Stuff You Should Know - How Redheads Work

Episode Date: January 15, 2009

Redheads are supposedly fiery, passionate people, but is there any truth to these stereotypes? Find out what studies have to say about redheads -- and if they'll really go extinct soon -- in this HowStuffWorks podcast. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Chris saw it all and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and I am Chuck Bryant. Hey, Chuck. How's that? It was good. Good. Yeah. I'm working on my radio thing. I like it. Your voice is smooth. It's good. Yeah, it's nice. Smooth is spider milk. Spider silk is fun from goat's milk.

Nothing to say. How's that? Right. So, as you know, I am a huge fan of Dr. Werner Habermell. I did know that. Did you? Yeah, but I don't think anyone else did. Wow. I'd never told anybody that before. Is it that obvious? I just had a censor t-shirt. It's my t-shirt, isn't it? Nice. Well, for those of you who don't know who Dr. Habermell is, he is a sex researcher at the University of Hamburg in Germany. Hello, Germany. And Dr. Habermell did a study that I read about recently on the Daily Mail. So, basically, I'm just letting it all hang out here. I follow the careers of clinical sex researchers and I read the Daily Mail. Yeah. But there was a study he did that I ran across where he compared the sex lives of redheads with the sex lives of brunettes and

blondes. And he found, just statistically speaking, he didn't really actually sadly, he did pose an idea of why. This is the case. We'll get to that in a second. But he found that redheads have a noticeably much more active sex life than any other people with any other hair color. Interesting. And the thing that kind of got me was that the same goes for people who die their hair red. Really? And get this. The esteemed doctor said that women who are in a committed relationship and dye their hair red, that is a really big red flag to the guy. Oh, that they may be stepping out? They're looking. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So Emily ever done that? Yeah. She went red a little for a time. What was this? I think it was before we were married. Okay. It all makes sense now.

Yeah. Exactly. You're like, I knew my kid looked like the mailman. Right. Yeah. So this is what were you getting at here? Well, here you ready? Yeah. So the doctor basically says, well, redheads have a fiery temperament and they're very passionate, which is just so cliched. It is and it's not necessarily true. And the more I looked into it, the more I realized that redheads are among the most maligned and stereotyped right people of any hair color, redheaded stepchild and blondes, the phrase redheaded stepchild, redheaded stepchild. Did you know also that there was a there actually twice there's been this this big news cycle about redheads going extinct? Yeah, I've heard about that 2005 and 2007. Yeah, which is not true. No, we just should

say that right away. No, there was one in 2007. That's the most recent one that said that the Oxford Hair Institute, which sounds so official. Yeah, it does. It's said that that redheads will be extinct by 2060. Right. Because of the recessive gene that carries red hair. In theory, that could die out. Do you want to get into genetics to you? I'd prefer not to, but I think we have to. Let's do it. Okay. Let's just give a brief overview. Redheads are that's a phenotype. Right. It's a physical trait. You can see it. You can sense it. Their genotype, the genetic trait that makes them redheads is this it's a recessive gene. Right. It's a mutation in the MC1R gene. Yes. And that is the melanocortin one receptor gene. Right. Okay. So the MCR1 gene is responsible for

a certain pigment productions. Right. And redheads actually overproduce a red pigment called pheomelanin, which gives them the red hair. And they underproduce eumelanin, which gives them a pale skin. It's a darker brown. It's a brown pigment. Right. Which is underproduced. And it's actually a genetic mutation. It is. Did you know that? I did. Okay. So like you said, it's also recessive. Right. Which means it can skip generations and then reappear much later. Yeah. URI could actually have a mutated MCR1 gene. Right. And although neither one of us has red hair. True. We'll never know until we have kids with red hair. Right. If either one of us comes up with a kid with red hair, it means that you and your wife both had this recessive gene. It got

together. Right. And the kid had to have this mutated gene. Right. Because of the chromosomal contributions by the parents. Right. Or it means infidelity. Again, yeah. Back to that. It depends. You know, I mean, it could have, it could have been, it depends on what Emily did back when she dyed her hair red. Right. Although you probably know by now, right? If she had a child. Yeah. Yeah. I've been around the whole time. Okay. Good. All right. So they're not becoming extinct. Not true. No. They could though. It would take something on the order of an evolutionary bottleneck. Right. Which as we all know, would basically make all of us mouth breathers. Right. Because of all the rampant familial inbreeding that it would take to, you know, expand the genetic pool again.

Sure. It's entirely possible. If everybody who had the recessive gene, the MCR1 mutation, if all of them died out, there goes redheads. Yeah. Technically, that's the case with everything. Exactly. Now, there may be a higher likelihood in an evolutionary bottleneck, or it might take less of an evolutionary bottleneck for redheads to die out because they are, it is rare. Right. Right. But yeah, they're definitely going to be around beyond 2060. Yeah. I know quite a few redheads myself. So I know virtually none. I'm actually trying to think right here. I can't come up with a single redhead. Yeah. I know a couple. Actually, we don't have anyone on staff either, do we? This is going to drive me crazy. Oh, well, of course. Candice, our old... Candice,

yes. Our old partner. How can we forget Candice? How? I don't know. She's the reddest of heads. She really is. And you know what? She kind of proves the good doctors there. She is fiery. She's a spunky girl. She definitely is. Okay. So redheads are going to be around for a while, including Candice, I imagine. Yes. Thankfully. Yes. And they are, as we said, my very shaky thesis for this podcast, much maligned. I've got another piece of supporting evidence that redheads are often mistreated. Yes. I know we're going here. Do you? Yeah. Okay. So you want to tell them about this study? Yeah. It turns out that, and this is a cool little fact that you can share with your friends and family, redheads actually require more anesthetic when

undergoing surgery. Yeah. And apparently, the medical establishment, especially among anesthesiologists and anesthetists, this is common knowledge. Right. But there hadn't been an actual study. Correct. Quantifying this before 2002. Right. And these University of Louisville researchers conducted this kind of cruel, little archaic, maybe? Yeah. When I read this, I thought there's got to be a better way to find this out. But, you know, maybe there's not. Yeah. So what we're talking about was this Louisville study. They took 20 female subjects, 10 brunettes, I believe, 10 redheads. Yes. All of them were on virtually the same menstrual cycle, which ruled out any hormonal explanation for this, because apparently, hormones can contribute to

your susceptibility or rejection of anesthesia. Correct. And they gave them all the gas. Right. They gave them what is it? Desfluorine? Desfluorine. Which is a general anesthetic gas. Right. And they knocked these women out. Yeah. And then they got medieval on their asses. They used – I looked this up. They used bilateral intradermal needles to deliver the electric shocks. So basically, they were poking these women with needles and delivering shocks. Electric shocks into their body to see if they would react and feel pain. Yeah. Because when you're unconscious, it's much different from sleeping. When you're unconscious, your pain gateway is shut down. Which is why they do it for surgery. You don't want someone digging

into your chest cavity and be able to feel it. Right. And it's a different state. And actually, scary enough, we don't fully understand how anesthesia works on the brain. We don't know enough about the brain. It's kind of a scary notion. We just kind of know it works. We figured out, I guess, through trial and error, patients dying left and right, what the right ratio is for the average person. Yeah. It's a tough job. Very – Oh, yeah. They also have the highest insurance premiums. That's what I've heard. Yeah. And they also make some pretty good coins. Definitely. Yeah. So if you're thinking of trying to get into the medical field and you want to make a bunch of money, go anesthesia. Right. And gas those redheads. Exactly. So,

okay, let's get back to this. Right. So they're sitting there delivering shocks to these redheads and actually brunettes. Everyone in the study was treated equally cruelly. Right. And they're delivering shocks and they would decrease the gas or increase the gas, depending on the reaction, until they stopped getting pain reactions. Right. So then the other really kind of startling aspect of the study was that one of the researchers described the shocks as intolerable to a conscious person. Right. So these weren't like little like, oh, I just licked a 9-volt battery. Right. These are electric shocks that you would be like, you know, you'd come at somebody who did this to you if you could move. So they just keep

shocking over and over again. And then they wrote down, you know, the ratios and they came up with, as you said, redheads need 20% more anesthesia. On average, 20%, yeah. Yeah. Which is pretty substantial. It is substantial. But I mean, what's the deal? Why? Well, before we move on to that just quickly, I wanted to point out that in another study, a couple of years later, said that the same thing happened in men. So yeah, if you're a man out there, you're going to need some extra gas. It's not just for women. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. Miami had become the murder capital of the United States. They were making millions of dollars. I would categorize it as the Wild Wild West. Unleashing a wave of violence.

My God, talking about walking into the devil's den. The car kills. They just killed everybody that was home. They start pulling out pictures of Clay Williams' body taken out in the Everglades. A world orbiting around a mysterious man with a controversial claim. This drug pilot by the name of Lamar Chester. He never ran anything but grass until I turned over that load of coke to him on the island. Chester would claim he did it all for this CIA. Pulling many into a sprawling federal investigation. So Clay wasn't the only person who was murdered? Oh no, not by a long shot. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Join me for Murder in Miami. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The war on drugs impacts

everyone. Whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And on the prime example, okay. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They

call civil answer. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. But because we don't know exactly how anesthesia works, we don't know exactly why this is true. Yeah, we they've just finally linked it. Right. They said there is a link, but we're not exactly why that link is there. Well, which is the MC1R gene, which is what we were talking about earlier. That that that genotype has been linked directly to anesthesia for the first time. Exactly. So why? What are some of the some of the reasons they've given? Well, yeah, they don't know for sure. But they have one explanation that that gene is also involved

in hormones that stimulate pain receptors. Yeah, which would make sense. It would make sense. Kind of obvious route, if you ask me. And there I believe that another one that said that the pigments themselves actually cause an increase in pain sensitivity. Yeah, I think that was the one where they said there's a there's such an abundance of this pigment. Right. Things like to go bind to other things in our body. And they're they're looking for something that maybe the pain receptors in the brain are similar to the to the pain receptors that these pigments would normally attach to. Right. So it overstimulates the brain makes it more sensitive to pain. Yeah. Yeah. So either way, if you're a redhead, I feel bad for you. I don't I don't like pain.

Yeah, but being redheads kind of cool. It's like being left-handed. I wish I was a left-handed redhead. Wow. Instead, I'm just a right-handed brunette. I know. We're just kind of average guys are average, average dudes. There actually is one other good thing that came out of this this study. It may actually spur development of a kind of anesthesia that's tailored just for redheads. Interesting. That's called pharmacogenetics. You heard of this? Yeah. Okay. So it's basically designing drugs to more tailoring them to somebody based on their genetic makeup. Right. That makes sense. It does make sense. Seems like it would be safer. It definitely falls into that controversy about genetic testing, though, doesn't it? Yeah, true. So it's kind

of a fine line, like keep redheads out of pain or, you know, choose only blonde-haired blue-eyed children in the future. Right. The boys from Brazil eventually. Weird stuff. You know what I would call that if they actually do manufacture this? What? They call it red gas. Nice. That's what I'd call it. Nice. Yeah, you couldn't call it red death. That'd be you'd have a terrible market share, wouldn't you? Red gas is pretty good. Yeah. Nice one, Chuck. Well, look for red gas in the future. And if you want to know more about redheads and anesthesia, extinction, that kind of stuff, you can type those words in in any kind of clever combination in our handy search bar at howstuffworks.com. And don't go anywhere because Chuck's got something for you. I think it's called

listener mail. Listener mail time. So yeah, Josh, we're back here mere seconds later. And I have an exceptional listener mail here. This is what I've titled it. And I keep a little folder of exceptional mail. And I've been holding on to this one for a while. And you might remember this from our buddy Greg Storkin, who wrote us a top 10. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah. Wow. This is one of our first mails, guys. This is titillating and arousing. It was. I'm going to give Greg his due. I'm not going to read all 10, but he basically wrote a top 10 reasons why he's obsessed with stuff you should know. So I'm just going to go over a few of my favorites. You purposely leave early for work and then take side streets along the way simply to have more time to listen to your

new episode. Nice. So this guy's furthering his commute. Yeah. You hum the jazzy theme song as you go about your day, which I do as well. You have more fun learning from Josh and Chuck than you did from your super hot organic chemistry professor, which is awesome. It is a little piece of you dies when you hear the theme music fade back in signaling the end of the episode. It's pretty sad. And his number one reason was you have a full fledged man crush on Josh and Chuck man crush. And we bring this up because we've had oddly quite a few men write us and say they have man crushes. And we're super hot organic chemistry teachers. It's just weird. But the man crush phenomenon is a real thing. I know you have quite a few bromance. Yeah. I know that actor John Leguizamo,

you're very hot for him. I don't like to talk about it. I hope one day that I will meet John Leguizamo. I'm not really holding out hope. I don't want to touch him or anything. It's more just like being next to him. You know, I'm saying to have him like punch me in the shoulder and be like, Hey, Josh, how's it going? I think that's what a man crush is. It really means is what you want to do is you want to go out and like have a beer with us. Like I have a tremendous man crush on George Clooney. Yeah, because I want to go hang out with George Clooney and talk about basketball and drink a beer. You know, it's underrated these days, but there is such things. Platonic love. Yeah. If he kissed me, I wouldn't. That's not platonic. Yeah, but I wouldn't. It's George Clooney. It would be a good story. It depends on how forceful

the kiss was, right? True. And how shaven he was. Well, if you want to tell Chuck or I about your recent romance or who you have a man crush on or you want to send us a top 10 list. And by the way, Greg, you can expect a t-shirt for that top 10 list. T-shirt worthy. Definitely. Send us your size and your mailing address to the email address we're about to give. Actually, you've already got it. So just send it again, will you? And if you want to send us one for the first time, you're not quite certain who to address it to, what email address you need to ship it off to. You want to send it to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit stuffworks.com. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you?

It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1968, five black girls were picked up by police after running away from a reform school in Mount Megs, Alabama. I'm writer and reporter Josie Deffie Rice. And in a new podcast, I investigate the abuse that thousands of black children suffered at the Alabama Industrial School for Negro children and how those five girls changed everything. Listen to Unreformed on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.