Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vog obam here It's no wonder. Rudolph the red
Speaker 1: nosed reindeer is the most famous member of Santa's team.
Speaker 1: On top of being a skilled flyer, his nose, as
Speaker 1: his name suggests, glows bright red. This unusual variation on
Speaker 1: the reindeer nasal prominence could have all kinds of benefits,
Speaker 1: the most important of which, of course, involves guiding Santa's sleigh.
Speaker 1: According to folklore, if the weather's ever bad on Christmas Eve,
Speaker 1: Santa is still cleared for flight by the f A,
Speaker 1: a no less thanks to the brightness of Rudolph's nose.
Speaker 1: But how does Rudolph's nose actually work? How could one
Speaker 1: reindeer create a light bright enough to lead a sleigh
Speaker 1: through darkness and inclement weather? And how can a reindeer
Speaker 1: actually develop a glowing red nose. Although no one may
Speaker 1: ever know for sure just how Rudolph got his unusual nose,
Speaker 1: we at how Stuff works have what we think is
Speaker 1: the most logical explanation for how this dough idear guides
Speaker 1: Santa's lay science Rudolph could use something many organisms use
Speaker 1: on Earth, in order to create natural light a neat
Speaker 1: little scientific trick called bioluminescence. Animals can make their own
Speaker 1: light by mixing certain chemical compounds together to produce a glow.
Speaker 1: The reasons vary. Fireflies, for instance, flashlight at each other
Speaker 1: in order to attract mats, while some fish that live
Speaker 1: very deep in the ocean use light to bait prey.
Speaker 1: If this is the case with Rudolph, there would be
Speaker 1: three parts to his nasal beacon. The first would be
Speaker 1: just like any other reindeer nose, and so it's playmates
Speaker 1: technically shouldn't have shunned him from any reindeer games in
Speaker 1: the first place. He would, you know, breathe oxygen through it,
Speaker 1: and the tissue would be made up of two layers,
Speaker 1: the dermis, which is the thick inner layer of skin
Speaker 1: that contains blood, vessels and hair follicles, and the epidermist,
Speaker 1: which is the thin outer layer that you can see
Speaker 1: and touch. The other two parts, however, would set Rootolf
Speaker 1: apart from all the other reindeer. The second part would
Speaker 1: be a thin, enclosed layer of a light using organ
Speaker 1: between the dermis and the epidermis. Inside this layer could
Speaker 1: be the compound lucifer in, which produces light, and lucifer race,
Speaker 1: which is an enzyme that catalyzes the light producing reaction.
Speaker 1: So that's your glow. The third part is where the
Speaker 1: red nosed comes in. Most bioluminescent life forms like fireflies
Speaker 1: produce greenish light. The outermost part of Rudolph's nose, therefore,
Speaker 1: would have to be a red phosphorescent layer. Once the
Speaker 1: light producing organs started putting off green light, the phosphorescent
Speaker 1: part of his nose would absorb that green light and
Speaker 1: emit a red light. How does nose get so bright? Though?
Speaker 1: Bioluminescence often requires another substance like oxygen to make light,
Speaker 1: and Rudolph would breathe lots of oxygen right near the
Speaker 1: light producing organs, providing enough reactions for long, intensely shiny
Speaker 1: bursts of light. But why is Rudolph the only reindeer
Speaker 1: with a nose that glows? How could something like this
Speaker 1: have happened? Could Santa be some kind of mad scientist
Speaker 1: tweaking reindeer DNA for his own benefit, or could Rudolph's
Speaker 1: nose be a biological accident. It's possible that Rudolph's bright
Speaker 1: honker could be a reindeer ativism. Let's break that down.
Speaker 1: An atavism is a trait of distant ancestors that randomly
Speaker 1: pops up in modern day organisms, like a human with
Speaker 1: a tail. This trait may have served a purpose for
Speaker 1: the animal way back when, but for whatever reason, that
Speaker 1: trait was silenced over time, every once in a while,
Speaker 1: making a rare return. Could distant reindeer ancestors of Rudolph
Speaker 1: have needed to produce light in order to survive in
Speaker 1: the wild. You'll find most reindeer in Scandinavia, and it
Speaker 1: does get pretty dark there during the winter, so maybe
Speaker 1: Rudolph's ancestors needed a better way to get around at night.
Speaker 1: Oh and although Rudolph is what's called a bull male reindeer,
Speaker 1: there's a rumor that many of Santa's reindeer might be
Speaker 1: cows or female reindeer. And that's because Santa's reindeer are
Speaker 1: depicted flying on Christmas Eve with fully grown antlers. Male
Speaker 1: reindeer typically shed their antlers by early December, well before
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve. The antlers grow back in the spring and
Speaker 1: the cycle of growth and regrowth continues, but cows keep
Speaker 1: their antlers all year long. This isn't to say that
Speaker 1: all of the other reindeer are female. Most males shed
Speaker 1: their antlers, but not all of them, and it's possible
Speaker 1: that a bowl won't lose as antlers until after December.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by John Fuller and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio's How Stuff Works. For more on this and lots
Speaker 1: of other very shiny topics, visit our home planet, how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com, and for more podcasts for my
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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.