WEBVTT - The Winter People, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:14.680 Works dot com. Hey, he wasn't a stuff to blow 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.280 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:19.360 and we're back with part two of our discussion of 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:22.160 the Winter People, the way in which animal existence and 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:26.000 especially human existence is seasonally bifurcated, and the way the 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.520 seasons really warp in command who and what we are now. 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.320 Last time we talked about traditional cultural beliefs and practices 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.640 around wintertime. Uh so, we talked about the the amazing 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:40.200 winter ceremonials of the Quakakawak people of the Pacific Northwest 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:42.920 and North America. But we wanted to talk about some 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:47.360 other cultural beliefs about wintertime changes to the human being. Yeah, 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.879 we were kind of casting about for something that if 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.720 it felt felt appropriate to to bring up, because there 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.480 are no shortage of winter traditions. But we we lead 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.080 with such a fantastic example in the first episode, it 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.320 it felt intimidating to try and come up with something 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:04.479 of of equal weight. Now, one thing you could bring 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.039 up is, of course, the traditions like the Huga. This 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:09.800 became very popular, was it last year? The year before 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.160 there was suddenly all these articles on the internet about 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.720 uh huga and all these related concepts, especially in you know, 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:21.080 uh northern polar Uh not always polar, but northern types 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.520 of countries and cultures where they're they have special words 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.720 for getting cozy when it's really cold and bad weather outside. Yeah, 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.360 this is interesting because I mean, obviously here in the 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:35.919 States people do like to to snug up and maybe 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:38.959 binge watch some Netflix or what have you. I have 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.240 a little hot coco during the uh the colder months. 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.520 There's something fulfilling about that. I hear they eat pumpkin pie. 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:50.880 Have you heard about this the Americans? Like? Okay, I 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:52.800 mean I didn't know there are songs about it. I 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:55.120 assume it's true. Which song? Which song is about eating 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.440 pumpkin There's something about you throw a log on the 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.640 fire and coffee and supkin pie. I'm vaguely connecting to 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.360 something from another life, all right, though. I just have 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:07.360 a lot of questions for people who eat pumpkin pie 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.360 outside of established holidays. Yeah, which are the ones? Is 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.800 Thanksgiving and when? Well, you can have it for Christmas. 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:16.920 But you're I mean, you've kind of been in the rules, right, right, 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.640 but mostly it is a Thanksgiving pie. It's a delicious 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.519 Thanksgiving pie, but it's I don't know, I wouldn't feel 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.040 comfortable eating it. Fill the time of the year. Filling 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:27.760 from a can, crust from a can, well, yeah, you 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:29.359 have to use the filling from the can because it 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:34.120 doesn't matter, because the because because ultimately the pumpkin is 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.799 just a vehicle for the nutmeg and the spice flavoring. Yeah, 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.440 and the sugar. Yeah. But no, despite all the coziness traditions, 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:46.359 some cultures apparently have this special word for the coziness 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.880 seeking tradition, and other cultures don't really. I mean, English, 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.520 as far as I know, doesn't have a word like hugo. 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.560 And I think that's why it suddenly became so popular 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:57.800 in the English speaking part of the internet. Yeah, and 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.200 of course it's important to realize that coziness do during 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.480 the winter months is is something of a luxury. Uh 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.520 and uh. This led me to seek out a possible 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.080 example in a wonderful book that I hadn't looked at 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:16.320 in many years, And that's very Lopez's book Arctic Dreams, 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.960 Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape, which is just 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.560 which is just full of beautiful descriptions of life in 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.440 the far North. For instance, he shares the following just 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.680 about the flow of seasons in general. Quote in summer, 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.000 in the sometimes extravagant light of a July day, one's 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.520 thoughts are not of growth of heading wheat and yellowing peaches, 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.120 but of suspension, as if life had escaped the bounds 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.840 of earth in this country, which lacks the prolonged moderations 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.280 between winter and summer that we anticipate as balmy April 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:53.560 mornings and dry Indian summer afternoons. In this two season country, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.280 things grow and die, as they do everywhere, but they 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:01.680 are more deeply than living things anywhere else, seasonal creatures. 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.360 And he goes on later in the book to to 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:09.800 bring up this concept of the Polar Eskimo people that 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:14.200 is called purlar or neck. He says, quote winter darkness 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:18.080 brings on the extreme winter depression the Polar Eskimo called 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:23.279 plura neck. According to the anthropologist Gene Mallari, the word 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.960 means to feel quote the weight of life, to look 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.640 ahead to all that must be accomplished, and to retreat 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:32.360 to the present, feeling defeated, weary before starting a core 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.119 of anger and miserable sadness. It is to be sick 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.760 of life, a man named Amina told Malari. The victim 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.240 tears fitfully at his clothes. A woman begins aimlessly slashing 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:46.559 at things in the igloo with their knife. A person 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.920 runs half naked into the bitter, freezing night, screaming out 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.279 at the village, eating the poop of dogs. Eventually the 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.719 person is calmed by others in the family with great 0:04:55.760 --> 0:05:00.520 compassion and helped to sleep parlora neck winter. And I 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.039 have to say he did not say poop. He used 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.279 a stronger curse word that we can't say on the show. 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.080 But I felt compelled to self at it there. So, 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.840 as Lopez describes it, does it seem like the idea 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:15.280 is that sort of the farther you go up north 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:17.680 or I guess towards either of the poles, but especially 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.159 because you know they're more people are more concentrated towards 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.520 the North Pole than in like Antarctica, that sort of 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:29.400 the weight of the seasons becomes more unbearable. Yeah, that 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:31.440 that seems to be the point he's he's making here, 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:33.000 And it just has to do with the fact that 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:35.120 you essentially have two seasons, one of life and one 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:38.040 of death, one of one of hardship and one of well, 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.479 I guess less hardship. Uh it's it's certainly an impressive 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:46.120 concept and uh it again brings to mind accounts of 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.719 say that the alleged wind to go madness that you 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:55.599 uh you hear about in uh in a northern native populations. However, 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:57.920 we have to point out here that not everyone is 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:01.120 on board with this being a rough part of pre 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:05.360 colonial traditions and beliefs among Native peoples of North America. Yeah. 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.640 According to Canadian scholar who uh and scholar who specializes 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:13.480 in the study of First Nations people, John Steckley, in 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.400 his book White Lies about the Inuit, he says this 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:20.640 idea of Arctic hysteria is backed up by case studies, 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.080 but it was most frequently touted in the nineteen sixties 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:28.440 through the eighties by anthropologists such as Jeane Malari and others. 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.080 And he points out that historian Lyle Dick suspects, just 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:36.760 as Stickley himself concurs, that it's quote more likely the 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:41.159 creature of the White Inuit power imbalance embodied in specific 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.920 contexts unquote, such as forced risky explorations during the winter, 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.599 So forcing the native peoples to, among other things, take 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:54.120 you out into hostile winter conditions when their their normal 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:59.719 pattern of behaviors would have limited such risky measures. That 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.479 makes sense to me, And it has also been suggested 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:07.360 that there's at that possible physical explanations for this kind 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:11.040 of Arctic madness can be found in hyper vitaminosis ah, 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.000 such as when you consume a polar bear liver exactly, 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:16.160 and you can and it's something you can also pick. 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.160 It's most famous for the polar bear liver. We've talked 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.360 about it before in the show as far as polar 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.400 bear liver consumption is concerned, but you can also get 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:28.600 it from consuming a number of different um uh hunted 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:33.360 animals in these regions, So that's one possibility as well. 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.600 So I think the take home here is that as 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.120 fascinating as the concept is, and certainly as beautifully as 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:44.720 Lopez wrote about it uh in in Arctic Dreams, it 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:49.880 seems like it may be a situation that is is 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:55.239 somewhat complicated by the impact of colonial Western society upon 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.920 the traditions of the native people's well. It certainly illustrates 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.920 the way in which our reactions to the seasons are 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.920 both sort of endogenous and exogenous, like that they come 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:12.120 from both inherent factors in in the climate and in uh, 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:15.240 you know, physical constraints around us that arrive when the 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.840 winter months set in, but they're also heavily tempered by 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.320 what cultural pressures were having to deal with. So like, 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.120 a society of abundance is probably gonna have very different 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.200 cultural ways of dealing with winter than a society of 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.600 scarcity would, and all kinds of cultural factors like that 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.480 would play in. Certainly. Of course, if you're you know, 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.400 being colonized, that's definitely going to affect what a season 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.080 of hardship means for you. Indeed, all right, well we 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:40.600 need to take a quick break, and then when we 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.640 come back we will talk more about winter changes in 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:49.000 winter adaptations. All right, we're back, Okay, So Robert, we 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.640 have discussed how we are not constant beings but sort 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.800 of like seasonal shape shifters. There are so many ways 0:08:55.840 --> 0:09:02.240 that culturally, uh that psychologically, that stabolically our bodies respond 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.040 to the changes in the seasons in a way that 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.080 it might be hard to beat out of us. Even 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.120 though we've got all these nice climate controlled indoor places 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.719 to dwell. Now, our bodies are surfing the cycles of time. Now, 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.200 there is one way in which the changes of the 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.280 seasons affect us much more directly and immediately, and that's 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.360 by being cold. Apart from, you know, the vitamin D 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.400 deficiency you might get from shorter days, and the way 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.160 it might affect the way you eat and and affect 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.320 your your metabolism and even affect your behavior and your 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.240 dating and your desire for meaning and things like that, 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.840 it also is just freezing outside. Now. It's no secret 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:42.360 that exposure to cold can hurt or kill you. But 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.960 did you ever wonder why they're Like several ways you 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:50.320 can answer this question. One is pretty straightforward and mechanical. 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:54.480 It's that the body has mostly liquid content. I like 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.000 to think of that this sometimes, like whenever you're feeling 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.360 a little bit down on yourself, you just think like, hey, 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.960 I'm a bag of fluids doing okay for a bag 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.480 of fluids. Yeah, And if you if you were to 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.720 freeze me solid, then a single Jean Claude van Damn 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.319 kick could shatter you. And well, in fact, if you 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.360 were to freeze me solid, just the act of freezing 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:18.000 me solid would sort of shatter me because when liquid freezes, 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.800 it can form ice crystals, which cause damage to the 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.080 body's tissues, to the cells, to the cell membranes. But 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:27.320 here's another way to think about it. Animal life is 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:32.520 characterized by two main physical characteristics i'd say motion and 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:37.520 chemical reactions, and cold slows down both of these things, 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.560 so cooks out there. I wonder if you ever tried to, 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.120 like mash up some spinach art to choke dip with 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.520 a cold block of cream cheese, Robert, do you have 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:51.559 any comparable experience? Uh No, I do not. It's impossible. 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.360 I mean, you're just like work in your arm, and 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.720 you've gotta you gotta be some kind of like hydraulic 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.640 press type creature in order to achieve it. A similar 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:01.520 thing would be if you're into baking and you ever 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.679 tried to like whip something with cold butter, it's just 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.160 a bad idea. And likewise, if if you've ever tried 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.400 to trigger a chemical reaction like lighting a fire when 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:15.600 it's freezing cold outside, not so easy. The body needs 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.360 to be warm, so it's mechanical motions are kind of 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.560 lubricated and squishy, and it also needs to be warm. 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.480 So it's chemical reactions have enough energy to take place. 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.160 But not all bodies are like this. There are creatures 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:32.400 in this world that can literally freeze almost entirely solid 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.640 and thaw out and survive. So I want to mention 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:41.840 one example, the wood frog Lithabades sylvaticus, found throughout the 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.400 forests of Canada and the northern United States. So this 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:49.000 is a frog that survives the harsh winter of northern 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:53.640 Canadian forests. How would it do that? Well, what you'll 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:55.960 notice it does is that when the cold north winds 0:11:55.960 --> 0:12:00.199 set in sometime around September, these frogs crawl down and 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.360 nestle in some dead plant matter like some leaf litter 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:08.400 or dead grass, and then they literally freeze almost entirely solid. 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.439 About two thirds of their bodies water content turns into ice, 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.960 and even temperatures as low as zero degrease fahrenheit won't 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:18.679 kill them. And then when warm weather comes back, they 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.959 thaw out they hop away unharmed. Uh. Speaking to the 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.320 l A Times, the herpetologist Don Larson said, quote, on 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.960 an organismal level, they are essentially dead. The individual cells 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:33.280 are still functioning, but they have no way to communicate 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.319 with each other. So you might be wondering how do 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:41.520 they do this? Well, the body essentially manufactures cryoprotectant chemicals. 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.560 It looks like glycogen in the frog's liver gets converted 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.800 into glucose, which keeps the frog's individual cells alive throughout 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.760 the freeze. And then also uria, which is the nitrogen 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.240 based crystalline compound you excrete in your urine, might also 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:58.480 play a role. Uria came up a little bit earlier 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.160 when we were talking about cold protection. But Larsen points 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.319 out this thing that's not known, but it's an interesting possibility. 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.400 He points out that freezing alive might not just be 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.400 a survival mechanism, but that could actually be beneficial to 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:16.160 an animal that wanted to rid itself of parasites. Oh 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.160 this is so good. I mean, we we we see 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:23.280 a similar cases. For instance, where if you have frozen fish, 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.240 you have you worry less about there being parasites in 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.679 the fish. And also if you're worried about dust mites 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.200 on one of your child's prize stuffed animals, you stick 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.760 it in the freezer overnight and that takes care of 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:37.720 the mite. So all the dust mights go to your 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.320 frozen shrimp. Yeah. Well, you know what's the difference between 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:48.520 a mite and a shrimp, really shrimp hugetticbal bugs. So yes, 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.120 you've got the wood frog, but we've got another freezing champion, 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.760 even more hardy that I want to mention the red 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:58.559 flat bark beetle, which is kuka just clavippies. Usually we 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.440 would find them living under loop spark in North American 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.360 deciduous trees. And I found a report from the University 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.320 of Alaska, Fairbanks that biologists Todd's form of quote cooled 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:12.120 the beetles in a lab to minus seventy degrees celsius, 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.040 which is minus ninety four degrees fahrenheit, and they did 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.480 not die. And then there was another experiment subsequently in 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.520 California they could that they found they could lower the 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.880 temperature of these beetles to minus a hundred and fifty 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:29.000 degrees celsius, which is minus two hundred and thirty eight 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:33.360 degrees fahrenheit, colder than any natural temperature on Earth without 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.600 freezing the beetles. That's incredible. Now, obviously our bodies are 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.240 not like this. We do not have such strong crier 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.280 protectant mechanisms, and freezing will definitely injure or kill us. 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.960 Direct exposure of body parts to cold weather can lead 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.280 to frostbite, which has a simple explanation and a more 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.840 complex explanation. The simple version is just that frost bite 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.960 is when body tissues freeze. The more complex one is 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.680 a little bit chemical. It's when ice crystals form in 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.280 the body e tissues at dehydrates cells, causes damage to 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.040 sell membranes. Essentially, you don't want to let your outer 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.960 body parts freeze because there's sort of the point of 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:12.240 no return there. They didn't come back. Yeah, I feel 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.600 like most of us have probably read various accounts of explorers, 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:21.400 adventurers or refugees and in really chilling environments and accounts 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.520 of frostbite where you you you realize that is a 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:28.120 it is a terrible thing to have to experience. Yeah, 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:32.440 there's something especially disturbing about it because it's almost like, um, 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.000 I don't know, just having like it's like necrosis. You know, 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:37.800 It's like there's a part of the body that is 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.680 dying or is dead, but it's still attached to you. 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.800 It's not like it's been chopped off. It's just it's 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.480 still there and it's not working for you. Yeah, it 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.680 is in d and d terms ne chrotic damage. Uh So, 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.160 we obviously are not as hardy as bark beetles, but 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:55.960 we do have adaptive mechanisms. And you'll see the first 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:58.440 signs of the human body reacting to cold weather really 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.080 just within a few seconds of exposure to sub thermo 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:05.080 neutral temperatures. So our skin has these thermo receptors and 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.760 it the detect both absolute and relative temperature differences, and 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:10.800 they let us know if the environment is too hot 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.680 or too cold. So when the body detects cold, it 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.120 begins to shunt blood away from the extremities. You you 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.600 probably feel some sensation of this and kind of you know, 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.520 the numbness and all that when the blood is being 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:27.040 drawn away from the skin and away from the arms 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.800 and legs to keep it closer to the vital organs 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.440 like the heart and the lungs. This is essentially a 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.280 choice to sacrifice the outer skin and use it as 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.040 a layer of insulation. By keeping the blood away from 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.680 the outside, the blood stays warmer. Another defense mechanism is 0:16:41.800 --> 0:16:44.840 running nose. You ever wonder like why your nose runs 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.000 in the cold. Uh So, cold air tends to be 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.760 very dry and of course very cold, and since you're 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.920 constantly pulling that dry air in through the nose, when 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:58.520 you breathe, it dries out the exposed surfaces within the 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.880 nasal cavity. In the nasal cavity, one of the things 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.320 it does when you breathe through it is it warms 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:06.639 the air on the way down to your lungs. So 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.240 if you're drawing in this really dry cold air that 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.800 is not being appropriately warmed inside the nose by your warm, 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.720 nice mucous layers in there and drying out the inside 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.439 of the nose, the body tries to compensate, and so 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.639 what it does is it moisturizes these passages by secreting 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.639 mucous fluid, leading to cold induced rhine a rhea, the 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:31.440 diarrhea of the nose. You know, I spent a few 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:35.800 years in my childhood in Roddington, Newfoundland, Canada, so we 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.520 had pretty intense winters up there. Uh So I have 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:41.840 on one hand, I have these really pleasant memories of 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.639 scaling giant snow banks and tunneling through them. But I 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.200 also have these persistent memories of of wearing a full 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.840 ski mask that is at once warming but also just 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:57.359 soggy with with snot you know, just just partially frozen 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.399 and partially warmed snot discovering the whole front of the 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.679 ski mask. You know. With exertion in cold weather, one 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:05.520 of the risk factors you need to watch out for 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.840 is that your clothes don't become sweat soaked, because then 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.680 though that sweat is going to the cool and you're 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:15.520 you're essentially freezing in your own sweat. Yeah, no good. 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.320 So another thing we've all done it shivering. It's one 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.359 of the body's main defense mechanisms against cold. The purpose 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:25.560 seems to be to force your muscles to generate extra heat. 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.879 Movement and friction tend to produce heat. If you doubt this, 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.200 just rub your hands together for ten seconds. You'll feel 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.760 them warm up. And so the shivering is the body's 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.480 way of enlisting your muscle tissues as a kind of 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.800 emergency internal space heater, forcing them to rapidly contract and 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.480 rhythmic patterns all over the body and generate extra heat 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:49.040 to keep your vital organs and blood warm. Another adaptation 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.120 that seems to not really help very much anymore, goose bumps. Yes, 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:56.679 you ever wonder why, Like, what's the point? It almost 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.160 feels like when you get goose bumps, the bumps are 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.480 coming up on your skin, which would seem to increase 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.080 the surface area of your skin, which would make you 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.040 get cold even faster. Well, and then also it would 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.480 seem to move body hair away from the body. Yeah, 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.800 it was. It's like, oh, well, now this protective layer 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.680 of you know, barely visible arm hair is not even 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.600 touching my arm anymore. But no. Goose bumps are believed 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.400 to be a vestigial trait from our recent ancestors who 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:26.840 had much more body hair than us. So when they 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.320 got cold, they could raise the hairs on their skin 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.280 to become extra fluffy and insulated. And it's true that 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:36.920 actually lower density things are better insulators. Right. You notice that, 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:39.720 like when you put insulation in the walls in your house, 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:43.440 it's not like some tightly packed metal or would kind 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:48.040 of thing. It's this loose, fluffy stuff because it conducts 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.520 heat less well, and so that's essentially what your body 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.160 is trying to do. It remembers the time when you 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.399 your ancestors had much more hair, and it's trying to 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.600 fluff it up to become less conductive of of heat 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.159 and to insulate skin better from the cold. Now, of 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:05.240 course we don't have much of that hair anymore, but 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:07.760 we still have this reaction, so we get the bumps, 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.159 but without the insulation. Here's the seasonal fact. I know 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.760 you have heard what time of year do people commit 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.879 suicide the most? It's winter, right, Yeah, well I believe 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:20.840 that is the that is sort of the common idea 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:23.920 that's out there. Yeah, I mean it sounds very truthy. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.480 I mean we it's it's it kind of goes back 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.960 to the idea of arctic madness. Right. It feels appropriate 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.240 like it gets a little cold here in Atlanta and 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.200 we start thinking, oh this this weather is driving me crazy. 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.080 It's it's it's it's depressing me, or it's making me 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.280 behave radically, it makes me want to just shut myself 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.880 up in my home and not encounter the outside world again. Yeah, 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.280 it makes your mind connect naturally to all kinds of 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.159 anecdotes that you have within, you know, some part of 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.520 your long term memory, stories about what it's like to 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.639 be in the in the Antarctic research stations, or or 0:20:56.760 --> 0:21:00.920 these stories about perlernarek Um. But yeah, it turns out 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.000 that this very truthy sounding fact that more people commit 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:07.000 suicide in the winter is not, in fact a fact, 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.679 it is a myth and yearly suicide rates do not 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:13.280 generally peak in the winter, but they do appear to 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.040 have a seasonal peak, and it's not in the winter, 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.400 it's in spring and early summer. So how much more 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.480 suicide is there in the spring? Well, it varies a 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:27.560 lot between societies. But according to Fotus Papadopoulos, a professor 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.960 of psychiatry at Upsala University in Sweden, quote, if we 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.679 take winter as a baseline, there is a twenty to 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:38.399 sixty higher suicide rate during spring. That's a pretty big difference. 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:40.399 I mean, that doesn't sound like noise. That sounds like 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:44.720 a real effect. Yeah, I mean it. I'm hesitant to 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.320 try and make too much sense out of it, you know, 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:52.719 but it does lend itself to interpretations of Right, if 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:55.639 the winter is about survival, then what happens when you 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:58.200 get to the other side of that survival. It's like 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.040 like managing to cross a rickety bridge age and you 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:03.560 relieve that you made it across that bridge without plummeting 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:05.720 into the abyss. But here you are on the other 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.560 side and you have how many more leads to walk. 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:14.840 You know, um, it's I can imagine the other hardships 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:17.359 of life kind of opening up again for you in 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:21.000 a new and perhaps more profound way. Yeah, I can 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:24.199 see that too. Now. There have been scientific attempts to 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.320 look into what causes this spike in spring and early 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.240 summer for suicide attempts. There was, for example, a massive 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:35.680 literature review combining the findings of studies from nineteen seventy 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:38.280 nine until two thousand eleven that had to do with 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.800 seasonal variations in suicide, and that was by wu uh Uku, 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:48.639 Saga and postlach In in the International Journal of Environmental 0:22:48.640 --> 0:22:53.240