Stuff You Should Know - The Ins and Outs of Albinism

Episode Date: February 17, 2022

Today we dive into the science behind the genetic condition albinism, which is not pronounced how you think it is.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, so it's a good old fashioned bout of stuff you should know ready to kick you in the duff.

My gosh. About where we a sickness? Yeah, some, some would say. Oh dear, I'm ready for this one. I'm so excited because I understand genetics and chemistry like I've never understood it before in my life. Well, I think that a little credit goes to our pal Grabser who has a knack for explaining very complex science stuff. And we also need to shout out, as usual, when it comes to science, a kid's website, which is, in this case, Frontiers for Young Minds. That was a really good one. Yeah, they had a pretty good breakdown on albinism, not albinism. Let's just get that out of the way. Yeah, and I also tried to find out, it doesn't seem appropriate to say albinos. I didn't expressly

see that anywhere, but it just, it seems like with the, how we refer to things these days, that stands out as something that we shouldn't do. Certainly. Did you find that though? I did not. I didn't. Although there are all sorts of like pro-social sites for people with albinism all over the place. I'm surprised we didn't run into that. Because I saw it used, but I'm going to err on the side of caution and just say albinism. Yeah, no, totally. Or people with albinism, right? Well, sure. Or plants. Yeah, that's something that came up. Like, certainly you're familiar that, you know, not all, it's not just people who can have albinism, but that animals can too. Like every once in a while you hear about a very rare, like a shark

with albinism, or like you said, an alligator with albinism. It's just so stark and surprising. One of the reasons why is because it's exceedingly rare in the animal kingdom. Yeah. But it's still around. And it's not just mammals that can have albinism too, although it would make a lot more sense if it was just mammals that got it. Because it affects a very specific part of the body, the melanocytes, which we'll talk about in great, great, great detail in a little bit. But that like, like a whole cascade of events goes from, or it takes place within those melanocytes. And any part of that can get messed up or disordered. And those are what are the basis of the different types of albinism as we'll see. Yeah. And, you know, the reason that you

indicated that it was super rare to see like a gorilla with albinism, although you can see that is because, and we'll get into the genetics more specifically, but it's an autosomal recessive trait, which means that both of your parents have to have this albinism gene. So, I mean, it's rare enough in humans when two people fall in love and mate for life and stuff like that. Right. But when you're counting on two sharks that happen to swim by that happen to have that express their genes that way, and they happen to, you know, get friendly with one another. Bump up against one another. Sure. Rub fins. Sure. However, sharks do that thing. Right. It makes it even more rare because you're counting on almost just like, you know, fate or

destiny. Well, not destiny. Let's not get hippie-dippy about it. But, you know, a couple of gorillas getting together in the mist that both have this genetic gene. They wait for the mist to settle, and then they're like, no one can see us, baby. I just said genetic gene too. That shows what I know. So, yeah, for whatever reason, Chuck, whether it's like, because the populations are isolated or what, but it does seem to be much rarer albinism. It does seem to be much rarer in like the wild than it is among humans. And even in like some human populations, it's like you could call it not rare at all. Like if you go to some parts of Africa, some parts of Central or South America, you'll find groups that like are fairly small, genetically speaking, and albinism has just

become kind of like an endemic trait among the population. Yeah. And I think that's even where the first, the word albino was first used in the 1800s in Africa for people that had albinism. And it's, I think the root is the Latin albus or albo from Spanish, Spanish and Portuguese. That's right. So, when we're talking about albinism, I think most people probably know what we're talking about. But usually when you see a person with albinism, they have either totally white hair or a very light colored hair, usually little to no skin pigmentation, or they can have kind of like a yellowish or pinkish skin pigmentation. They might have eyes that lack color or seem red, which apparently has to do with the blood vessels in the eye, reflecting the red light from,

well, back out at you, the viewer. But all of this has to do with a complete in total or a greatly reduced lack of melanin, right? Yeah. And, you know, if we're going to crumble the myth, we can crumble the myth that you are not like if you have albinism and you don't have red eyes or pink eyes, then you don't have true albinism. And that's not true at all. There are a lot of different kinds of albinism. And depending on the way the genes express themselves, there can be a range of effects on your body. Ed was mentioned even in the plant kingdom with maize. You can have, and it's not white corn, that's a different thing altogether. But if you, because trust me, if you look up albinism and corn, the first thing you're going to see is a corn snake. So you have to type

in maize, and then you're just going to see white corn. But there are a few different kinds of albinism in maize, one of which basically is no pigment or chlorophyll, and that's not even going to survive because it's a plant. One that will eventually become just a regular ear of corn, and then a third type, which is really interesting, it's striped. And some parts have that pigment, and some parts don't. Yeah. And like if you put two different types of albinism, whether it's corn or humans, together, the person who has both of those different traits probably won't appear to have albinism at all, because you have to have matching gene mutations to have an autosomal recessive genetic disorder. And albinism is one of those, like you said. Yeah. And interestingly,

if you just sort of look at it in a vacuum, albinism isn't necessarily harmful. There can be comorbidities, and there can be other effects that happen, of course, like with things like sun and sunburn and sun exposure, and there's vision problems that can happen, and we'll get into all this more specifically. But just by itself, albinism isn't necessarily harmful to a person or a population. Right. And there's different types too. There's syndromic and non-syndromic, and syndromic means that you usually have other related health issues, and there are syndromic types of albinism. But one of the things that tends to go along with albinism, along with the lack of skin and hair pigmentation, is vision problems, which we'll talk about.

But there's other stuff too. They've correlated autism with albinism, which I couldn't find a lot on. Me neither. But it made me wonder, there's also a correlation between vision problems and autism. And it's possible, they theorize, because no one knows at this point what the correlation is, but they theorize that it has to do with a low level of visual input leading to autism. So it's possible that if you have a low level of visual input because of albinism, that could lead to autism as well, potentially. Right. So much we don't know, but we do know that it is, albinism is a neural crest disorder. And this basically means, I mean, we can get as wonky here, science-wise, as you want to. But the easy version is, it means that it's

very early in embryonic development when a group of cells is folding into a crest. And at this point, if something is going on with those cells, it can affect a lot of different things moving forward, including albinism. Right. Because those neural crests, when they form the extremely early embryonic stage, they form cartilage, bones, skin, smooth muscle cells, neurons, they differentiate into a bunch of different stuff. But the point of that is, is that the gene that is responsible for whatever type of albinism you have differentiated really early on, long before many other genes were active. It also points out, Chuck, I think something that's worth mentioning that at this point, because it's a genetic disorder, and apparently in

extraordinarily early in development genetic disorder, there's no treatment for albinism. Everything you're treating is just to take care of the symptoms that come along with it. I think that's a good overview to get us going. Don't you think? I think so too. Yeah. Let's take a break. I smell a break. Yeah. Well, in fact, that could just be done. And we could just run a bunch of ads if you want to do it that way. I don't think everybody would like that. I think they'd rather hear us muddle through albinism. All right. We'll do a couple of messages from our sponsors and we'll be right back. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Artikar and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars. If you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast.

Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. So when most people think of albinism, Chuck, what they're actually thinking of is a specific type called oculocutaneous albinism or OCA, which is the most prevalent form. But it's also the most distinct form as well. Yeah. And this is, you know, if you've ever seen the musician Johnny

Winner or Edgar Winner or, you know, a lot of times people with albinism will be cast in movies. Unfairly, a lot of times it's the bad guy because they have a unique look. And you know, it's Hollywood and that's kind of what they do. They look different. They must be sinister. Exactly. And we'll get into that later on too. But it's funny, though, I did see a couple of videos where people with albinism sat and watched movie characters of people with albinism. Yeah. And basically just sort of made fun of it. They were just like, oh, okay, another bad guy. That's a surprise. Right. Yeah. But this exactly, that's what you're talking about. That's OCA one is when you're talking about maybe someone with the pink or red eyes, the lack of pigment, the

skin, that white, white hair. Right. And that one, so there's supposedly, there's somewhere between four and maybe even nine different forms. But most scientists who study albinism recognize maybe four to five different forms. The rest of them are these really, really almost exotic rare mutations that have occurred in these really isolated communities where albinism is actually common enough that it just is mutating into new forms. So most people say four to five forms. And if you're like the easygoing type, you just call it type one, type two. If you're high strung like me, you'd probably call the most common one OCA one A. There's also OCA one B, OCA two, OCA three and four and so on. Actually not so on. That's all of

them. Right. But the thing that all of these or at least most of them share in common is that there's either a total or complete lack of pigmentation. And then again, it affects the eyes because it's that ocular cutaneous albinism. And so with this lack of pigmentation, that one that most people think of when they think of an albinism, OCA one A, there's like no pigmentation whatsoever. And everybody with albinism has those pigment forming cells, melanocytes. It's just for different reasons, those melanocytes are not producing pigments to varying degrees. And in OCA one A, they're not producing pigment at all. Right. So like you kind of said at the beginning, if you see someone that has the red or pinkish

eyes, it's those are the blood vessels that you're seeing because of the lack of pigment. Right. And that's what's also going to lead to those vision problems. Like you kind of hinted at, it, you know, a lot more light is going to be entering your eye that's not being absorbed like it would if you have pigment in your eye. It's not being diffracted. At the very least, if you have albinism, you're probably going to be really sensitive to light. But it can also actually damage the retina as well. Right. Which is a big one. As we'll see, that's a, it's a huge problem. The, the idea that it's called photophobia, like deep sensitivity to light. Yeah. And then also you, you just can't see as well. Like you can, in that, in turn, can lead

to problems with learning and high school jobs. It's like a cascading effect that all just begins with not enough pigment in the eye. It's really astounding with just something that seems kind of small has like the impacts that it has. Yeah. And you know, the great thing about most school systems these days is they make great efforts for any kind of kid in school that has any sort of a challenge to say like, all right, well, we have something to accommodate for that now. But it, you know, it's taken a long time to get to this point and we still have a long way to go. But you know, you can't imagine somebody with albinism in the 19, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. And what schooling must have been like when it was basically just like,

sorry, you know, you can't, you obviously can't keep up. You're struggling to learn to read. And we don't quite know what to do with that. Right. And they're, and, and they always punctuated with him. And by the way, everything your classmates are saying about you is true. Right. Hopefully teachers are at least kind about it even back then. Maybe. But kids are always mean. Yeah, for sure. They're getting nicer though. Are they? That's great. Man, that's a huge improvement. Well, they are, but it's, I mean, obviously, there's still bullying and a lot of problems with that stuff. But the kids are getting better because it's, I think we've proven as parents

and educators that that can be taught, that you start them at a young age teaching about facial differences or just any kind of differences. And that, you know, that we're all the same, you know, it sounds very free to be you and me, but we're all the same on the inside. Right. And so that kind of like teaching that stuff actually works. That's why it's frustrating when people push back on that kind of thing. Yeah. I don't want my kid to be nice. You can't make my kid be nice. It's a first amendment issue. That was just a little soapbox moment for me. I like it. I put one foot up on there with you too. Oh, thank you. There's room. So, so there's room for you and me, Chuck.

Yeah. Jerry's always up here. Of course. She won't stop. It's a little much if you ask me. So, Chuck, before we keep moving on, because I think we need to talk about that social aspect of albinism now. Sure. But before we hit that, I want to say there's one other thing that one of the big differentiators about between the different types of albinism is, like we were saying, at what point in the process of creating melanin, the pigmentation is disrupted means that you could actually produce some levels of pigment or some different types of pigment. Like we have a couple of types of pigment that we produce as humans. You melanin, that's the money melanin everybody thinks about. It produces like the browns and everything like that. It gives you

your tan. If you have brown or dark hair, that's all you melanin. But there's also pheomelanin, which is kind of a red, yellow pigment producer. And people can have types of albinism where you're producing no you melanin whatsoever, but plenty of yellow, red pheomelanin. So, that will adjust the different kinds of skin pigments you have. And sometimes you'll see people with albinism, we have totally pale skin, but like a big shock of yellow gold hair. They're producing plenty of pheomelanin, just no you melanin. And those are the different gradations of albinism have to do with how much and what type of melanin can escape out into the skin, into the eyes, and into the hair.

Yeah. And interestingly, birds and mammals are the only living things that have melanocytes, which are those cells that produce the melanin. So, this is why you're not going to see a lot of bright colored mammals, like you're not going to see a lot of bright green or blue mammals. And then when it comes to birds, but you're like, wait a minute, why are humans, you know, basically shades of sort of brown, and why can birds be like pink and orange and red? It's for a lot of reasons, and we've talked about some of these before, but one of the reasons is their diet. Like in the case of the flamingo, a flamingo is white, except for their diet, which turns them red or pink. Yeah, they can also produce certain kinds of chains of amino acids

that produce blue or green. They can combine some of the pigments they produce with some structural stuff, like in the way that their feathers are built to create entirely new colors. There's a lot of stuff you can do, but that's typically birds. And the reason they think that birds are so colorful is because the visual acuity in the bird world is a little more important, even in the human world, as important as it is for us. But there's also another thing that that melanin does is it can provide structure and toughness. If you look at the outer layer of fur in a cold dwelling animal, that's usually going to be fairly dark. And one of the reasons why it's dark is because it's also providing structure and toughness to that outer layer of fur,

not just preventing light to get through, UV to get through. Right. But then you start scritching underneath, you get to that little baby soft, lighter colored undercoat. Even with my dog, Charlie, who's got the longer hair, she has an outer coat and an undercoat, and that undercoat is different. It feels a little different. It looks a little different. Yep. The exception to that, of course, is polar bears. They're not actually producing any kind of white pigment. I think it's the structure of their hairs, their clear hollow tubes. Yeah, yeah. They refract light so that all of the light comes back at you. Yeah, just Google green polar bear if you want to freak your kids out a little bit.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. It sounds sussical. It's kind of a green polar bear. So while we're on that, though, we want to talk a little bit about the sort of social implications of having albinism. It's interesting that it's much more common in parts of Africa, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, but that's also where you can find some of the most stigma in people being ostracized, which is, I don't know, it's really kind of sad that it seems like something that is more common might be accepted a little bit more, but that's not really the case, is it? No, it's not. Unfortunately, the reason why is because people with albinism in Africa are in some parts of Africa, we've learned over the years you can't just be like in Africa,

because it's just so ridiculously different culturally and geographically. Sure. But in some parts of Africa, I believe parts of Nigeria, if you have albinism, you are extraordinarily valuable. I think the body of a person with albinism is worth about $75,000 US dollars. Oh, really? In places where people are living on like $6 a day. Is it for like medical research? No. Oh, no, no, no. I know you're talking about. For witchcraft and sorcery, they're considered the bone, there's lower, so here's the problem. Not only are people with albinism subject to being ostracized and isolated because they're different and they look different, people, not just in Africa, but in other places where

education is less prevalent and less standardized and science is less relied on, I guess, there's just a lot of myth and lore surrounding albinism. And so people think that it's like contagious. So you just want to stay away from those people because you don't want to catch it. And then all the way across the spectrum to their bones are made of gold dust. And if you get your hands on the cadaver of a person with albinism, you can create potions and sell them to people. And in the wholesale market, you would pay $75,000 for the corpse of a person with albinism. And it happens. People get murdered for their bodies because they have albinism. And it's just, it's a despicable practice and tree, but part of it is like figuring out how to get across to

like these large groups and populations, the science behind all this. And at the very least, it's not contagious. And at best, their bones are not filled with gold dust. So please stop chopping them up kind of thing. Yeah. And as far as, you know, here in the United States, if, you know, this is like we talked about, you know, kids teasing or staring as parents and educators, you should be armed, I think with the barest bones of information at least to be able to say, oh, well, you know, that is somebody with albinism. And that means their body doesn't produce pigment. And so their skin looks different than ours does. And if you're a parent, you can just leave it at that. And that's really all you have to do. Like if you want to listen to this episode

and get into melanocytes, knock yourself out. Sure. That's parenting plus. But at the very least, you should be able to describe it. And like, I know when I was a kid, and this is not a knock on my parents, they were both smart people and teachers, but just scared to death of people with albinism. No, no, but they probably would not have known what to tell me. Sure. They probably would have said, Oh, that's an albino. Full stop. Steer clear of them that's contagious. No, I don't think that either. But I just think we have a duty these days, like to educate ourselves to the to the lowest level of understanding other people, you know? Yeah, you know, that's something that I've carried with myself for many, many years is like people didn't explain the why

to me. And so there didn't seem to be purpose to anything. I couldn't, I couldn't come to appreciate the things that the reasons why we were doing things, the strategy to football, it was just get out there and make sure that person doesn't get past you kind of stuff. No reason why. And that's like a stupid example. But it's a good case of it that like, nobody stopped and said, here's the grand picture. Here's the grand scheme of things. And the more information I would have had, the more I would have appreciated life and probably appreciated other people too. So I agree with you completely. I think that that is, that is part and parcel with making the world a better place is providing more information to kids especially. Yeah. And again, this is slightly

tangential and so boxy. But I think in our day and certainly before our day as kids, there was a lot of just like shut up and don't ask questions sort of attitude. Yeah, that's a terrible thing to do. No, all you should do is ask questions and get questions answered. My Lord, it's frustrating. The whole like, because I said so kind of thing, which is so prevalent when we were kids. As I understand, it's going the way of the dinosaur, which I think is great. It is. But boy, when you accidentally catch yourself saying it, as a parent, it's like, oh no, I'll be right back. I'm going to go flog myself. Right. Oh, I'm sure there's plenty of parent groups just waiting to flog you outside your door too.

Yeah, because I said so crowd. Yeah. Yeah. They're like the guilty remnant, the leftovers. They just stand outside your house and smoke, which we're two episodes away from finishing, by the way, that happens tonight. That's great, man. Congratulations from me, from all of the stuff you should know listeners on behalf. I just have to say, and I knew this was the show that got progressively better and more bonkers. But boy, what they're throwing down in season three, I am all over it. I don't believe I made it that far. What? Yeah. I thought you, I thought you like said you wish you could go back and do it over again. Yeah. Yeah. The first time. I don't think I realized that they kept going after season one.

Yeah. Yeah. There were three seasons. Okay. Well, good. I got some stuff to watch. I got to reframe everything now. I watched this on your recommendation. So Chuck, I feel like we can button this up by saying society has a long way to go toward learning how to treat people with albinism equally. Agreed. Yeah. But let's do that. All right. Well, let's do that. And let's take a break. And we'll talk a little bit more about what limited amount we know about what causes this right after this. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough,

or you're at the end of the road. Okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen,

so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikala, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages,

K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So we're back. We know, and we've talked about this already, that it's a recessive gene that causes albinism. But it's like, all right, so that's a recessive gene. This is like when you not off in biology class. Oh, man, when I woke up. You wake up and you go, oh, okay. Well,

I know the answer is a recessive gene, but how does that happen? And the secret to it all is a little protein called tyrosinase. Right. How would you pronounce it? Just exactly like that, tyrosinase. Okay. Tyrosinase. But that's how it's spelled, tyrosinase. But tyrosinase surely is the way that you'd say it, right? I think probably so. So that's the one, that's the one that is like the catalyst for basically everything that comes after to create melanin, right? Whether it's eumelanin or pheomelanin, it doesn't matter. Tyrosinase is like the beginning of it. And so in that OCA1a, the type of albinism where you just utterly lack pigmentation altogether, tyrosinase is impacted. So when your tyrosinase is impacted, your melanin productions, this

doesn't happen in your melanocytes. And therefore you have OCA1a albinism. That's right. And if that happens early on, that whole chain reaction is going to shut down. And that's when you're going to have the complete lack of pigmentation. In the other forms, it might affect it at different stages along the way of that melanin creation. So that's why you might not be totally absent of pigmentation. Yeah. And again, there's slightly different processes that produce eumelanin and other processes that produce pheomelanin. So any one of those things, it's a very complex intricate production to create melanin. And so that means that there's a lot of different points where that process can break down. I just find that extremely fascinating.

And then also one other thing I find fascinating, when you talked about autosomal recessive traits, did you mention that that means that two parents can both have the gene for albinism, but neither one have albinism, but they're considered carriers. And so they can pass it along or not pass it along to their kids? Well, yeah, because I mean, and I think this is something that you would often see is is two parents without albinism have a child with albinism and someone might just be like, well, how does that work? Well, it's just very easy. It's because you have to have both parents. And if obviously these parents didn't have both of their parents that had that genetic mutation,

then they're not going to have it. But it's interesting. It's one of those things where you sort of like the sharts, sharks bumping in the night. Did you say sharts first? I think I did say sharts. That's a whole different problem that that's bumping in the night. Sharks bumping in the night, it's like you wouldn't know this, probably wouldn't know this about yourself if you only had one, if you were just a carrier, you know what I mean? So you probably wouldn't find this out until you had a kid. Exactly. That was that's one reason why there's a lot of lower and myth around

albinism in less educated areas that like there's like a question of paternity. Like this can't possibly be my kid, that kind of thing. But then on the same token too, as far as passing it along, if you have albinism and you fall in love and reproduce with a person who doesn't have albinism, but it also isn't a carrier of albinism, your children won't have albinism. Right. You've got to have both those parents. You've got to have both those parents that have passed along both those things because again, you can have siblings that don't have albinism.

Sure. Because like I think you have a 25% chance of getting albinism or of it being passed along to you. You have a 50% chance or 75% chance of it not being passed along, but there's a different combination of what's not passed along. Right. Yeah. Yeah. What I also thought was interesting was when Ed toward the end started talking a little bit about

in the animal kingdom and the fact that it's for sure a disadvantage if you're living in the jungle and you're an animal because coloration is a big part of your camouflage and survival blending into your natural habitat as both a predator and a prey. So if you are an alligator or a gorilla with albinism, you're definitely at a disadvantage in the wild. I don't know that it's definitely in the wild because he said if you have like a bunch of lab rats just sort of doing their thing, then it's really not going to affect them much at all. But we talked a little bit in the cave dwellers episode about these organisms and I think reptiles that live deep in these caves that are essentially have no pigment and in there it

doesn't really matter. And in fact, some of the vision stuff might be an advantage. Yeah. Like the fact that you don't have pigments like bouncing light and refracting it off, I guess basically keeping it from bouncing around means that you should be able to get more light, more visual information in very low levels of light. So that would be an advantage for sure. Yeah. I think it's pretty interesting. It is interesting. So I guess before we go, Chuck, we should, we should talk about, there's a lot of other conditions that can happen that have to do with pigmentation and melanin that really don't have anything to do with albinism, which really kind of goes to show

you like just how complex melanin production actually is, you know? Yeah. And we talked recently, I don't know why, but we did mention vitiligo recently. This is not the same thing as albinism. This is when you have those sort of very defined areas of your body that have no melanin. It is similar because it has to do with melanin, but not albinism. No. They think that there's either some sort of really bad sunburn, a mechanical insult, like something happened to your melanocytes, you know, mechanically, or you might have had like some sort of chemical reaction and that whatever trauma happens to the melanocytes,

it triggers your immune system to target them as foreign invaders. So they think now that vitiligo is some sort of autoimmune disorder. That's right. What else is there? There's poliosis, which I looked and know it does not have anything to do with polio. Right. They should, they mistitled this one, I think. They really did because it has nothing to do with it, but that's the one where someone will have like just a shock, like a little patch of white hair, just totally pigment-free hair. Yeah. I know a couple of people that have that, the little, like the white schwa.

Sure. Like, remember John Hansen from Talksoup? Yeah. He had the white schwa. Great example of a person living with poliosis. That's right. Emily calls any kind of hair thing like that a schwa. I don't know why. No, it makes sense. I've heard it before, but I don't know what it means. I think it means exactly what it means, right? I don't, I think she just means what, like if I poof my hair up in a, with a big like, like a pompadour, she would call that a schwa.

Okay. Okay. I got you. It's very, I think no one outside my household really understands what it means. It's a tuft of hair. Yeah. It's a tuft. Okay. Okay. I don't think I realized that's what poliosis was. Yeah. That's, that's what it is. What do you think it was? You thought it had to do with polio, didn't you?

I totally did, actually. I did too, until I confirmed, nope, just terribly named. There's also Wardenburg syndrome. This is abnormality with the pigment in the hair and skin and eyes, but this is a congenital disease. Also not have anything to do with albinism. Right. I think that's about it, huh? There's piebaldism, you know, the kind of piebald horses where there's a big white patch, usually a, like a large one, sometimes on the chest. Beautiful. It's a type of horse. It's actually a condition that humans can have as well.

It's just that they bred a certain type of horse. They selected it in a certain type of horse called the piebald horse. You know, I have a tuxedo cat. I was, I'm kind of curious about how that happens. I'm going to look into that. That's classy. Yeah. Classy tuxedo cat. That's right. Well, that's it for albinism, huh? That's it.

If you want to learn more about albinism, you should go out and do that. There's a lot to learn, and you could do worse than starting at Frontiers for Kids on their albinism article, because it's a pretty good one. And then just go from there. And since I said just go from there, it's time for Listener Mail. Yeah, this is short and sweet. We got called out on something, and whenever we get something wrong, we certainly like to, and not just a correction on a fact or something. But when we get something wrong that we shouldn't have gotten wrong, then we like to call attention to it,

and we try and do better. Totally. This is from Natalie from California. I wanted to start out with saying I'm a big fan of the show. Found it during lockdown and made a big difference from my boredom levels while working from home. But I was a bit disappointed guys listening to the chow chilla bus kidnapping. As multiple times, you guys implied that not being able to spell means that you're not smart. And you were totally right, Natalie. I didn't even think about that. But Natalie says I'm an adult with dyslexia, and I cannot spell to save my life.

In spite of this, I'm a highly intelligent, successful adult. And it's fairly ableist to correlate ability to spell with overall intelligence. And I expect more. And Natalie, you are totally right, and that is on us. And big apologies. We did not think that one through. No, indeed. We definitely weren't trying to throw any shade on people with dyslexia at all. Of course not. But you know, it's another thing like we all learn as we go through life. And when you learn on the air, it can be a little embarrassing sometimes.

Yeah, just a tad. But that's what we do as a job. And so we take that. Yeah. So was that from Natalie? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that one, Natalie. We appreciate it. And if you have something you want to call us out on, we'll take it. And you can address it to StuffPodcasts at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio.

For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me. And my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.