speaker 1: any hair colored, redheaded, blonde's the phrase red headed stepchild,
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  Speaker 1: redheaded step child. Um. Did you know also that there
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  Speaker 1: was a uh there actually twice there's been this this
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  Speaker 1: big news cycle about redheads going extinct. Yeah, I've heard
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  Speaker 1: about that two thousand five and two thousand seven, which
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  Speaker 1: is not true. No, we just should say that right away. No,
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  Speaker 1: there was one in two thousand seven. That's the most
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  Speaker 1: recent one that that said that. Um, the Oxford Hair Institute,
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  Speaker 1: which sounds so official. Um, it's said that that redheads
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  Speaker 1: will be extinct by twenties sixty, right, because of the
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  Speaker 1: recessive gene that carries red hair. In theory that could
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  Speaker 1: that could die out. Do you want to get into genetics?
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  Speaker 1: Do you uh prefer not to, but I think we
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  Speaker 1: have to. Let's do it. Okay, let's just give a
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  Speaker 1: brief overview redheads are. That's a phenotype. It's a it's
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  Speaker 1: a physical trait. You can see it, you can you
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  Speaker 1: can sense it. Um, they're they're genotype. The genetic trait
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  Speaker 1: that that makes them red heads is this, Uh, it's
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  Speaker 1: a recessive gene. It's a mutation in the MC one
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  Speaker 1: our gene. Yes, and that is the melanocortin one receptor gene. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So the m c R one gene is responsible for
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  Speaker 1: a certain pigment productions, and red heads actually uh overproduce
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  Speaker 1: a red pigment called THEO melanin, and that which gives
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  Speaker 1: them their red hair, and they underproduce you melanin EU melanin,
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  Speaker 1: which uh gives them a pale skin. It's a darker brown.
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  Speaker 1: It's a it's a brown pigment, right, which is underproduced.
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  Speaker 1: And it's actually a genetic mutation it is. Did you
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  Speaker 1: know that? Okay? So, like you said, it's also receptive, recessive,
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  Speaker 1: which means it can skip generations and uh then reappear
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  Speaker 1: you know, much later. Yeah, you or I could actually
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  Speaker 1: have a mutated m c R one gene. And although
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  Speaker 1: neither one of us has red hair, we'll never know
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  Speaker 1: until we have kids with red hair. If either one
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  Speaker 1: of us comes up with a kid with red hair,
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  Speaker 1: it means that you and your wife both had this
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  Speaker 1: recessive gene, it got together and the kid had to
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  Speaker 1: have this mutated gene because of the the chromosomal contributions
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  Speaker 1: by the parents. It means infidelity. Again. Yeah, it depends,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I mean it could have It could have been.
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  Speaker 1: It depends on what Emily did back when she dyed
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  Speaker 1: her hair red, right, although you probably know by now
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  Speaker 1: right if she had a child. Yeah, yeah, I've been
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  Speaker 1: around the whole time. Okay, alright, So, um, so they
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  Speaker 1: are not becoming extinct. Not true, No, they could, though
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  Speaker 1: it would take something on the order of an evolutionary bottleneck, which,
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  Speaker 1: as we all know, um would basically make all of
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  Speaker 1: us mouth breathers because all the rampant familial inbreeding that
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  Speaker 1: would it would take to you know, expand the genetic pool. Again,
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  Speaker 1: it's entirely possible if everybody who had the recessive UM gene,
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  Speaker 1: the MCR one mutation, um, if all of them died out,
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  Speaker 1: there goes redheads. Technically, that's the case with everything exactly now.
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  Speaker 1: There there may be a higher likelihood in an evolutionary bottleneck,
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  Speaker 1: or it might take a less of an evolutionary bottleneck
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  Speaker 1: for redheads to die out because they are it is
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  Speaker 1: rare um. But yeah, they're They're definitely gonna be around beyond. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I know quite a few redheads myself. So do I
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  Speaker 1: know virtually none. I'm actually trying to think right here.
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  Speaker 1: I can't come up with a single redhead. Yeah, I know, couple.
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  Speaker 1: Actually we don't have anyone on staff either, do we.
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  Speaker 1: This is gonna drive me crazy. Well, of course Candice
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  Speaker 1: are old partner. Forget I don't know she's she really is.
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  Speaker 1: And you know what, she kind of proves the good
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  Speaker 1: doctors stier. She's fiery, she's spunky girl. She definitely is
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  Speaker 1: is Okay, So redheads are gonna be around for a while,
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  Speaker 1: including Candice, I imagine. Yes, And uh they they are
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  Speaker 1: as as we said, my very shaky thesis for this
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  Speaker 1: podcast are much maligned. I've got another piece of supporting
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  Speaker 1: evidence that redheads are often mistreated. Yes, I know where
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  Speaker 1: you're going here, do you? Yeah? Okay, so you want
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  Speaker 1: to tell him about this this study. Yeah, it turns
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  Speaker 1: out that and this is a cool little fact that
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  Speaker 1: you can share with your friends and family. Redheads actually
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  Speaker 1: require more anesthetic when undergoing surgery. Yeah, and apparently the
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  Speaker 1: medical establishment, especially among anesthesiologists and an esthetist. Uh, this
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  Speaker 1: is common knowledge, but there hadn't been an actual study
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  Speaker 1: quantifying this before two thousand two, and these University of
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  Speaker 1: Louisville researchers conducted this kind of UM are cruel, little archaic, maybe, Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: When I read this, I thought there's got to be
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  Speaker 1: a better way to find this out, but you know,
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  Speaker 1: maybe the not. Yeah, So what we're talking about was, UM,
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  Speaker 1: this this Louisville study, they took twenty female subjects um,
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  Speaker 1: ten brunettes, I believe, ten redheads. All of them were
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  Speaker 1: on virtually the same menstrual cycle, which ruled out any
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  Speaker 1: hormonal explanation for for this, because apparently UM hormones can
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  Speaker 1: contribute to your susceptibility or rejection of anesthesia. And um,
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  Speaker 1: they gave them all the gas. They gave him what
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  Speaker 1: is a desk flurane um, which is a general anesthetic gas.
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  Speaker 1: And they knocked these women out and then they got
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  Speaker 1: medieval on their asses. They used I looked at I
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  Speaker 1: looked this up. They used bilateral intradermal needles to deliver
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  Speaker 1: the electric shocks. So basically they were poking these women
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  Speaker 1: with needles and delivering shocks, electric shocks into their body
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  Speaker 1: to see if they would react and feel pain. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: because when you're when you're unconscious, it's much different from
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  Speaker 1: from sleeping. When you're unconscious, your pain gateway is shut down.
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  Speaker 1: Just why they do it for surgery. You don't want
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  Speaker 1: someone digging into your chest cavity and be able to
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  Speaker 1: feel it. Right, And it's it's it's it's a different
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  Speaker 1: state and actually scary enough. We don't fully understand how uh,
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  Speaker 1: anesthesia works on the brain. We don't know enough about
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  Speaker 1: the brain. We just kind of know it works. You know,
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  Speaker 1: we've figured out, I guess through trial and error patients
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  Speaker 1: dying left and right, what the what the right ratio
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  Speaker 1: is for the average person. Right, it's a tough job.
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  Speaker 1: Very Oh, it's yeah, have the highest insurance premiums and
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  Speaker 1: they also make some pretty good coin definitely. Yeah. So
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  Speaker 1: if you're thinking of trying to get into the medical field,
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  Speaker 1: you want to make a bunch of money, go anesthesia
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  Speaker 1: and redheads. Exactly. So okay, let's get back to this.
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  Speaker 1: So they're they're sitting there um delivering shocks to these
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  Speaker 1: redheads and actually brunettes. Everyone in the UM in the
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  Speaker 1: study was treated equally cruelly. And um, they're they're delivering shocks,
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  Speaker 1: and and they they would decrease the gas or increase
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  Speaker 1: the gas depending on the reaction until they stopped getting
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  Speaker 1: pain reactions. So then the other really kind of startling
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  Speaker 1: aspect of the study was that one of the researchers
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  Speaker 1: described the shocks as um intolerable to a conscious person. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So these weren't like little like oh I just like
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  Speaker 1: the nine volt battery. These are electric shocks that you
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  Speaker 1: would be like, you know, you'd come at somebody who
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  Speaker 1: did this to you and you can move. So they
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  Speaker 1: just keep shocking them over and over again. And then
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  Speaker 1: they wrote down, you know, the ratios, and they came
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  Speaker 1: up with, as you said, redheads need more on average, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: which is pretty substantial. It is substantial. But I mean,
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  Speaker 1: what's what's what's the deal? Why? Well, before we move
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  Speaker 1: on to that, just quickly, I wanted to point out
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  Speaker 1: that another study a couple of years later, UM said
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  Speaker 1: that the same thing happened in men. So if you're
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  Speaker 1: a man out there, you're gonna need some extra gas.
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  Speaker 1: It's not just for women. But because we don't know
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  Speaker 1: exactly how anesthesia works, we don't know exactly why this
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  Speaker 1: is true. Yeah, we they've just finally linked it, right,
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  Speaker 1: they said there is a link, but we're not exactly
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  Speaker 1: why that link is there. Well, which is the MC
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  Speaker 1: one our gene, which is what we were talking about earlier.
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  Speaker 1: That that that that genotype has been linked directly to
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  Speaker 1: anesthesia for the first time exactly, So why what? What
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  Speaker 1: are some of the uh, some of the reasons they've
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  Speaker 1: they've given, Well, yeah, they don't know for sure, but um,
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  Speaker 1: they have one explanation that, um, that gene is also
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  Speaker 1: involved in hormones that stimulate pain receptors, which would make
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  Speaker 1: sense kind of obvious route if you ask me. Uh,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: and there I believe that another one that said that
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  Speaker 1: the pigments themselves actually cause an increase in pain sensitivity. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think that was the one where they said, there's
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  Speaker 1: a there's it's such an abundance of this pigment things
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  Speaker 1: like to go bind to other things in our body,
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  Speaker 1: and um, they're they're looking for something. Maybe they're the
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  Speaker 1: pain receptors in the brain are um similar to the
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  Speaker 1: to the pain receptors that these pigments would normally attached
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  Speaker 1: to so it overstimulates the brain makes more sensitive to pain. Yeah. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so either way, if you're a redhead, I feel bad
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  Speaker 1: for you. I don't. I don't like pain. Yeah, but
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  Speaker 1: being red heads kind of cool. It's like being left handed.
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  Speaker 1: I wish I was a left handed redhead. Wow. Instead
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  Speaker 1: I'm just a right handed burnette. I know. We're just
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  Speaker 1: kind of average guys, are average average dudes. There. There
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  Speaker 1: actually is one other good thing that came out of
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  Speaker 1: this this study. Um it may actually spur development of
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  Speaker 1: um a kind of anesthesia that's taylored just for redhead's. Interesting.
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  Speaker 1: That's called pharmacogenetics. You heard of this, Yeah, okay, So
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  Speaker 1: it's basically designing drugs to tailoring them to somebody based
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  Speaker 1: on their genetic makeup. Right, that makes sense. It does
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: make sense, like it would. It definitely falls into that
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: controversy about genetic testing, though, doesn't it. You know, so
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a fine line, like keep red heads
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  Speaker 1: out of pain, or you know, choose only blonde haired,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: blue wide children in the future. Right, the boys from
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Brazil eventually weird, you know what I would call that
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: if they actually do manufacture. This what they call it
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: red gas. Nice, That's what I call it. Nice. Yeah,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: you couldn't call it red death would be you'd have
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: a terrible market share when red gas is pretty good. YEA, Well,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: look for red gas in the future. Um And if
• 13:31
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• 13:34
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• 13:37
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