Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey,
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. It's no wonder that
Speaker 1: Rudolph is the most famous reindeer of all. In addition
Speaker 1: to being a skilled flyer, his nose glows bright red.
Speaker 1: This unusual variation on the reindeer nasal prominence has all
Speaker 1: kinds of benefits. If the weather is ever bad on
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, Santa is still cleared for flight by the
Speaker 1: US Federal Aviation Administration, among others, thanks to the brightness
Speaker 1: of Rudolph's nose. But how does Rudolph's nose actually work?
Speaker 1: How can one reindeer create a light bright enough to
Speaker 1: bleed us Leigh through darkness and inclement weather, And how
Speaker 1: can a reindeer even have a glowing red nose in
Speaker 1: the first place. Although no one may ever know for
Speaker 1: sure just how Rudolph got his unusual nose, we think
Speaker 1: the most logical explanation is, of course science. A Rudolph
Speaker 1: could use something many organisms use on Earth in order
Speaker 1: to create natural light, a neat trick called bioluminescence. In
Speaker 1: luminescent animals and fungi chemical compounds mixed together to produce
Speaker 1: a glow. It's a lot like the way that substances
Speaker 1: inside a light stick combined to make light. The reasons vary.
Speaker 1: Of fireflies, for instance, flashlight at each other to communicate
Speaker 1: and attract mates, while some animals that live very deep
Speaker 1: in the ocean use light to attract or spot prey,
Speaker 1: or to confuse and escape from predators. In some parts
Speaker 1: of the ocean, these animals, not the sun, are the
Speaker 1: primary source of light. So let's talk about the parts
Speaker 1: of Rudolph's nose. It starts just like any other reindeer nose.
Speaker 1: He breeds oxygen through it, and it's made up of
Speaker 1: two layers of skin, the dermis, which is the thick
Speaker 1: inner layer of skin that contains blood vessels and hair follicles,
Speaker 1: and the epidermis, which is the thin outer layer that
Speaker 1: you can see and touch. A couple of extras, however,
Speaker 1: would set Rudolf apart from all the other reindeer, though
Speaker 1: of course there's no scientific basis for them excluding him
Speaker 1: from their gains. It seems most likely that Rudolph additionally
Speaker 1: has a thin, enclosed layer of a light producing organ
Speaker 1: between the dermis and the epidermis. In general, bioluminescence involves
Speaker 1: the combination of two types of substances. One is a luciferin,
Speaker 1: or a light producing substance. The other is a lucifer race,
Speaker 1: or an enzyme that catalyzes the reaction. The terms luciferin
Speaker 1: and lucifer race of both come from the Latin term
Speaker 1: lucifer which means light bringer and is also the basis
Speaker 1: for the name lucifer in the Bible and folklore, but
Speaker 1: luciferin and luciferase are generic terms rather than the names
Speaker 1: of particular chemicals. Lots of different substances can act like
Speaker 1: lucifer ins and lucifer races, depending on the species of
Speaker 1: the bioluminescent liform. For example, some luciferens are to chlorophyll,
Speaker 1: while others seem to be manufactured from the food that
Speaker 1: the animal eats. In the organism, something triggers the reaction,
Speaker 1: maybe a neurological process, maybe a chemical shift. Okay, So
Speaker 1: in Rudolph's case, there's a layer in his nose where
Speaker 1: these substances occur and can combine, thus putting out photons
Speaker 1: of light. But bioluminescent light forms pretty exclusively produce blue
Speaker 1: green light. So how is Rudolph's nose red. There is
Speaker 1: a type of deep sea fish known as a stop
Speaker 1: light loose jaw that can glow red even though the
Speaker 1: light that it produces starts out greenish blue. What's going
Speaker 1: on there is that it's bioluminescent organ also contains a
Speaker 1: type of protein that can absorb that light and then
Speaker 1: fluoresce in red. Rudolph must have a similar thing, and
Speaker 1: Rudolph's nose is likely able to get so bright because
Speaker 1: of a sort of secret ingredient that we haven't talked
Speaker 1: about yet. A bioluminescence often requires another substance, like oxygen,
Speaker 1: in order to make light, and because Rudolph produces light
Speaker 1: in his nose, it only makes sense that his nose
Speaker 1: would shine intensely because as he breathes in oxygen, it
Speaker 1: creates plenty of opportunity for the reaction to happen and
Speaker 1: light to be produced. So we know that Rudolph stands
Speaker 1: out a bit from other reindeer, But how could he
Speaker 1: be the only reindeer with this big, glowing nose. It's
Speaker 1: possible that Rudolph's glowing honker could be a reindeer ativism,
Speaker 1: and ativism is a trait of distant ancestors that randomly
Speaker 1: pops up in modern day organisms, unlike a human with
Speaker 1: a tail. These traits may have served a purpose for
Speaker 1: the animal way back when, but for whatever reason, the
Speaker 1: trait was silenced over time and only makes rare triumphant
Speaker 1: returns in modern times. Perhaps distant reindeer ancestors of Rudolph's
Speaker 1: produced light to survive in the wild. You'll find most
Speaker 1: reindeer in Scandinavia, and it does get pretty dark there
Speaker 1: during the long winter nights, so perhaps some of Rudolph's
Speaker 1: ancestors required a better way to get around at night.
Speaker 1: The genetic trait may have popped back up randomly and
Speaker 1: Rudolph or was perhaps the result of rapid evolution, in
Speaker 1: which a species could adapt in just a few generations
Speaker 1: based on the animal's needs. For example, there are mosquitoes
Speaker 1: living in the London underground that only moved in there
Speaker 1: in the eighteen sixties, but are now so different from
Speaker 1: there above ground cousins that they can't reproduce with each other.
Speaker 1: So maybe Rudolph's parents and grandparents had very bad eyesight
Speaker 1: and rapid evolution came to the recipe to help compensate
Speaker 1: and saving Christmas was just a lucky accident. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is based on the article why is Rudolph's Nose Red?
Speaker 1: On housetop works dot com written by John Fuller, with
Speaker 1: additional material from the article how by Luminescence Works written
Speaker 1: by Tracey Vie Wilson. Brain Stuff is production by Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and partnership with how stuffworks dot com and is
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts from my heart
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