Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, stuff you should know is going on tour.
Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do One are the deeds my friend. Okay,
Speaker 1: So starting August eighth in Toronto, that's in Canada. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be at dan Fourth Music Hall. And then Chicago,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be there the next night, August nine, at
Speaker 1: the Harris Theater at Chicago. We want to see your faces.
Speaker 1: Step it up, Step it Up. Vancouver or the Vote
Speaker 1: Theater September. That's gonna be a great show, I think,
Speaker 1: don't you. It's gonna be a great of one. And
Speaker 1: then in Minneapolis at the Pantageous Theater where we've been before.
Speaker 1: It's lovely September. Yeah, and then we're gonna swing down
Speaker 1: to Austin. It's gonna be during Austin City Limits, although
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with Austin City limits. Will
Speaker 1: be there October ten, yes, and then we're going to
Speaker 1: Lovely Lawrence, Kansas go Jayhawks, yeah on October eleventh. And hey,
Speaker 1: if you're in Kansas City or anywhere in that area,
Speaker 1: this is your chance. Get in your car. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you are anywhere near Brooklyn, well then you should
Speaker 1: go to the Bellhouse October. Will be there all three nights,
Speaker 1: and finally we're gonna wrap it up here in Atlanta
Speaker 1: at the Bucket Theater on November four for a benefit
Speaker 1: show where we are donating all of the money's to
Speaker 1: Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta and the National Down Syndrome Society. YEP.
Speaker 1: So for all this information again visually and for links
Speaker 1: two tickets, just go to s y s K Live
Speaker 1: dot com. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bright, there's Jerry's Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know. That summer sunburn and addition your tan, well,
Speaker 1: I did think it was kind of funny. I probably
Speaker 1: have more sun on my face than I've had in years. Yes,
Speaker 1: very easily, I would say, And I've been in the
Speaker 1: sun a lot more lately. But I have been applying
Speaker 1: sunscrew green. But as you will see very shortly, I
Speaker 1: haven't been the best at reapplying it. No, That's what
Speaker 1: I'm guilty of too, And so I end up getting
Speaker 1: a tan, and then, of course, like a dummy, I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: tants look pretty good. I look fox people look good
Speaker 1: with a little bit of a tan, which is just
Speaker 1: how you fall into that trap of doing what's ultimately
Speaker 1: very bad for yourself. Next up, Ascot's going down the
Speaker 1: George Hamilton's route. But the rest of my body, well,
Speaker 1: my lower my lower arms are tan and my face
Speaker 1: is tan. Do you have like milk bottle calves? Tell
Speaker 1: me everything else is white? Take off your pants, they're
Speaker 1: already off. Okay, as always, your pants really are off? Um, Jerry,
Speaker 1: did you know Chuck's pants are off? She's known for
Speaker 1: nine years? Remember the the T shirt that listener made
Speaker 1: his pants off? Mike's on or Mike's on pants off.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the order that we do it. A
Speaker 1: wax on, wax off. I think, uh, this one's long
Speaker 1: overdo though, I think and pilot under our general public
Speaker 1: service casts. Yeah, there's a lot of info that's floating
Speaker 1: around that is wrong. Yeah, starting with the idea that
Speaker 1: tans are healthy or even protective. Yeah, Like, well, we'll
Speaker 1: go through all these and bust some myths, but handing
Speaker 1: bad company saying like oh you need that vitamin D yeah,
Speaker 1: or hey that based hand that will help you not burn.
Speaker 1: We'll go through all this we're going to but let's
Speaker 1: start Let's start where everything starts, Chuck, Let's start with
Speaker 1: the sun. Alright, Sorry, So the Sun is streaming down.
Speaker 1: You're familiar with the Sun. Our star, closest star, divides light, heat,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. It's also bearing down on us
Speaker 1: deadly radiation, trying to kill us all the time, right,
Speaker 1: And there's three types, Well, there's three kinds of um
Speaker 1: energy that the Sun shoots at us. There's infrared heat,
Speaker 1: there's visible light light, and then there's ultra violet light
Speaker 1: scar one ultra violet radiation, right, and then you can
Speaker 1: break down ultra violet radiation into three more components, u
Speaker 1: v A, UVB, and UVC. Actually, if we didn't have
Speaker 1: our atmosphere, we'd all be dead right now, just because
Speaker 1: the UVC. It's extremely deadly. But do right, if you're
Speaker 1: an astronaut, you gotta worry about UVC, But those of
Speaker 1: us here on Earth, we don't. We only have to
Speaker 1: worry about u v A and UVB. And for decades,
Speaker 1: ever since we started thinking about protecting ourselves from the sun,
Speaker 1: we've basically been focused on UVB. Yeah. UVB is what
Speaker 1: will sun burn you, right, which is why everybody wants
Speaker 1: to protect themselves from it. But it turns out, as
Speaker 1: we'll see, u v A is not it's even worse
Speaker 1: than UVB. No, it really isn't. But those are the
Speaker 1: three kinds. And when sunlight comes here on Earth, and
Speaker 1: even when it doesn't, if it's reflected on a cloudy
Speaker 1: day or through fog or something like that, don't be fooled, no,
Speaker 1: because U v A still getting through. And as you'll see,
Speaker 1: you need to protect yourself as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: because we will see some people recommend that you use
Speaker 1: sunscreen every day, all over your body, every day, indoors
Speaker 1: and out. Well, if you do that, you will probably
Speaker 1: never get skin cancer, that's right, unless it's genetic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you're definitely helping yourself out right. Uh. So you're
Speaker 1: talking about that sunlight beaming down and fog and cloud
Speaker 1: cover and all that stuff. You probably, if you've ever
Speaker 1: been snow skiing, gotten sunburned because on a sunny day
Speaker 1: that snow will reflect about of UV light. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you get the sun coming down on you and then
Speaker 1: you're also getting a second dose of it reflected from
Speaker 1: the snow at a rate. If you're at the beach
Speaker 1: and you wonder why you might burn a little more
Speaker 1: at the beach. It's because that sand does the same
Speaker 1: thing to a rate of about where you will not
Speaker 1: get sunburned, they say, is in a greenhouse. Yeah, did
Speaker 1: you know that. I didn't know that. You're you'll sweat
Speaker 1: to death, sure, and you can still get um tan,
Speaker 1: but you won't burn. Yeah. Apparently glass is a substance
Speaker 1: that absorbs UV radiation. This is a big thing that
Speaker 1: I realized chucking. I just kind of touched upon it
Speaker 1: for my entire life. I thought that sunburn was like
Speaker 1: a tan gone too far, or conversely, that you got
Speaker 1: sun burned and then you got tanned as a result
Speaker 1: of sun burn, and then you were fine. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like the people that are like, oh, always burn on
Speaker 1: day one and then it turns it turns into a tan, right,
Speaker 1: and then I keep that for the summer and I
Speaker 1: don't even need some block after that, right now, Actually,
Speaker 1: a sun tan and a sun burn are two different things,
Speaker 1: and then the result of two different types of UV radiation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that people that say that stuff are completely talking out
Speaker 1: of their butts, right, Don't listen to them, listen to
Speaker 1: us instead. Yeah, because there's actual signs behind the UVB
Speaker 1: is what causes sun burns. UV A rays are different,
Speaker 1: and they they are what ultimately I think it's a
Speaker 1: deeper penetration. They will ultimately cause like wrinkly skin, right
Speaker 1: and like internal collagen damage and stuff like that. Right.
Speaker 1: So uv A for aging, UVB for burning, right, yes,
Speaker 1: and combines with both. You look like that lady, And
Speaker 1: there's something about Mary made out with the dog. So
Speaker 1: we are It's not like we're just complete, Um, we're
Speaker 1: just completely at the mercy of the sun. Right. We
Speaker 1: have a natural reactions to sunlight that are kind of
Speaker 1: protective measures, but really more than anything, we're finding nowadays
Speaker 1: that they're huge red flags that are meant to say, like,
Speaker 1: get out of the sun. You're being internally damaged on
Speaker 1: a molecular level right now, hence your sunburn. But it
Speaker 1: turns out the tan is the same thing. Basically, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a big red flag or a big brown
Speaker 1: flag that says, um, you're undergoing genetic damage currently. You
Speaker 1: may want to get out of the sun, not go
Speaker 1: laid by the pools some more. You got your tan,
Speaker 1: you're fine. Yeah, when you're getting that tan, what that
Speaker 1: is is a pigment called melanin, and it is produced
Speaker 1: in reaction to that. Uh, I guess you v B
Speaker 1: u v A u v A and not gonna get
Speaker 1: this v A ting right, should remember that? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's tough to it's tough to separate the burn from
Speaker 1: the tan and think that there are two different things.
Speaker 1: After thinking that they're you know, related to all your life,
Speaker 1: you know, well, it's It's why tanning beds use mainly
Speaker 1: u v A light because you don't want to. They
Speaker 1: don't want you to sunburn when you go to the
Speaker 1: tanning salon because then you'll be like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: that's not how it's supposed to work. And you don't
Speaker 1: get tann from UVB, so why even included? And if
Speaker 1: you don't have to, well, yeah, and here's the deal, though,
Speaker 1: I guess I might as well go ahead and let
Speaker 1: the cat out of the bag with the tanning beds. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the things, one of the bogus things that
Speaker 1: they will tell you is like, no, that your body
Speaker 1: needs vitamin D and so go to the tanning bed
Speaker 1: because it's safer than being in the sun. One bs. Uh,
Speaker 1: you get vitamin D from UVB, not uv A, and
Speaker 1: tanning beds use uv A to get you tanned, so
Speaker 1: it's that's completely bogus to begin with. UM. One recent
Speaker 1: estimate UH suggested indoor channing caused about four hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty thousand cases of skins can't skin cancer United States
Speaker 1: every year. That's about double the number of lung cancer
Speaker 1: linked to smoking UH, and twelve states at this point
Speaker 1: of outlawed tanning beds for miners under eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: That seems smart. I got one more stat for you.
Speaker 1: People who used tanning beds for the first time before
Speaker 1: the age of thirty UH, presuming they will. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not a one off, have a seventy increased risk
Speaker 1: in developing melanoma. The other don't go to tanning beds people. No,
Speaker 1: that's a creat advice, Chuck Man. I mean, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people also think, like melanoma nothing, you just
Speaker 1: cut it out, it's fine. Actually, melanoma can spread, can
Speaker 1: metastasize really quickly, and it is a very dangerous form
Speaker 1: of cancer. So don't take that lightly at all. Plus,
Speaker 1: if you're going to a tanning bed, you're probably doing
Speaker 1: it for your looks. Have a little foresight because what
Speaker 1: you're doing is subjecting your body to advanced hyper aging.
Speaker 1: You're gonna age prematurely from and that whole like. You know,
Speaker 1: people will say, I don't care, I'm young. I want
Speaker 1: to look tann and look good. Um, that's why we
Speaker 1: have nanny states to choose for you, because you're too
Speaker 1: stupid to choose for yourself. Uh was that, judge, No,
Speaker 1: we're trying to help people. I mean, this is it's
Speaker 1: a danger. So the guy with a freshly tanned face,
Speaker 1: let's let's go back to the skin and what the
Speaker 1: skin is doing. Okay, all right, should we take a
Speaker 1: break first, a little worked up? We can. All right,
Speaker 1: let's take a little break, get into the skin. So chuck,
Speaker 1: we're we're back on the skin. You said that when
Speaker 1: u v A interacts with our skin, melana sites are
Speaker 1: stimulated to produce melanin. Correct. Yeah, totally bailed on that.
Speaker 1: And melanin is a pigment and one of the roles
Speaker 1: that it plays is to absorb but actually absorbs radiation
Speaker 1: u v A radiation and under normal circumstances, I think, um,
Speaker 1: literally nine times out of a thousand, it when it
Speaker 1: interacts with a photon of uv A radiation, it takes
Speaker 1: that photon and it basically absorbs it into its molecular
Speaker 1: structure and it spits it out as waste heat. So
Speaker 1: it takes the radiation and turns it into something that's
Speaker 1: just it's just heat. It's not deadly, it's not dangerous
Speaker 1: any longer. Yeah, and that this isn't something that happens overnight.
Speaker 1: It takes a little while to produce this melanin, which
Speaker 1: is why you don't go out and get tan in
Speaker 1: a day. Um. There's a longstanding myth that people who
Speaker 1: have melanin production constantly, people with darker skin tones, um,
Speaker 1: that they can't burn and that they can't get skin cancer.
Speaker 1: And that's wrong on both accounts. It is um more
Speaker 1: difficult for somebody with very dark skin tone to get
Speaker 1: some burned. But I was cancer right, Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lower prevalence. But I was reading, Um, I was reading
Speaker 1: up on it, and I saw some dermatologists said, if
Speaker 1: you have skin, you can get some burned. Just give
Speaker 1: it enough time, under the right conditions, you'll get some burned.
Speaker 1: And then yes, skin cancer is a thing as well. Um,
Speaker 1: people of Uh, the fairier complexion, the worst you're going
Speaker 1: to burn, and the um higher. Your incidence of getting
Speaker 1: skin cancer from being out in the sun is but
Speaker 1: it can happen. It's just a spectrum. But on on
Speaker 1: the other end of the darkest end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It just means it
Speaker 1: happens last. So all of this applies to people of
Speaker 1: all different skin tones. Yeah, and like we said before,
Speaker 1: when it comes to uv A that's a deeper penetrating
Speaker 1: light into the skin, it's gonna destroy collagen. It's a
Speaker 1: structural protein and that collagen goes away, and that's when
Speaker 1: your skin becomes less elastic, less smooth, and that is
Speaker 1: what you think of when you think of wrinkles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they found this University of Michigan study found that when
Speaker 1: the participants were exposed to uv A light, um something
Speaker 1: called matrix metallo proton as one was um produced, and
Speaker 1: that that goes and destroys collagen. It's like it's one
Speaker 1: of the body's natural processes breaking down these cell walls
Speaker 1: that gives skin structure, and that leads to wrinkles and
Speaker 1: saggy skin eventually. And they found that even when you
Speaker 1: started to tan the um, the MMP one production didn't
Speaker 1: decrease at all. It just kept going. So this idea
Speaker 1: that when you developed a tan when you're melon in
Speaker 1: production kicks in that um you're being protected, that's actually
Speaker 1: not the case at all. We're finding that it's actually
Speaker 1: just it's a it's a defense mechanism, but it's not
Speaker 1: a protective measure that keeps everything fine once your tans set.
Speaker 1: I looked up just a quadruple check about the base
Speaker 1: tan theory um and it's complete bs uh. They found
Speaker 1: that a base hand provides and we'll talk about SPF
Speaker 1: son uh protection factor. Right, you know why hesitant to less?
Speaker 1: Second there, a base hand provides an SPF of three
Speaker 1: or less, which means it buys you about ten extra
Speaker 1: minutes in the sun and so little that the chief
Speaker 1: of dermatologic surgery at Yale said it's essentially completely meaningless
Speaker 1: in terms of providing protection. So and they in fact,
Speaker 1: they say it can have the reverse effect because people
Speaker 1: are under this assumption that a base hand helps, so
Speaker 1: they won't do the things you need to do, like
Speaker 1: where the hats or the UV shirts or the suntan
Speaker 1: or sunscreen, or stay out longer, and so it ends
Speaker 1: up being even worse for you because you think you
Speaker 1: have this protective layer of brown. Yeah. That's one thing
Speaker 1: that um, that kept coming up in the research is
Speaker 1: that we have a lot of stuff to protect ourselves
Speaker 1: and it can be made better, and people are at
Speaker 1: work right now trying to improve the things that protect
Speaker 1: us from the sun, but that most people aren't using
Speaker 1: them right or don't understand the reality of the situation,
Speaker 1: which is Sun's gonna mess you up pretty good. All right,
Speaker 1: Well that's coming up in a sec Um. We've talked
Speaker 1: about sun tan, right, so now let's talk about sunburn. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sunburn kind of simply put is literally cellular damage from
Speaker 1: ultra violet radiation. Uh. It's called um erythema or arithema.
Speaker 1: It's the reddening of the skin, and it is this
Speaker 1: delayed reddening of the skin caused by an increase of
Speaker 1: blood flow to that area. Yeah. And the reason why
Speaker 1: you have increased blood flow to the area is because
Speaker 1: you've so damaged your skin on a molecular level that
Speaker 1: your immune response has been set off and blood is
Speaker 1: rushing to the area to bring in white blood cells
Speaker 1: and other helper immune cells to try to repair the
Speaker 1: damage you just did from letting yourself get a sunburned
Speaker 1: from uv B rays. And if you've ever had like
Speaker 1: a red, like to check and see if your sunburn.
Speaker 1: You look at your red skin, you touch it, it
Speaker 1: turns white, then goes back red real quick. It turns
Speaker 1: white because you momentarily disrupt those capillaries and then they
Speaker 1: immediately go, no, we need to send blood there, and
Speaker 1: then the red just comes rushing back. And there's no
Speaker 1: worse feeling than a bad sunburned. No, it's pretty bad.
Speaker 1: It ruins your beach trip. If you get that thing
Speaker 1: on the first day, everybody gets mad at you. You're screwed.
Speaker 1: It's just no good. It's no good. It's no good.
Speaker 1: It doesn't turn to tan. I don't care who you are.
Speaker 1: That is not science. That's a myth. It is a myth.
Speaker 1: So um, people like, now you don't know my skin
Speaker 1: it turns to dead, right, No, it doesn't. It's wrong.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of folklore surrounding sun tan and
Speaker 1: sunburns and stuff. Well, I think because people think they
Speaker 1: just like, I know my body and my skin. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: there's science that supersedes all that, right, But I think
Speaker 1: the reason that there is so much myth and folklore
Speaker 1: around UM, sun tans and some burns is because science
Speaker 1: really kind of dropped the ball for a while and
Speaker 1: didn't really investigate this. There are only now starting to
Speaker 1: investigate it on a like a really legitimate level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a good point. So, I mean it's
Speaker 1: kind of science is fault. Uh. And like you said before,
Speaker 1: any skin can get burned, Any part of the body
Speaker 1: can get burned, UM if it sees if the sunlight
Speaker 1: can touch it, even through clothing, which we'll talk about
Speaker 1: a bit later. To UM, you will get sunburned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's another too. You might think. While I'm wearing a shirt,
Speaker 1: most shirts, unless it's specifically designed to protect against UV radiation,
Speaker 1: is letting u V through UM. And as you can
Speaker 1: get burned, you can get tanned, you can get wrinkled,
Speaker 1: you can cause cellular damage. UM, anytime UV radiation comes
Speaker 1: in contact with your skin. And from what I saw,
Speaker 1: the UVB radiation is the usually the likeliest culprit when
Speaker 1: you get skin cancer because it goes in there and
Speaker 1: directly knocks around d N A d NA, it turns
Speaker 1: out actually is pretty good at absorbing energy and releasing
Speaker 1: or absorbing radiation and releasing it as heat energy, just
Speaker 1: like melanin is as well. But every once in a
Speaker 1: while it gets excited and it gets kind of knocked
Speaker 1: out of whack and some of its base pairs fused together,
Speaker 1: what we call a mutation. And if that base pair
Speaker 1: gets fused and isn't repaired, and it happens to be
Speaker 1: at a sight that say, expresses a protein that protects
Speaker 1: against tumors, well then you can get skin cancer. And
Speaker 1: that's how it happens. And even though that happens, that
Speaker 1: the base pairs fused together and aren't repaired, out of
Speaker 1: maybe one out of every thousand times, that's one out
Speaker 1: of every thousand interactions with a photon. Think of how
Speaker 1: many photons are barreling down at you over a given
Speaker 1: minute of exposure to sunlight. The odds are against you. Agreed. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, since you mentioned the UV clothing or
Speaker 1: SPF clothing, Ah, they are pretty great. Like most people
Speaker 1: I know now wear those shirts, Um, well they look cool.
Speaker 1: Well I wear one of those now because it's sort
Speaker 1: of three purposes, looks kind of cool. Um. I hate
Speaker 1: applying sunscreen, like all over my body. I'll hit my
Speaker 1: face and arms and stuff, but like getting putting all
Speaker 1: over my chest and belly and back and all. It's
Speaker 1: just I'm you're gonna miss spots and have weird streaks
Speaker 1: of sunburn here and there where you missed it, and
Speaker 1: it's just no good. Uh. And then third, you know,
Speaker 1: when you have some extra pounds, it's like, well, if
Speaker 1: you wear the T shirt in the pool, everybody knows
Speaker 1: it's not a good look, but you can get away
Speaker 1: with the the SPF shirt. I think that is one
Speaker 1: reason why SPF shirts were adopted. Oh sure, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they really work great, um, and they dry super quick,
Speaker 1: like my skinny friends use them, you know. But it's
Speaker 1: good for fat dudes too. But they are rated up
Speaker 1: to like fifty plus. The tighter the weave, the better.
Speaker 1: They say. To hold a shirt up to the light,
Speaker 1: like just a regular shirt will work. Like Denham, they said,
Speaker 1: it's one of the best things because it's such a
Speaker 1: tight weeks put on that Denham tuxedo and you're all set. Um.
Speaker 1: But a UPF rating they go from about fifteen to fifty. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you can hold it up to the light and
Speaker 1: not see anything, the darker the better. It's like mine
Speaker 1: is like gray and black, and um, some of them
Speaker 1: or even have or even treated I think, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I thought. So some of them are just the
Speaker 1: weave is so tight, ye, sunlight light can't penetrate it.
Speaker 1: Just it's a physical barrier to the UVB. What do
Speaker 1: they treat some of them with? I'm not exactly sure.
Speaker 1: That's the one thing that I'm kind of sketchy about
Speaker 1: because I don't love like I try to not use
Speaker 1: harmful chemicals as much as possible, So I don't know
Speaker 1: if those are like soaked in like carcinogenic. Probably not right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably not. It's probably magic dust of some story. But
Speaker 1: this woman who was uh I think she's a director
Speaker 1: of dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York,
Speaker 1: says that clothing is a single most effective form of
Speaker 1: sun protection, even more than sunscreen, kind of for the
Speaker 1: reasons I mentioned. Because it's complete coverage. I've got a
Speaker 1: long sleeve one too, so um, it's just nice. I
Speaker 1: throw it on, don't have to worry about all the
Speaker 1: sunscreen junk, and then my legs. I usually don't get
Speaker 1: a ton of sun exposure to my legs, like I
Speaker 1: guess because you're usually vertical in a pool, like I
Speaker 1: don't lay around on a float. Uh, and it's underwater, Well,
Speaker 1: you you want to be careful, you v Radiation can
Speaker 1: penetrate up to a foot underwater. Yeah, for sure. But
Speaker 1: I mean like, I don't wear any sunscreen on my legs,
Speaker 1: and you know I've got my pants off. Look at
Speaker 1: them I've got They're pretty white. I have um flip
Speaker 1: flap tan lines on my the tops of my feet.
Speaker 1: I kind of forgot about the tops of feet, dude.
Speaker 1: I am religious about putting sun block on the tops
Speaker 1: of my feet, and I still got tan lines. I
Speaker 1: saw a kid once, Um, his feet turned into like
Speaker 1: Fred Flintstone's feet because he got burned on the tops
Speaker 1: of them. Except for those never happening to me, the
Speaker 1: whole foot. Well, they say the tops of feet like
Speaker 1: the tops of your ears and earlobes. Um, did you
Speaker 1: say the eyeballs can burn the back of the neck
Speaker 1: and those are some of the areas that are you're
Speaker 1: least likely or most likely to miss with sunscreen. But
Speaker 1: I did not mention eyeballs. Yes, your eyeballs can burn,
Speaker 1: can get sunburn. Yeah, I think I've experienced that after
Speaker 1: being in the sun all day, like my eyes just
Speaker 1: sort of burning and irritated. I wonder if that's what
Speaker 1: that is. No, this is I think you would know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I think my eyes are going to die. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: should we take another break? Yeah, and then we'll come
Speaker 1: back with sunscreen. H all right. If we were on
Speaker 1: the way Back machine we traveled back to ancient Egypt,
Speaker 1: you might see people slapping oat brand on their skin
Speaker 1: or jasmine rice brand. What did I say? That was
Speaker 1: from the food fads episode The Dummy. Yeah, rice brand spreading. Uh,
Speaker 1: I guess moist rice brand? Why not? Or jasmine? They're like,
Speaker 1: why not, it's BC let's party. Well, apparently jasmine is
Speaker 1: as good at repairing damage skin. I wonder if they
Speaker 1: tried jasmine rice oh many that Yeah, I would have
Speaker 1: been like onto something back then. So they did this
Speaker 1: back then, but actual sunscreen didn't come around until the
Speaker 1: turn of the century. Until the ninth early nine hundreds,
Speaker 1: thousands of years after the Egyptian dynasties were over, um,
Speaker 1: there was a guy named Milton Blake. He was Australian
Speaker 1: and he came up with what is considered the first
Speaker 1: sun block in his kitchen apparently over like the course
Speaker 1: of twelve years. And they still make it in Australia
Speaker 1: and you really call it sun block back then, though
Speaker 1: it's probably more like son They call it a good
Speaker 1: first try. Yeah, he took him about twelve years of experimentation,
Speaker 1: but like you said, he finally uh again selling it
Speaker 1: and is it? What's is the brand called Milton Blake
Speaker 1: that it was the one thing that I didn't look up.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, while you do that, I'll go to
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties, uh, to Switzerland. It was a swissman
Speaker 1: named Franz Garita who was a climber, and we mentioned
Speaker 1: snow um burns. Snow sun burns were pretty bad, and
Speaker 1: so he was I think he had ascended Mount Pitts
Speaker 1: on the Swiss Austrian border and got really burned. Is
Speaker 1: that Pitts Palau from Inglorious Bastards? Is that the same mountain? Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't I forgot about that part.
Speaker 1: But he got really burned and was like this is awful.
Speaker 1: So he came back and started work, uh and in
Speaker 1: six came up with the Pitts Boone Glacier cream uh.
Speaker 1: And this had an SPF of two, which um, like
Speaker 1: you said, good start. I don't even know if that
Speaker 1: qualifies as a good start. Well, it was probably more
Speaker 1: than Milton Blake's, don't you think. Or well, supposedly occasion
Speaker 1: people have a UM have a natural SPF of about three.
Speaker 1: So this guy somehow managed to bring it down and
Speaker 1: not um. And then in Miami, Florida, there was a
Speaker 1: man named Benjamin Green. He was an airman and pharmacist
Speaker 1: and he was flying in World War Two and got
Speaker 1: a lot of sun up there, and so he uh
Speaker 1: developed something called he labeled red VET pet red veterinary PETROLATTAM,
Speaker 1: which I think is the same thing as petroleum. And
Speaker 1: I was surprised when I saw that he was an
Speaker 1: air and VET. I figured it meant like a veteran
Speaker 1: of a war veterinary who knew uh. And then he
Speaker 1: would later add a little cocoa butter, little coca nut oil,
Speaker 1: and waila, you have copper tone. And then in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six they revealed the little copper Tone girl illustration
Speaker 1: and it became a household hit. I think actually helped
Speaker 1: sun block in general become a thing. By the nineteen sixties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that little girl's name is Sherry Irwin, and she was
Speaker 1: the daughter of the woman who designed it. Yeah, the illustrator, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Joyce Balantine in nineteen fifty nine used her own daughter
Speaker 1: as a model, and h Joyce Valentine on her own
Speaker 1: was very um, just sort of an anomaly at the time.
Speaker 1: She got a lot of work as a graphic artist
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, and her daughter called her a
Speaker 1: maverick in that way, and that she was, you know,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, it was kind of tough for
Speaker 1: a lady to get that kind of high dollar work.
Speaker 1: And so that's off to you, Joyce Balentine, and Cherry's
Speaker 1: still around. I can see that Joyce might be too.
Speaker 1: I saw a recent thing. Really this is ninety six. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she may be gone, but the art that she could
Speaker 1: totally be around. I mean, I forgot what you were was.
Speaker 1: I didn't catch the date on the article I read
Speaker 1: about her, but it's worth looking up. She's interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, coppertone took off. The nineteen sixties is when
Speaker 1: sun screens um kind of caught hold a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until the late seventies until the FDA
Speaker 1: got involved and said, maybe we should like have some
Speaker 1: guidelines here. Yeah, which they did, and a lot of
Speaker 1: them didn't take some of them did. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that the FDA did when they got involved
Speaker 1: with UM sunscreen, especially in the U S, they're roundly
Speaker 1: criticized for basically being really slow oh at testing the
Speaker 1: chemicals that are used. On the one hand, hats off
Speaker 1: for caring UM that the chemicals we put on our
Speaker 1: bodies aren't gonna kill us, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: hurry up. Apparently there's just a handful of chemicals that
Speaker 1: are in use as active ingredients in sunscreen in the
Speaker 1: United States, whereas Europe has something like eight I believe,
Speaker 1: and I guess Europe and Japan their sunscreen is way
Speaker 1: better than the stuff that we use here in the States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's not because they're just willing elly about what
Speaker 1: they'll allow. They've actually researched and more chemicals. Yeah. Typically
Speaker 1: the EU is pretty serious about when they clear chemicals.
Speaker 1: It's pretty safe. So how does sunscreen work? So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: here's how sunscreen works. For years and years and years
Speaker 1: and years and years up until the century it was
Speaker 1: it protected you from uvb only and even still there's
Speaker 1: plenty of sunscreens out that only protect you from UVB.
Speaker 1: So if you want protection from UVB and UV A,
Speaker 1: which is what you want, you want to find one
Speaker 1: that's called broad spectrum sunscreen and it will say that
Speaker 1: they will champion that very clearly on the label. YEA.
Speaker 1: And if it's not on the label, it doesn't do
Speaker 1: anything to protect you from UVB. And so the whole,
Speaker 1: the whole, Yeah, UV A only UVB. So you'll get
Speaker 1: a tan, but you won't burn if you use it correctly. Yes,
Speaker 1: you will just age right rapidly. So with UM, with sunscreen,
Speaker 1: you will see also on the label it will say
Speaker 1: SPF sun protection factor of fifteen or thirty or fifty
Speaker 1: or hundred. Apparently it goes up to a hundred and ten. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of controversy with that too, which
Speaker 1: we'll talk about. But with sunproof factor, this is how
Speaker 1: they determine, are you ready. They take the UM, they
Speaker 1: take the sun the sunscreen, and they put a little
Speaker 1: square on somebody's bottom and then they expose it to
Speaker 1: UV radiation. And they used the bottom because that is
Speaker 1: the part of the body least likely to have gotten sun. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's like a blank slate, right without being a sexual organ.
Speaker 1: Well put yeah, because you don't want to test sun no,
Speaker 1: no uh. And then they'll they'll go to the other
Speaker 1: buttock and they will say, expose that to UV radiation,
Speaker 1: but it won't be treated as sunscreen. And we'll do
Speaker 1: this up again and again and again basically until you burn.
Speaker 1: And then they will say, okay, well, um, what was
Speaker 1: the minimum dose for the untreated buttock and we're gonna
Speaker 1: take that and divide use that to divide the minimum
Speaker 1: dose of UV radiation for the treated buttock. And then
Speaker 1: that number is going to be SPF and we're gonna
Speaker 1: round down to the nearest five. And that's what some
Speaker 1: protection factor is. It's ultimately another way of saying what
Speaker 1: percentage of the radiation from the sun this stuff blocks? Right,
Speaker 1: So if you get sunburned after ten minutes and the
Speaker 1: sun with nothing, if you put on SPF fifteen, you
Speaker 1: can be in the sun for about a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty minutes without burning. Yeah, Because there's another way to you.
Speaker 1: There's a formula for taking SPF to figure out how
Speaker 1: it applies to you, and it is you take the
Speaker 1: um the number of minutes it takes you to burn,
Speaker 1: which who knows that? Do you know how long it
Speaker 1: takes you to burn? This? This is the dumbest formula ever.
Speaker 1: How many minutes it takes you to burn times the
Speaker 1: number on the SPF and then that's how many minutes
Speaker 1: you can hang out outside without burning. That's that's what
Speaker 1: SPF means to you personally. Yeah, and here are the caveats,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of them. One of them is
Speaker 1: when they do these studies, they apply way more than
Speaker 1: your average person does when they go to the wherever
Speaker 1: in this sign. Yeah, they're applying the amount you're supposed
Speaker 1: to apply. Uh, I would say, just cut everything in
Speaker 1: half to be safe. That's probably pretty good. Like if
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm good with us the thirty maybe even
Speaker 1: by three quarters, because I saw a lot of people
Speaker 1: use between a quarter two a half of what you're
Speaker 1: supposed to use, right, and one reason they do well,
Speaker 1: the beginning application is already short changed. And then you
Speaker 1: need to reapply this stuff because even though they say
Speaker 1: sweatproof and waterproof, um, we all know that that isn't true.
Speaker 1: Like throughout the day Supposedly, if you in the United
Speaker 1: States market. Something is water resistant or very water resistant.
Speaker 1: It has to last either forty or eighty minutes respectively
Speaker 1: in the water. Right, But even still they say when
Speaker 1: you get out, just immediately reapply sunscreen like you're starting
Speaker 1: from scratch again. You should. Yeah, and I don't do
Speaker 1: that either, Like you said, you don't know. It's it's
Speaker 1: my great failing in life. That's one of mine, for sure. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get back to application here in a minute.
Speaker 1: But I don't think we ever said for sure how
Speaker 1: this stuff works. They work in a couple of different ways.
Speaker 1: One of two ways. Uh. They form a barrier, either
Speaker 1: absorbing or reflecting. So it's either a chemical filter or
Speaker 1: literally physically blocking these UV rays. Yeah, and forever and
Speaker 1: still apparently today. Zinc oxide is the main mineral that's
Speaker 1: used as a physical blocker blocker. It reflects the song,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't It just bounces right off of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like if you put zinc oxide on your face, you're
Speaker 1: golden um. It is a gross, greasy, white and mess
Speaker 1: that's seemingly impossible to absorb. Um. But if you don't
Speaker 1: care what you look like, or ironically, if you do
Speaker 1: care what you look like, uh in the long term,
Speaker 1: but don't care in the short term. That's what you
Speaker 1: should be using on your face for you like having
Speaker 1: a nose, Yes, you should put sync oxide on it.
Speaker 1: So that's that's a physical barrier. What the chemical filters do,
Speaker 1: um they act like a synthetic melanin where they take
Speaker 1: the UV radiation, absorb it, and then turn it into
Speaker 1: waste heat energy. They don't allow it to penetrate the skin.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. That's what sun screen is. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's you're covering your body. You're putting it in
Speaker 1: between the sun and your body so that the sun's
Speaker 1: radiation can't penetrate through it to your skin beneath it.
Speaker 1: It's amazing that they came up with that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, especially considering the Egyptians had an idea of
Speaker 1: what was going on here. Yeah. Uh so we mentioned
Speaker 1: you know that. I think you said they go up
Speaker 1: to what now, one tin? That's the highest I saw.
Speaker 1: So the controversy there is is basically it doesn't it's
Speaker 1: not an exponential growth anything over thirty. They just consider
Speaker 1: the D plus because if you wear something that's a
Speaker 1: one tin, it's not like, well, then that's you know,
Speaker 1: four times almost as much as a thirty. It doesn't
Speaker 1: work that way. No. And supposedly, if you if you
Speaker 1: burn in ten minutes, right, and you are say, using
Speaker 1: a seventy, you should be able to sit out in
Speaker 1: the sun for seven hundred minutes without without getting a burn. Technically,
Speaker 1: if everything was a hundred percent right, that that may
Speaker 1: be true, but that it never works out that way
Speaker 1: in practice, So just throw out that idea altogether, right. Um,
Speaker 1: And like you said, the FDA wanted it to just
Speaker 1: be thirty plus because at thirty, an SPF of thirty
Speaker 1: blocks point seven percent of the sun's harmful rays, right, Um,
Speaker 1: fifty though only blocks and a hundred blocks. Yeah, block
Speaker 1: is better than blocking seven percent. But if you are
Speaker 1: sitting there just going by the SPF number, and you're
Speaker 1: using a thirty, and then you think, well, if I
Speaker 1: use a hundred, I can just put it on once
Speaker 1: and stay out all day. Um, that's where the problem lies.
Speaker 1: It gives a false sense of security where you shouldn't
Speaker 1: have security. And so that the FDA was saying, everybody
Speaker 1: just used thirty and use it correctly and reapply it
Speaker 1: a lot. I think what we use in our family
Speaker 1: is generally the seventy and then we also have the
Speaker 1: straight up zinc oxide. Oh you do, huh yeah, And
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't care what I look like anymore.
Speaker 1: Have my pants off. I've got I've got one of
Speaker 1: those like big wide brim like floppy fishing hats and
Speaker 1: like camo with like the neck thing and everything, like
Speaker 1: the jungle hat, like the jungle. I. Emily wears a
Speaker 1: big straw hat because she just had a little skin
Speaker 1: cancer removed from her temple. Oh no, she all right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's good. They got it, and you know she's gonna
Speaker 1: keep going back. But everything looks like in most cases
Speaker 1: it is a little minor thing, you know. Um, but
Speaker 1: she's like hardcore now and she always has been hardcore
Speaker 1: about sunscreen for a while, but now it's that and
Speaker 1: a hat. Yeah. And I wear my my trusty pith helmet.
Speaker 1: A pith helmet, Yeah, a pith helmet, A pith helmet.
Speaker 1: I wore it became I got it before I think
Speaker 1: my first or not my first, only one. I've been
Speaker 1: to Newport Folk Festival. Um, because they're great, they're comfortable,
Speaker 1: they breathe, uh, they block out the sun. I think
Speaker 1: they're super cool because you know, I'm the only guy
Speaker 1: around with the pith helmet on. I'm easy to spot
Speaker 1: in the crowd. Pith helmet and a UV shirt and
Speaker 1: no pants, milk bottle white calves. No, well, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: about right. That's if you see me at the pool,
Speaker 1: that's me Ray bands, pith helmet, V shirt. Well it's
Speaker 1: another one too. Like, even if you don't like wearing
Speaker 1: sunglasses ts, you need to be wearing sunglasses and ones
Speaker 1: that polarize. I feel like I'm going to die if
Speaker 1: I don't wear sunglasses outside. Yeah, me too. I hate
Speaker 1: bright light like it hurts, and I wear them a
Speaker 1: lot inside. Like I know it's obnoxious, but in uh,
Speaker 1: like bright spaces and airports and grocery stores a lot
Speaker 1: of times I'll wear my sungla It's a statement. I
Speaker 1: just I don't know, man, I don't like bright light.
Speaker 1: I hate it. So, um, do you lay out in
Speaker 1: the sunlight? No, okay, I don't either. No no, no,
Speaker 1: like it's always in the shape for me. No, Like
Speaker 1: I'll like I don't lay out or at all. But
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're like hanging out by a pool
Speaker 1: or something. I'm almost always in the water. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: always under the I'll jump in the water to cool off,
Speaker 1: but then I'm underneath like an umbrella the rest of
Speaker 1: the time. What do you like, Read a book, listen
Speaker 1: to music. Yeah, I'm almost always in the water because
Speaker 1: it's so god awful hot for me in my sweatiness. Um,
Speaker 1: but the pool is just my best friend. Yeah, it's nice.
Speaker 1: And I'm generally like neck deep, not much exposed. So yeah,
Speaker 1: about a foot down, run about to your nipples. Yeah
Speaker 1: you're safe. Yeah, nipples up. You gotta be careful, chuck,
Speaker 1: or I'll get one of those uh noodles boom noodles,
Speaker 1: and I just saddle it up, straddle it and a
Speaker 1: good a thick noodle keeps me at about mid chest
Speaker 1: level and I can live with that, and I'll just
Speaker 1: bob up and down for hours. Have you seen they
Speaker 1: have like these kind of nettings that you can run
Speaker 1: a noodle through. You you like it. The reason I
Speaker 1: don't like mine is because it doesn't fit the big noodle.
Speaker 1: It fits the thinner noodle, And so I found out
Speaker 1: had to do a little work to keep my chin up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to work a little. The kicking. It's
Speaker 1: okay every now and then, but I had to kind
Speaker 1: of constantly kick to keep my neck up, and I
Speaker 1: like to just be either chest high or neck hind water.
Speaker 1: That's my recipe. Um. I don't think we mentioned how
Speaker 1: much you're supposed to use. No mean we should. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to use for an average adult body. Whatever the heck.
Speaker 1: That means. Um, about a shot glass size about an
Speaker 1: ounce of sunscreen on your body and about a nickel
Speaker 1: size him out for your face and neck. Right, So
Speaker 1: you put that on fifteen to thirty minutes before you
Speaker 1: go outside to let it absorb and do its work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't do that. Um, once you
Speaker 1: start to sweat, once you get in the pool, which
Speaker 1: is when I start thinking about going outside. Right, you
Speaker 1: want to reapply, you want to keep up with reapplying,
Speaker 1: and um, you want to wear a hat broad spectrum
Speaker 1: and you want broad spectrum, don't mess around. Get broad spectrum.
Speaker 1: High SPF, get as high n SPF as you want.
Speaker 1: It will block more percentage of the rays. It will
Speaker 1: just Um, you just don't put your full faith in it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't do the formula. Just throw the formula out go
Speaker 1: highest PF broad spectrum, reapply and and don't forget some
Speaker 1: areas of your feet, like your ears and stuff. And
Speaker 1: they also said this is good advice their number one thing.
Speaker 1: Where'd you get this? Actually? Do you remember all over
Speaker 1: which which part? The one through five tips? I think
Speaker 1: that was from how Stuff Works? Okay, Um, it says
Speaker 1: know thyself. So if you're super white, red headed Irish
Speaker 1: person ladder last and you know you've been dealing with
Speaker 1: this your whole life, you don't have to be told.
Speaker 1: But you burned super easy, you might want to use more,
Speaker 1: reapply more often, or if you have a prevalence of
Speaker 1: skin cancer in your family, you might want to take
Speaker 1: that into consideration for anything else. Uh I do. I
Speaker 1: got one more thing, just on the spray versus the cream.
Speaker 1: All these sprays are the rage now you know, but
Speaker 1: I'm you're super easy. The wind well, yeah, sure, the
Speaker 1: wind is a factory and think about that. Uh. They
Speaker 1: are very convenient, but Consumer Reports says, don't use them
Speaker 1: on your kids because inhaling the fumes is no good. Um.
Speaker 1: And you can tell you get a mouthful that you're like. Um. Basically,
Speaker 1: what it comes down to is. The upside is is
Speaker 1: that if you are more likely to use the spray
Speaker 1: than nothing, then use the spray. If if the convenience
Speaker 1: is what makes the difference, then go wild with it.
Speaker 1: Don't use it on your kids, don't use it on
Speaker 1: your face ever. Rub it in, you know, spray then
Speaker 1: rub it in. You're not supposed to use it on
Speaker 1: your face. Yeah, they say don't spray it on your face.
Speaker 1: I mean the spray in your face sometimes. Um, And
Speaker 1: it says how how long you apply it makes a difference.
Speaker 1: So if you just spray for two to three seconds,
Speaker 1: you're getting you're not get enough. Oh yeah, you definitely
Speaker 1: don't want to do it on your face then, so
Speaker 1: they definitely side with creams is better. But if you
Speaker 1: just won't use anything because you hate the cream, then
Speaker 1: use the spray. Yeah, it's good advice. One day we're
Speaker 1: gonna have some perfect sunscreen that does the trick and
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna know how to use it just right, and
Speaker 1: everything will be great, just in time for this climate
Speaker 1: change thing too. Yeah. If you want to know more
Speaker 1: about sunscreen, sun block, sun tanned sun lotion, everything, I
Speaker 1: don't think you could know more about it. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: go to sleep. Go to sleep and let this gel
Speaker 1: and you will know everything there is to know. And
Speaker 1: since I said jel, it's time for listener mail, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call this. Oh. This is one where I get
Speaker 1: to chime in on something in real time. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: my name is Rebecca Chan, and first I'd like to
Speaker 1: say I love your show. By listening to it, I
Speaker 1: impress people with my knowledge of random things. It's a
Speaker 1: good start, Rebecca. I wanted to write in about your
Speaker 1: episode on election laws and voter fraud. You mentioned early voting,
Speaker 1: and this reminded me of the time I got into
Speaker 1: an argument online with someone about it. Well, no, people
Speaker 1: argued online I really like early voting, but this person
Speaker 1: said they disagreed with it and wish it would be
Speaker 1: taken away because they felt it was disrespectful to not
Speaker 1: go on actual election day, seeing they did not think
Speaker 1: people who went to vote early actually cared about elections.
Speaker 1: This was surprising to me because I only thought of
Speaker 1: early voting as an alternate, more convenient way to vote.
Speaker 1: Then again, maybe I'm just a stupid millennial who buys
Speaker 1: too much avocado toast. What are you? She burned herself?
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on early voting being disrespectful to
Speaker 1: elections from Rebecca Chan Rebecca, We're most likely apt to
Speaker 1: say to each his own, but I will say that
Speaker 1: that person is stupid. That makes zero sense. It's not
Speaker 1: like shooting fireworks off the day before the fourth the July.
Speaker 1: You know, like, if you can vote earlier, vote earlier.
Speaker 1: Being disrespectful to an election day by voting early is
Speaker 1: the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's pretty ridiculous. So
Speaker 1: whoever said that on the internet is not interneting correctly. Nice,
Speaker 1: pretty good. Chuck shut that down and hats off to
Speaker 1: Rebeccaford just being genuinely puzzled by it rather than like
Speaker 1: you're an idiot. Yeah. Uh. If you want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us, like Rebecca did, you can tweet
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K podcast. You can
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email the Stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
Speaker 1: at a home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: is it how Stuff Works dot com