Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Sunscreen

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

Alex Schmidt and special guest Lydia Bugg explore why sunscreen is secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

Sunscreen, known for being goop. Famous for being protective goop. Nobody thinks much about it, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why sunscreen is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt and I'm not alone. My co-host Katie Golden is out for the week and she'll be back soon. In the meantime, a wonderful returning guest joins us for this episode. She's an amazing comedy writer and author. She's written comic books for franchises like the Trailer Park Boys and she is a weekly

columnist at 1900hotdog.com. Please welcome Lydia Bug. Hi, Lydia. Hi, thanks for having me. You know, Katie and I have never been seen in the same room, so who knows? Maybe we're secretly the same person. No one knows. That, I mean, this is some good lore. We're building out the canon, the universe. Yeah. I thought I'd start a conspiracy theory about Katie while she's gone. I thought she'd appreciate that.

If you're in Italy you have to tell me. It's like being a cop, you have to say. I'm in Chicago, which I feel like is close spiritually. Well, okay now my mind is full of partillas, but also we have a wonderful topic this week suggested by at court jester on the discord. Thank you for the suggestion. And we always start with our relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Lydia, how do you feel about sunscreen? Oh, I love it. It's my best friend. If you're if you can see this, you'll see how pale I am. So I actually went to a Fourth of July parade because my mother-in-law was the grand marshal two weeks ago. And yes, and I had to borrow sunscreen. And my father-in-law had SPF 70. And I was like, this is what I need. I didn't know that existed.

70 is like, I usually go for like 50, but I was like, I'm using 70 from now on. This is amazing. I've seen a hundred once and I didn't believe it. I was like, all right. Now every search sunscreen, I understand it more, but at the time I was like, I both don't know what SPF is and I don't trust a number this high.

Right? I don't have a reason to really not trust it, but I was like, now it's just climbing, so forget it. I put all my faith in big sunscreen. I mean, I look like Wednesday Adams. I have to. So if I saw a hundred, I'd buy it. How does, you don't have to share too much of her information. How does your mother-in-law become the grand marshal of a Fourth of July parade? Oh, she's retiring. She ran a small retail store, the only store in a town of 200 people,

like mostly farmers that she lived in. And she ran it for 35 years and is retiring. And just everyone in town loves her and was bringing her like pies all week. We had all this really good desserts and stuff. And then yeah, they wanted her to... And the parade, it's a town of 200 people. The second float was a little, like a two-year-old girl in a remote controlled car and like not representing anyone, any like society or business. They just said, clear the streets, it's Taylor Nelson. And her dad was like driving the car. Like it wasn't a big parade, but it was very fun. That's so fantastic. I'm glad we clarified that it wasn't the city of Chicago, 4th of July parade.

People imagining Ferris Bueller, the fugitive, all these people on Michigan Avenue. Still very wonderful. This is great. Yeah, yeah. Much smaller operation. Clear the streets is what I want said for me. I was so, cause I filmed her and then I turned the camera off and then the third float is this little girl

and I'm like trying to get my camera out. Like, Oh my God, how did I miss this? Well, what a joy. And I'm glad you wear sunscreen. And folks, most of this episode will be about the modern kind of sunscreen. We'll touch on pre-modern stuff in the bonus show. But it's mostly about the consumer product where you think there's a chemical in it that protects you from the sun.

Because it turns out there's a lot there. And it turns out it's good. We're not doctors, and also we're not here to throw the table over of the usual wisdom about sunscreen. It's good. It does its thing. I'm so excited because I realized, like, when you said that was the topic, I was like, I mean, I use this all the time, but I have no clue how it works.

I'm like, I don't know, magic, I guess? Same. I could not have explained it at all. I was like, I guess it's white, maybe. Not even all of them are white, you know, but now it's exciting to know. That makes it seem like it's working if it smells bad, right? Right chemicals, chemicals, good. Yeah. And yeah, and we have so much to get into about it and every episode we lead with a quick set of fascinating numbers and

statistics. This week that is in a segment called quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. This week that is in a segment called, Do you hear the Alex sing, singing the song of stats and numbers? It is the knowledge for the people who wish to be entertained. I love it. I love how much you put into that every week. It's so nice. Thank you. That and then it was submitted by Dacoupe Bear on the Discord. Thank you, Dacoupe Bear. And I think influenced by Bestial Day. Sorry, we couldn't get it on that one.

But we have a new name for this segment every week. Please make a Miss Cillian Wacken bath as possible. Submit through Discord or to cifpotatgmail.com. The first number this week, it's one CDC survey. So just one survey, but also very trustworthy. The number is 12% of men and 29% of women. That's how much of the US population uses sunscreen if they are going outside for more than one hour. That sounds right. 12%. Wow. Come on, men.

And women being wiser about it, 29% of women. But yeah, it tracks. And we should wear it more. So do that. I wonder if skin cancer numbers coincide with that, if more men get skin cancer because they're not wearing the sunscreen. Apparently they do.

And apparently skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States. And so yeah, it's important to wear it. Apparently they do. Apparently skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States. So yeah, it's important to wear it. And we also won't go deep on some kind of advice on which sunscreen is the best for you, partly because we're not doctors. But also, I'm going to link to Vox.com. They talked to one of many dermatologists who brought up a rule of thumb in the dermatology

profession is to tell people the best sunscreen for you is whatever you will bother to wear. That's smart. They could give you some wild sunscreen, but if you don't like the feel or the smell and you don't wear it, then you're letting it not work. So just wear whatever you'll wear when you go out. Yeah, like the spray sunscreen has been really helpful. I feel like since they came out with that for like children, have you ever tried to like chase down a child and make them wear sunscreen? It is difficult

But if you have a spray bottle, they got no choice. You're faster than them Arranged attack I played role playing games. Yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I got him Yeah, so just whatever you'll wear is good. And sunscreen is good still. The next number is getting into the physics and chemistry. The next number is three categories. Because when scientists talk about ultraviolet light, they tend to put the wavelengths in three categories for how they work and how they affect human skin. I know nothing about ultraviolet light.

My husband sunburned his eyeballs with one once and that was scary. But it got better so it was fine. Sorry. I should not have laughed that much, but I just hadn't conceived of it. Yeah, I didn't know it was possible either, but like in his work he had to install one and he didn't know like he didn't know to wear protection I guess or I don't know and we were traveling for his work and he wakes up in the middle of the night and he's like I'm kind of blind and I was like what? And then he like figured out what had happened and it like healed

because it wasn't that bad of a burn. But you can burn your eyes with ultraviolet light like so bad that it permanently blinds you, I guess. Like permanent, oh, interesting. I'm glad he recovered. I think so. Yeah, oh yeah, he's fine. But it was weird. Right, like I never think of anything

but the epidermis being sunburned. But there you go, eyeball, boom. Yeah, look out sun, That's why we need sunscreen. For our eyeballs too. Because that also, I burn easily. And then I always think of a line from The Simpsons where Mr. Burns says, I think it's from time a memorial man has wished to kill the sun. And whenever I'm like burned or feeling it, I'm like, yeah, he's right. Even though he's a villain and bad. It's true. Well, I mean, like, it's very, the sun gives us so many good things like photosynthesis, like all of our food and warmth, but also it's got to get one back on us, right?

Like it's got to be bad somehow. True. It can't just give and give all the time like a giving tree, a giving sun. Yeah. Yeah. It's a thing that we don't think about a lot. The entire reason for sunburns and for skin cancers is how ultraviolet light hits our skin. Okay. And ultraviolet light is the part of the light spectrum that is not visible because the light

wavelengths are too short. light is the part of the light spectrum that is not visible because the light wavelengths are too short. And then the opposite is infrared, the light wavelengths are too long and we can't see it. There's a lot of light and there's only some that we perceive. And all of it that we perceive is colors and vision and so on. That's so crazy that there's so much going on around us we can't see. When I think about that, it kind of blows my mind.

Yeah, it's of blows my mind. Yeah, it's easy to forget. And then when you think about it, you stop doing anything and just look around and wonder what's happening. So Ultraviolet Light, there's a few sources to cite here. We're linking digital resources from the Cleveland Clinic, also expertise from Carrie Hansen, a research chemist

at the University of California, Riverside. And then look, it's by George Zydane, who's an MIT-trained science writer and produces shows for the American Chemical Society. His book is called Ingredients, the Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and On Us. Because we put sunscreen on us for ultraviolet light. Sunscreen is a combination of physics and chemistry. It's the physics of light from the sun traveling to Earth and then the chemistry of what's in the sunscreen interacting with that and protecting us.

Wow. The three sets of ultraviolet light, no one needs to know these numbers. Ultraviolet light is between 10 nanometers and 400 nanometers long in the wavelength. But there's three categories we call UVA, UVB, and UVC. So ABC, easy. Okay. Yeah, easy to remember, well named. Good job, scientists.

Good job, scientists. Right. They're getting out here with things I can understand. And they just range in different lengths. UVA is the longest, UVC is the shortest. And UVC we don't really need to be that concerned with because almost all of it gets stopped by Earth's atmosphere. So UVC won't really hit your skin unless you go to space maybe. And yeah, and then the other two are what we're thinking about with sunscreen, UVA and UVB. And there's also an odd thing where people misunderstood how those two work until recently. As recently as the 1980s, there were some experts who thought only UVB is dangerous. Oh, so the other one was getting in there. Yes.

So did that make sunscreen better when they realized they're both dangerous? Yes. And it turns out if you buy a sunscreen that says broad spectrum on it, that means it does both of these parts of the ultraviolet light spectrum, UVA and UVB. OK. And I had seen that and just thought, that's probably good. And it turns out that's what that means.

I wonder, I don't know if there are any, do people still get it? Like, ah, I'm just going to, I don't need the whole spectrum, just give me half. Basically if they want to tan, they might. Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Because it turns out until around the 1980s, the conventional wisdom was only UVB causes sunburns and causes cancers.

And the conventional wisdom was that UVA's merely tan you and cause wrinkles. And like wrinkles are not deadly. And so people said it's worth tanning now and wrinkling later. That's fine. But we have proceeded to develop new theories that UVA does go deep into the skin in a way where it can, at minimum, indirectly lead to skin cancers, if not directly. And so you do need to sunscreen against both and there's no safe way to tan. Okay. Yeah.

Keep it all out. I'm all for no sun. Again, since time immemorial, man has wished to kill the sun. Yeah, you're kind of convincing me. Maybe we should kill the sun. I think I'm on board now. Yeah, because also if you're in space, there's further rays from the sun to deal with, like gamma rays and so on. And so, yeah, it kind of it puts out a lot of radiation. It's good in all the ways you expressed a lot of pro-sun biased opinions earlier, but also it does that destructive

stuff with its energy. Yeah, it's too many rays. I'm over it. You're right. Get rid of it. And yeah, and so the super short gist of skin cancer is that when the DNA is damaged in cells that can lead to mutations and cancers. And so each round of skin damage is a roll of the dice of skin cancer. And so that's why

sunscreen is important. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And people of all demographics and skin types need it. And there's also no 100% safe way to do tanning. The number there is about 400,000 cases of skin cancer that we think were specifically driven by indoor tanning every year in the US. I feel like that's not so much of a thing anymore. When I was in high school, all the girls were tanning, except for me, obviously, because I was like, I just can't. I'm just too pale for it. But I simply will not. But like, driving around town now,

I feel like I see zero tanning places anymore that are open. Yeah, same. Yeah, that business has really shrunk in the country. And I think it's because of this new advice. Yeah. Because the past advice as recently as the Reagan era was like, yeah, as long as you block the cancer kind of UV, you can have the other kind of UV and you'll tan and fun, but it's not safe actually. Yeah, especially because it was big amongst teenage girls and I bet their moms found that out and were like, no more tanning. Now all the tan places are vape shops. Yeah. And then the chemistry part then with the sunscreen number there is 10 trillionths of one second.

It's an amount of time. So 10 trillionths of a second, very fast. That's how long it takes for a molecule of oxybenzone to absorb a light photon and turn it into heat instead of letting it hit your skin cell. It turns it into heat? That's an enormous amount of chemistry. That's the most chemistry in the show. That's so wild.

So it takes, the sun comes to your skin and this thing says, no, go away. And it just becomes heat like on and dissipates. Yeah, the with oxybenzone and with most other like key ingredients of sunscreen, basically what it does is absorbs the light photons, which are energy, and then it uses that energy to do a chain reaction that results in the molecule being the same molecule. It doesn't become a different thing. Oh. By doing that reaction, then it can send it out as heat instead of letting the photons just hit your skin. That's cool. It's like an invisible shield you put on your body.

It is. That's part of why you don't need to necessarily have the sunscreen that's completely visible like a white sheet or like that lifeguard strip on the nose. Those are good, but you don't have to necessarily have one that looks like face paint or something. That's very cool. It is. I just never knew what it was doing when I put it on myself. It's very exciting to find out. Yeah it is cool to learn because you just you just take it for granted that it works. It could be nothing and I would never know. It could be total snake oil. Yeah. Oh, now I'm wondering if the oils of snakes do this. Anyway, moving on. Yeah, there's

also a thing that is apparently a little of a myth. George Zidane's book says that people think there are two different ways sunscreens work. They think there's one so-called chemical way where this molecule does a reaction on itself thing I described and absorbs sunlight. And people think there's like a different so-called physical way, where it's like the strip that's visible on a lifeguard's nose where it's sunscreen because it's just completely blocking light from reaching your skin, like a shield. Oh, like when you put a sunscreen in your car and it keeps it cool, like it's just covering it

so it's dark so the sun can't see it. You're like hiding your nose from the sun. If it doesn't know it's there, it can't get you. I do love the idea of like tricking the sun. Like I'm not here, I'm just a car. Like it's great. Just a big ball of white paint here. Can't see me. Stupid sun.

Stupid sun. Yeah. And a lot of this belief comes from sunscreens made from zinc oxide or from titanium dioxide that look like a visible goop, like white or teal color or something. But the number there is about 5%. They only actually reflect or scatter about 5% of the UV light and they absorb the rest like the so-called chemical kind. So there's mostly just one chemical approach to sunscreen. There's not like a second's, a night's shield kind of thing. It's not really a second's a knight's shield kind of thing. It's not really how they tell you where. You don't have to look like a dork if you don't want to.

It's fine. That's what I'm hoping to hear at all times about everything. Great. Yeah. And so oxybenzone or any other kind of key chemical, they tend to do this molecular chain reaction where light photons hit it, they do a set of chemical rebonding that results in the same substance. And then an amount of heat goes away from you that you don't really perceive because

the air temperature and stuff dominates your perception. And so you also don't feel the heat of the UVs leaving you. Yeah, that would be really weird if you were like emitting like a bunch of heat because you have sunscreen on. Yeah, like you're glowing or something. That would be amazing, but that doesn't happen. And that also means that this is why sunscreen is not toxic or dangerous to our health.

Because when the sun affects it, it's just still the same stuff. It's not turning into some kind of toxin. And of course, theoretically sunscreen could be dangerous to us, but your government's regulators or your companies that don't want to get sued don't want to be sued. So that's the safety against that. It's as safe as every other consumer product where we just need rules to work. Yeah. Thank you, FDA. Is it FDA regulated? I guess I don't know that. Yeah, FDA. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

There have been a few SIF topics like this where it's an incredibly ordinary thing that is also medical. Like eyeglasses are that way. And we talked about diabetes is I think the only condition like that we've talked about. So like again we're not doctors but this incredibly everyday stuff that there's expertise on that we're citing. Are you like worried we're going to be like sunscreen is perfectly safe and then tomorrow it'll be like this just in. Sunscreen is super toxic don't go near it. Anyone who says that is bad. People are like Alex what do you think of that? And I'm just a skeleton? No, it got him.

It got him. He's a skeleton to the chair. Oh no. He used so much sunscreen. Yeah. And the one exception number basically for wearing sunscreen is under six months of age. Oh, well, you can't do anything to a baby. That makes sense.

Babies are allergic to everything. When you get a manual for one of those things, it just says, don't. The baby manual, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. According to Dr. Jennifer Holman, who's a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, sunscreens are really just not designed for babies at a very small body size under six months of age.

They could absorb too much chemicals or develop significant skin irritation. The guidance for a baby under six months is protective clothing or stay indoors or be under some kind of umbrella or shelter or something. Yeah, again, that makes sense. Plus babies are always like chewing on stuff. They're gonna put their hands in their mouths. They're gonna eat some sunscreen, you know, for sure. So.

Yeah, it looks like wonderful Greek yogurt or something. Great, so, you know, there you go. That's not good, that's not good. I mean, we're pretty pro sunscreen. We're like, sunscreen's fine, it's good for you. We're not like, go take a big bite and see what happens. No one's advocating for that. Drs. hate it when you find out that you should go gurt your sunscreen.

Yeah. No, don't go gurt your sunscreen. We should come out strong against that. Yeah. And then the other, probably don't even need to say it as exception is if you have a specific allergy to a specific sunscreen ingredient, don't do that. Otherwise it's really recommended for everybody. Yeah.

And our next numbers are sort of a history speed run. The early 1800s, that's when European scientists published the first written down ideas about the ultraviolet part of the light spectrum and then separately studied sun damage to skin. Then it took almost a century for German doctors to specifically propose that ultraviolet light causes sunburns and also that maybe a topical chemical could do that molecule chain and protect us. I was so interested to hear the history of this because I feel like sunburns are kind of a poor people problem you know like the

aristocracy is like I just simply won't leave my castle and then I will not fight the Sun but like you know the people out in the fields are getting sunburned all the time so I was like I wonder when someone was finally like, we should care about this. Right, right. Or even beyond caring about it, treat it like something we could bother to try to change. Yeah. It's like the stereotype of medieval times where it's like, yeah, of course you die at age 17. Everyone dies at 17, you know, but like then you try to make life better.

Yeah. Yeah, before like, you know, it might be nice sometimes to go out in the sun. Hmm. Yeah. Jenkins, give me your skin. I'm going outside. Is like what the rich guy says. And then he's just a muscles, you know, like, okay, yeah, sure. Very good, sir. What a gruesome picture, Alex. I think they could use an umbrella. Another pro good things take. Yeah, it's a really recent development. I have the made by a chemist kind of sunscreens.

The next number here is the mid 1930s. That is when a French chemist named Eugène Schuller developed the first tanning oil. And the promise was that it would filter the UV rays. It would give you the ones that tan you without sun burning you. So that's kind of where we went in the wrong direction with the UV rays. It would give you the ones that tan you without sun burning you. So that's kind of where we went in the wrong direction with the UV spectrum. It was a big start of it. Yeah, yeah. And Eugène Chouler, if folks have an amazing memory of SIF episodes, we did a long ago bonus about him because he's also famous as the founder of L'Oreal. He was very focused on like physical appearance. And he was also

a leader of French fascism. So not great. That makes perfect sense to me. He was like, women should be looking exactly like this. And also I'm a fascist. Yeah, it dovetails. Modern L'Oreal is fine. But that guy, not great. And then while he was doing that, the other number here is 1938. 1938 is when a Swiss chemist named Franz Greiter climbed one of the Alps and got a horrible sunburn. And then, and that's it? Oh, that's full story.

Okay. Also, there's like a common, I've seen this in myself, there's a habit in like cold places where you're like, it's not summer, I don't need sunscreen, but you sometimes kind of need it more because not only are you getting sunlight, but then it's bouncing off of snow and ice and you're actually taking in a lot of sun. And so Franz Greiter climbs, it's called Pies Buin, a Swiss and Austrian Alp. And then he said, is there a way to not get horrendous sunburns when you're in the sun? And 1946, he had developed and began selling what he called Gletscher Creme, which translates

to glacier cream. And that was intended as like sun protection, no tan angle. Okay. Wow. So like a cold climate really influenced the creation of sunscreen. That's crazy. Yeah. We think of it as such a beach party thing.

Yeah. It was a man in the Alps from Switzerland, fully dressed. That sounds so fancy too. Like I feel like I can picture it in like a big glass jar in a big glass jar. Now I want to eat it again. This keeps happening. Oh, jeez. We keep making it sound delicious. Oh, no.

Yeah. And so, Gletschia creme was one of the two first influential sunscreens for at least some safety purpose. And the parallel invention was an American product, which gets us into our takeaway number one. One of the first sunscreens was a military experiment in reusing veterinary supplies. Can horses sunburn? I did.

I found a lot of information about dog sunscreen. You need it formulated for them and you want to put it especially on exposed nose, lips kind of stuff. I had no clue. If it's a super short haired dog, maybe more of them. Yeah. I have a chihuahua and she loves to like lay out in the sun. Now I'm going to have to find out if I need to get her dog sunscreen.

Might be okay. But it's like an option if they're going to be... See, when your mother-in-law is done being the grand marshal, I'm sure your chihuahua will be the next grand marshal. And so they should wear your sunscreen for the whole parade. It could happen for sure. Yeah. happen for sure. Yeah. Yeah, this is the story of what became Coppertone.

Oh. Okay. But the origin was something called Red Vat's Pet, which is a nickname for red veterinary petroleum. It was a petroleum jelly for injuries on animals. Oh, and they were just like, slap this on a human, see what happens? Uh, yes, yeah. Gotta love military experimentation on people.

Yeah, and they, everyone involved was like, this is a stopgap because we're in the Pacific theater of World War II and we've sent vast numbers of primarily white men out there, like in the South Pacific. They said, you know, sunburns are a problem in general, but especially if an airman is downed or a sailor is adrift, are they going to get like a really ferocious sunburn? Like sunburns can be an immediate medical problem beyond the later cancer risk if they get bad enough. Yeah, that makes sense to me.

So they were like, this probably isn't a great solution, but we're experimenting with stuff. And the military got in touch with the American Medical Association and said, help us come up with like a sunburn shield substance, please. They were like, yeah, you got a bunch of vet supplies around, slap this on a guy. Yeah, and like somebody said this like petroleum jelly that is very cheap, it's non-toxic, and it was basically developed because animals don't like the taste of it, and so you can put it on a cut or a burn that you don't want them to mess with.

It's almost the logic of the cone on a dog's head or something. Okay. Isn't it thick? Petroleum jelly is thick. I would think that putting that on in a hot environment would be pretty torturous. Absolutely. Yeah. pretty torturous. Absolutely, yeah. And so truly it was only being used by guys who are like, I'm stranded in the South Pacific

and in a horrible situation. Everyday servicemen were not bothering with it. It was also a dark red. That's why they called it red vet pet. So also you would look a little strange. Okay, so this is like, I'm gonna die. This is my last resort sunscreen, got it. Yes.

Yeah, so both of these came from difficult situations like alpine climbing or I've been shot down in the Marshall Islands area and what do I do? Yeah, well, I guess, what is it? Necessity breeds invention. Yeah, exactly, I guess, what is it? Necessity breeds invention. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so, they started giving the airmen survival kits. And it was called the Army Air Force at the time, then it became the US Air Force branch. But they gave them survival kits containing Red Vet Pet. And they told them, if you're downed,

if you're stranded, put this on your exposed skin while we try to find you. Okay. And then World War II ended a few years later. But as discussed, people were trying out tanning oils and this like alpine sunscreen. And one pharmacist at the US Army Air Force saw a market opportunity. His name is Benjamin Green. And he said, what if Red Vet Pet was wearable in day-to-day life? It's the whole idea. Yeah. And not disgusting and petroleum-based. I don't know, is sunscreen petroleum-based? Maybe it still is, but not like thick petroleum jelly-based.

The main design choice now is how do we make this not gross? Yeah. And so if there is a petroleum do we make this not gross? Yeah. And so, if there is a petroleum, it's subtle and different. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, how do we make this taste delicious? Ooh. Yeah, and so his main innovations, well, it's making it delicious, darn it.

His main delicious, his main innovations were adding two ingredients. He added coconut oil and he added cocoa butter. I know. Uh-oh. But making more of the Red Vet Pet, those nice smelling and feeling substances, he said, now I have a sellable sunscreen

and I can sell the concept. Like the concept is you put this on day to day. Okay. Yeah, that's very cool. And his other promise was this is both safety oriented and tanning oriented. So that's why they came up with the brand name Coppertone. It promised safety, but it also promised you will get an even and beautiful tan too. Yeah, I always thought that was a weird name for it, but I get it because yeah, some people

wear it too tan. Me too. I was always like, why, if this protects me from the sun, why is it also going to turn me a beautiful bronzed color too? I don't get it. And it's the hundredth thing about sunscreen I never thought about. I just put it on. Yeah.

It makes it sound like only that brand will do it too, because a lot of brands don't have that. Well, I guess they usually put sun in the name, but I guess it's like because it's blocking it, not because it's going to make you a beautiful tan. So, yeah, yeah, this is good marketing, I guess. In researching this, I was so amazed that it's such a new product and also that it was sort of half a beauty product until really recently. It's a really relatively new thing that you buy a sunscreen just for safety.

Yeah, that's crazy. Maybe that is that we think that's why only the 12% of men are interested in it because they're like, this is for girls, this is a beauty project, I don't want to be beautiful. I think so. I think it's like that and that we just are less careful about our skin in all sorts of ways. Like no makeup, no hair routine, no nothing.

You're supposed to be some sort of frontier weathered person, I think, as an American man. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's like your skin has got to be tough enough to take it on its own. Yeah. You're supposed to be next to a fence post and your skin has fence post quality to it. It's all brown and riveted and stuff.

Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. The fence riveted and stuff. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. The fence post man skin. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. And then this concept for Coppertone where it's the combo of safety and tanning also

led to the 1950s. They came up with the Coppertone Girl as a mascot, which was a massive branding hit. Apparently, at the end of the 1950s, cities like Miami in particular had giant copper-tone billboards where it was mechanical moving parts. So the dog constantly pulls the trunks down and then puts them back to pull them down again. Oh wow. I remember that. Like I remember that being very prevalent when I was growing up, the copper-tone girl. And I think they've changed her her now Right, so you don't see her butt maybe I think they've toned that down. Yeah That's owned I didn't mean to but

Yeah, yeah, like that that was a huge part of it and almost a demonstration of how the product works Like this was early enough in sunscreen that people were like, oh so the oh Like it was early enough in sunscreen that people were like, oh, so the oh Like it was informative It was a diagram I never thought of it that way Yeah, people had to be taught So yeah, you know, there's tons of other companies either imitated glacier cream and Coppertone or did their own thing But they invented the habit they really created it did their own thing, but they invented the habit. They really created it.

And my favorite timeline indicator of that is an essay. It's an essay called Wear Your Sunscreen. By Baz Lervin, right? He used it, yeah. Okay. It's a really weird pop culture thing, because if people don't know, I grew up in the Chicago area. And a writer for the Chicago Tribune,

she was a columnist named Mary Schmitzsch. So also people asked me if I was related to Mary Schmitzsch and I had to say, no, it's Mary, it's Schmitzsch. So close. It's so close. But she just wrote like interesting columns. It wasn't so news oriented. And in 1997, she wrote one where she said,

nobody asked me to do graduation speeches, but this is what my speech would be. And it's full of practical and simple advice. The number one tip is to wear sunscreen. Partly because as recently as 1997, that was like not a safety habit for everybody. You know, it was kind of a new idea for some generations. It was not like all the way a set idea. Everybody young did it, but maybe an older generation as recently as 97 would be like, I remember when they invented that, but I haven't gotten into it yet. Oh, that's so crazy. Yeah, that's really recent.

And then the text of it became a Baz Luhrmann song and art piece. And also a lot of the internet claimed that Kurt Vonnegut gave it as a graduation speech. They attributed it to him, but he never did that. Of course, not to a lesser-known woman, Kurt Vonnegut. He can just have it. Yeah. And I made a Kurt Vonnegut podcast with her buddy Michael Swain, so people have asked me about that.

And I just have to say, no, we're not covering the speech because it's not by him. I'm sorry. It's a very specific constant in my life. Mary Schmidt's wonderful essay. I remember that song and it was big when I was in high school. It was on the radio. It was a weird experimental art piece, but it was kind of everywhere.

It's like that and 99 Loof Balloons and that One Common People pulp song. There's just a couple things where like, why is William Shatner reading a thing on the radio? And we all love it. Why am I crazy about this Baz Luhrmann telling me to wear sunscreen? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. He's just Australian, I guess. He just gets to do stuff like that. And the rest of us are mortals. It sounded cool. It didn't sound like Britney Spears or whatever was also big at the time. I wish I had a statistic for how often a Britney Spears song and Baz Luhrmann's Wear Sunscreen

have been back to back in some order. Oh, they definitely have. Millions of times. And then another amazing thing with this product is take away number two. We determine a sunscreen's SPF by guesstimating based on sun burning the backs and butts of white volunteers. What? This? That's so funny.

Like, this is going to sound almost anti sunscreen just because we're going to describe how silly it is. SPF is tested in the silliest way you can imagine. They just take people and put their least tanned skin, so usually the back or the butt especially, under a lamp and see how quickly it sunburns with or without the product. That's how they determine SPF. Oh my gosh. How do you volunteer for that, I wonder? And how much do they get paid? It has to be like a lot because you're kind of injuring yourself on purpose for a product. I really wanted more information about it. And it also seems like there are efforts to end the practice and switch to some kind of artificial

skin that we can test it on. Because it's a very minor risk, but you are essentially risking cancer to test it, right? Like they stop when you get a slight sunburn, apparently. So it's not, I'm not like super worried about these people, but yeah, it's not a great thing either. I guess it's better than like a general guess. When you first said we guess based on it, when you said we guess, I thought that was going to be it.

There's just like a spinner with numbers one through 70 or something and like, no, this one gets to be 15. Okay. Yep. Some scientist is like, oh, 50? Does that sound good? This guy's like 50. Yeah, I would call it a guesstimate because there is some care and testing going into

it but apparently SPFs are often pretty poorly calibrated, especially consumer report tests in the US and Australia, they've found pretty wild variation in what's on the bottle versus their own findings and checking of it. So just get the most. That's always been my goal, just find the highest number and I'm like, hopefully this does it. Me too and apparently there's also some regulators where it depending on the country or the location, they'll require companies to limit the number to 50 or higher. If you've ever seen a bottle that says SPF 50 plus, that means that the company claimed

a gigantic ratio, but regulators don't let them put the gigantic ratio because it will make people think they're invincible or something. They can defeat the Sun. They're like I'm never going inside again Yeah, like I guess one of the biggest issues with sunscreen A source here is the McGill University Office of Science and Society. They call it the sunscreen paradox Which is that some recent studies have found increased use of sunscreen and increased incidence of skin cancer. And I think the reason is user error.

And one error can be people think that I put on one layer of SPF 100, so I'm invincible for the entire day. And that's not how it works, unfortunately. Yeah, I can definitely see that. You don't reapply. You're like swimming, you know, because not all of them are waterproof. Yeah. Yeah. And apparently also there's some regulations against writing the word

waterproof on bottles because sunscreens between swimming or our sweat, especially, they do come off. And so even though the chemical remains stable, it just comes off and you just have to reapply. There are also people who don't put enough on. I didn't find any great amount advice, but you're just supposed to use a lot. You're supposed to really slather it.

And if people don't, then that's a user error. So yeah, between that and over optimistic SPF numbers, we have to make sure to use the sunscreen properly. Okay, use a lot. Use a lot and a high number. I'm doing it. I'm already on board. Yeah, me too. I'm really into it. The one thing that's solid is what SPF stands for like how it is calculated is a specific way SPF stands for sun protection factor and It's a ratio of how much better skin is protected than if it didn't have the sunscreen at all Okay So for example if a sunscreen is SPF 30 There is a specific promise there that the question is whether they're achieving it

But the promise is your skin will take 30 times longer to develop a sunburn. Oh. Versus if you hadn't worn it at all. Okay. I was picturing like 30% better, but then I was like, what does that even mean? So that's an actual quantifiable number. Okay.

I was so surprised. Yeah. Confiable number. Okay. I was so surprised. Yeah, like it turns out it's very hard to gauge SPF But we know what they are promising for sure. It's it's an extremely concrete promise. Yeah An extremely concrete promise, but we're not sure like if we're actually Doing it right, but we know what we're trying to do doing it right, but we know what we're trying to do. Yeah, because then the way they test it is they take volunteers with the palest skin they can find. So also if you're not a pale person, SPF might not be right, but calibrated to you. It's calibrated to the palest white people they can find.

Whiteness is sort of a made up concept, but. Yeah, of course. That's crazy that they don't test it on not-pale people. Yeah. And then they take the least tanned part of their skin, which is most often their buttocks. There's enough skin there to work with. And then they put that skin under a UV lamp with part of it sunscreened and part of it not.

And they time how long it takes for initial redness in each location. And then from there, it's a simple ratio. Okay. So. Yeah. The process makes sense to me. I just. It's like how a child would design it.

Like it's such an amazing experimental design. Or like it sounds like something they invented in the 1930s and they were like, surely we'll come up with something better by like 2025. And they have it. Surely. No. Surely. Kind of like doing something for the next scientists to like build on.

Right, right. Nope. The issue with this is apparently the tests don't replicate very well. In 2025, this summer when we're taping, an Australian consumer group independently tested the SPFs of the top 20 sunscreens in Australia with SPF 50 or higher specifically, like on the bottle. And only four of them achieved that in their test out of 20. Oh.

Only four of them achieved the amount of protection that was promised on the bottle? Okay. Yeah, like the lamp on the butt did SPF 50 or higher. And apparently for several years, consumer groups in the United States have found similar things with our SPF. And there's also a law from the Obama administration called the Sunscreen Innovation Act. And it hasn't been overturned that I can find, but the goal is to decrease the rigorousness of testing ingredients in sunscreen, but with a goal of achieving better protection by just having less red tape.

Okay. And I can't really speak to whether it's a good law or not. It's just like a thing that's on companies' minds because they're concerned that they're making SPF claims, they can't back up. And so maybe new chemicals will help get them there. Oh, okay. Yikes. Yeah.

I don't know. It's like deregulation of anything seems bad, but also better sunscreen sounds good. So you're right. Very neutral. You're just like, okay. Yeah, exactly. Like the principles I'm torn on and then I don't, I'm not an expert in any of the chemistry or science. So I'm just kind of shrugging. Yeah, I don't know. I guess sunburning people definitely isn't the worst thing our government's done, so go for it. The last last thing with SPF is we do seem to be in a better era of sunscreen design because people have reconstituted both of those early kinds, the red vet pet and the glacier cream, they've reconstituted them to do SPF testing and both of them achieved

an SPF of around two. Okay. So life's a lot better now. Yeah. It's going great. Like even if the bottle's over claiming, it's a lot better than two and it's like doing something for you. Wow.

That's so funny that the very first ones they were like, this is they're probably this is amazing I'm so much less sunburned and it's SPF two Exactly two times less sunburned which is a lot Like it's a meaningful improvement and it also sounds so silly to us like Like it's a meaningful improvement and it also sounds so silly to us. You think two is good? I have a bottle that says one million. So you're a fool in the past. But it's actually 50 because the testing isn't great.

Exactly. So yeah, there you go. And yeah folks, that's tons of takeaways and numbers and a lot of buts. We're going to take a quick break and then explore a few more amazing sunscreen takeaways. We're back and we're back with takeaway number three. with takeaway number three. Human sunscreens can damage coral, and coral reefs make their own version of sunscreen. Oh, no. There's some ocean stuff.

So how does it damage the coral? Yeah, it turns out this is a relatively new thing we are figuring out, which is that the key chemicals in some sunscreens interact negatively with coral. And corals are a living thing that also is symbiotic with other living things. So each chemical that's a problem kind of harms it differently. Oh no. Yeah, and we are still catching up to it. As of 2025, expert Annalise Hodge at the University of Plymouth says, quote, current research has only scratched the surface of

understanding how these chemicals can affect marine life, end quote. The most amazing study so far is in 2022 in the journal Science, they looked at oxybenzone, which was the first chemical we talked about where it's 10 trillionths of a second to do its interaction. It's an excellent human sunscreen, but we've learned that the oxybenzone interacts with anemones in reefs, where if the anemone is exposed to both oxybenzone and sunlight, they attach sugars to the oxybenzone and then that combo is a toxin to reefs. It bleaches them and kills them. So they are they advising people now like if you go like scuba diving not to do a coral reef not to

wear sunscreen? Yeah they're advising people not to wear oxybenzone or octinoxate is another one. It's I wish we had better advice for people because apparently we're still figuring out what is a reef safe sunscreen. Some brands claim to be, but it's sort of like SPF. It needs more testing. And also humans need sunscreen for their protection. And so we're just trying to balance everything. Yeah.

Oh, poor coral reefs. Can't catch a break. It's true. Otherwise, they're doing amazing. They're doing really good except for the sunscreen thing right here. And also, I'd like to think it's good news that we are studying this relatively rapidly because in these previous takeaways, we talked about these chemical sunscreens being kind of relatively new as a modern practice. And so early in us widely using it, we're discovering this stuff and trying to figure

it out. So that's nice. Yeah, that is good. Like if we'd been using these sunscreens for 200 years, I would be upset that we still don't know. But it's kind of new. So. Yeah.

And you said they make their own sunscreen, the coral reefs do? Yeah. And that's the other thing. They don't make our type of sunscreen, but it turns out most of life on earth is also concerned about damage from ultraviolet light. The sun shoots radiation at everything. Again, it's our enemy. And in a 2011 study, this was a team led by Paul Long of King's College London, they found

that algae living within the Great Barrier Reef coral, it makes a compound that's transported to the coral and then the coral modifies that into something to protect coral from UV light and take less damage from it. So cool. It's amazing. Yeah. Like they don't like our chemicals from Coppertone or whatever. I don't need to pick on Coppertone. But they have their own sunscreen

for their own thing because corals are animals. It's a polyp in symbiosis with algae and other species. So like humans, they want to protect themselves from the ultraviolet light. That is so cool. Nature is amazing. Yeah, I just I really thought about only humans needing it. And then it turns out other stuff has skin or surfaces and cells, DNA, you know, so. Yeah, you don't think about like, like, do birds make their own sunscreen? Birds are out all the time, awful close to the sun. And they have bodies. awful close to the sun and they have bodies. Right, they are up there.

Yeah. Yeah, we've got not birds but other examples here. It turns out hippopotamuses secrete pigments that protect them skin from the sun. That's really cool. Secreting a pigment sounds cool. Why don't we do that? We should secrete pigments. I wish.

Yeah. Like, it's a set of a red pigment and an orange pigment that provides some sun protection. And then also animals like hippos will supplement that with an actual physical sunscreen of like mud and dirt and stuff, you know. So they have developed ways to not sunburn. They don't want to sunburn like us. That's awesome. And there's some species of beetles

that secrete a wax coating that is a barrier against the sun. And the wildest one to me is many, many species of plants. Plants can sunburn. What? Even though they, I will phrase it dumbly, eat the sun. Yeah. They also need to make sunscreen.

Many plants generate compounds called flavonoids that we're still studying that absorbs and manages the spectrum of light they receive. So they'll still take in the part of the light spectrum that they photosynthesize well. And they also try to not get DNA damage from specific ranges of the light spectrum. But if a plant is like dried out and too much sun and so on, they might brown in a way that the nickname is leaf scorch, it's called. It's basically a plant version of sunburn, even though again, they're different living things from us.

Yeah, very similar leaf scorch sunburn. We got similar names. Yeah, very similar. Leaf scorch, sunburn, we got similar names. Yeah, yeah, like human sunburn is called apoptosis. It's a form of like on purpose cell death to try to kill the cells before they develop into some kind of cancer. And it won't work all the way, you'll still get some cancers. But yeah, a lot of life forms have processes to weather and kill off parts of us damaged by the Sun You never think about it. Yeah, that is so cool

Yeah, the body's amazing nature's amazing Nature's amazing And yeah, and apparently we dump about 14,000 tons of sunscreen into the world's oceans each year, according to the Smithsonian Ocean. I shouldn't use the verb dump. It's just we are protecting our bodies and then it comes off us in the water. But if you can, just try to find a sunscreen that doesn't have oxybenzone or octinoxate before you swim. And hopefully one that says it's reef safe. Hopefully it's true.

Okay. Unless you're in a pool and then just do whatever you want. Yeah, there's already chlorine in there and stuff. Yeah, sure. I don't know. If your swimming pool has a reef, reach out. That's amazing. I don't know how that would work at all. That seems bad for the reef.

Yeah, maybe don't put one there, but if it is there. And the importance of UV protection that gets us into our last takeaway of the main show, because takeaway number four, a set of social media influencers are cashing in on anti-sunscreen pseudoscience. Oh, God, of course they are. That's the least surprising thing you've told me in this episode. That's probably why I put it at the end too, yeah. Like, there's so many of us saying sunscreen is good,

then in an attention economy, there's money in saying it's bad, because that's just the opposite. If you just say the opposite of a thing on the internet, some people will give you money. I'm just asking questions about whether or not we should be burned horribly by the sun. Yeah, pretty much. And yeah, lots of key sources here. Maria Godoy, senior science editor and correspondent for National Public Radio. Alison Aubrey, health and science correspondent for NPR's Morning Edition.

And Aditi Ramakrishnan, science correspondent for NPR's Morning Edition, and Aditi Ramakrishna, science reporter for the Associated Press. They cite experts and doctors. The social media element, we think it might be driving less sunscreen uptake among young people. Because there's also older generations who never wear it and should, but social media is where young people might be getting it. Are they selling anti-sunscreen stuff or are they just saying like

sunscreen is a lie, don't wear it. And people are on board with that. Excellent question. It seems to be that they are gaining attention that they can monetize by saying sunscreen just gets in the way of the most natural way of living. The sun just on you all the time. You know. Oh, my God, that's so funny. The most natural way of living, like in feudal medieval times when people died when they

were 14, just get out in the field and dig, and dig in the sun all day. That's good for you. Yeah, it's like that and also further back in time. It's like, remember prehistory when we just wandered the plains and in loincloths with spears? Like we were so healthy. So it's that kind of concept. You're so healthy and everyone died when they were 12. Right.

And the key example here to call out is an influencer who's also a celebrity, Kristin Cavallari. From the hills? Yeah, I know Kristin Cavallari. Yeah, Laguna Beach. Yeah, yeah. Famously very sunscreen heavy area that she grew up in. Kristin, you should know better.

Yeah, and she's now a jewelry magnate businesswoman and she has a podcast. And on a 2024 episode, she brought on a holistic guru who she repeatedly called a doctor. He does not have a medical degree. But they pushed the idea that the sun is exclusively nourishing to the human body and that we only think the sun is bad for us because so many of us spend too much time indoors and don't have like a base coat of sun where then it's good. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Like you can disprove that by just going outside for a long time and seeing if it feels bad

or not. Right, but their claim would be you're jumping into being outside a bunch from a cozy indoor life where you become detached from what the sun does for us and powers us, you know. And they also argued that all cancers, including skin cancer, the problem is inflammatory stuff in your diet and you just need an anti-inflammatory diet. That does a lot more than sunscreen. Sunscreen is cutting you off from the good things the sun does, is the wide claim. Oh my gosh. Anti-inflammatory diet stuff is

personal to me because I just got diagnosed with Crohn's disease. It's so wild because a lot of people are like, everyone's body is just so different. They recommend anti-Crohn's disease and inflammation of your intestines and stuff. And you start talking to people who have it and everyone has such different things that they can and can't eat. So it's really like, there's not a specific diet for it because everyone is so different, but there are tons of people selling these anti-inflammatory diets and they're all, if you start looking at them, there's no real through line.

Some people will be like, sweet potatoes, so anti-inflammatory. Some people will be like, if you eat a sweet potato, you will die. It's so stupid. Yeah. Although Lydia, you say you were diagnosed with a disease recently. That makes you think you've been doctor-pilled by doctors. If you've been diagnosed, you've been hanging out with doctors. I think they're biased.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Food is obviously the best medicine. Medicine is not the best medicine. Don't listen to me. I'm doctor-pilled. Food is the best medicine. So many people say that about Crohn's disease. And I'm like, I think I'm going to go with medicine because medicine is what's helping me feel much better. And yeah, and that was a great question about are they like selling an alternative? They're not pushing like a different cream. It's just their podcast is advertiser supported. They also clipped it for TikTok and for Instagram reels and stuff where you can either directly

or indirectly make money from traffic. And the overwhelming scientific consensus is the opposite. A so-called base coat of tanning is just a first round of skin damage. It could decrease sunburn, but not cancer risk. And the sun is not really physically nourishing. It does give us vitamin D, but George Zidane's book... If you're a plant, you're a plant, I guess, but we're not. And George Zidane's book points out that lots of modern foods, in particular milk, are fortified with extra vitamin D. It's ironic because your diet actually does cover a lot of what

the sun gives us nutritionally, which is really just vitamin D. And maybe most important, it just doesn't matter what relationship ancient people had with the sun. Yeah, you shouldn't give a s*** about that. Yeah, my favorite insight about it, this is Dr. Adam Friedman. He's a professor of dermatology at the George Washington School of Medicine. He points out that prehistoric people often did not live past their 30s. And apparently the average age of skin cancer onset in modern people is age 66. So yeah, it makes sense that there wasn't skin cancer back then because they were dead. Right. And kind of with all cancers too. A lot of the history of trying to deal with

cancer has been discovering it as people live long enough to get cancer. And so it really doesn't matter how ancient people related to the sun. It's just a good idea to wear sunscreen and if someone's telling you not to check out their incentives, like Kristin Cavallari makes money from attention. And probably from, I would assume, like you said, people are advertising on our podcasts, the kinds of people that might be advertising are selling probably supplements and things outside of the... Right, right.

Right. They're not selling a different cream, but they're selling a whole different supplement for a whole different yada yada. Thing. Yeah. So yeah, and I'm not a doctor either, but I don't get paid that way. So... Yeah. You're at least not selling any vitamins or supplements that are guaranteed to fight the sun for you. I have two supplements to fight the sun. hand left hand here we go here we go

Two tickets to the Sun show it doesn't work, but you know what I mean Two tickets to the show where Alex kills the sun. And I want to say another thank you to Lydia Bug for pinch hitting helping us out this week. Again, an amazing writer. I don't think I said she has a novella out. It is called Healthy Choices. It's a brilliant horror novella that you can get online. And again, she's a comics writer, comedy writer, and 1-900-HOTDOG is where you can read her pretty much every Monday. She's a weekly columnist for the funniest and final comedy website on the internet. And really glad she could come back and do more CIF episodes. She's been on other ones about stuff like vanilla.

And so really glad she's back. And welcome to the outro of this CIF episode. It's got fun features for you, such as help remembering the sunscreen episode with a run back through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, one of the first sunscreens the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, one of the first sunscreens was a military experiment in reusing veterinary supplies and that red vet pet led to Coppertone.

Takeaway number two, we determine a sunscreen's SPF by guesstimating based on sunburning the backs and butts of white volunteers. Takeaway number three, human sunscreens can damage coral and coral reefs and many other living things make their own form of sunscreen. Takeaway number four, a set of social media influencers are cashing in on anti-sunscreen pseudoscience. And then a ton of numbers about physics, chemistry, the timeline of modern sunscreen development, and the surprisingly tiny number of Americans who wear it day to day. Those are the takeaways. Also I said that's the main episode because there's more secretly incredibly fascinating

stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org. Members are the reason this podcast exists, so members get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus is two separate quick stories. It's the ancient Egyptian approach to making sunscreens, and it's a myth about an astronaut sunburn that's hiding a much more heroic spacewalk. Visit safpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 21 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of max fun bonus shows. It's special audio, it's just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things

check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include a ton of reporting from National Public Radio, the Associated Press, the New York Times, Vox.com. Also digital health resources from the Centers for Disease Control, the Cleveland Clinic, the Australian Academy of Science, the McGill University Office of Science and Society. Further expertise from Kerry Hansen, a research chemist at the University of California Riverside. And citing an amazing book by George Zydane, who's an MIT-trained science writer and content producer for the American Chemical Society. Zynan's book is called Ingredients, the Strange Chemistry of What We Put in Us and

On Us. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wapinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skatigok people, and the Wapinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skategoat people, and others. Also, let me take this on the traditional land of the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, Mayamia, Ochetishikowin, and Kickapoo peoples. And I want to acknowledge that in both our locations and many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here.

That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIFT Discord where we're sharing stories and resources about native people and life. There is a link in this episode's description to join the Discord. We're also talking about this episode on the Discord, and hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I'm finding you something randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator. This week's pick is episode 214, that's about the topic of Renaissance Fairs.

Fun fact there, the first ever Renaissance Faire was a direct result of Red Scare fearmongering about communism. So I recommend that Ren Faire episode. I always recommend my co-host Katie Goldin's weekly podcast Creature Feature about animals, science, and more. Once again, read Lydia Bug every week at 1900hotdog.com. Our theme music is Unbroken, Un-Shavin' by the BUDOS Band. Our show logo is by artist Spert and Durand.

Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to The Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extra, extra special thanks go to our members and thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that?

Talk to you then.