Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. So it's a
Speaker 1: good old fashioned bout of stuff you should know. Ready
Speaker 1: to kick you in the duff. Oh my gosh, about
Speaker 1: where we a sickness? Yeah, some some would say, oh dear,
Speaker 1: I'm ready for this one. I'm so excited because awesome,
Speaker 1: I understand genetics and chemistry like I've never understood it
Speaker 1: before in my life. Well, I think that a little
Speaker 1: credit goes to our palagraphs or who has a knack
Speaker 1: for explaining very complex science stuff. Uh. And we also
Speaker 1: need to shout out, as usual when it comes to science.
Speaker 1: A kid's website, which is in this case Frontiers for
Speaker 1: Young Minds. That was a really good one. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: had a pretty good breakdown on albinism. Not albinism, let's
Speaker 1: just get that out of the way. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1: also tried to find out it it doesn't seem appropriate
Speaker 1: to say albinos. Uh. I didn't expressly see that anywhere,
Speaker 1: but it just it seems like with the how we
Speaker 1: refer to things these days, that that that that stands
Speaker 1: out as something that we shouldn't do. Certainly did you
Speaker 1: find that though I did not, I didn't um, although
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of like um like pro social
Speaker 1: sites for people with albinism all over the place. I'm
Speaker 1: surprised we didn't run into that, but because I saw
Speaker 1: it used. But I'm gonna err on the side of
Speaker 1: caution and just say albinism, yeah, totally, or people with
Speaker 1: albinism right well sure, or plants. Yeah, that's that's something
Speaker 1: that came up. Like certainly you've you're familiar that you know,
Speaker 1: not all it's not just people who can have albinism,
Speaker 1: but that um animals can too. Every once in a
Speaker 1: while you hear about it very rare like um uh,
Speaker 1: like a shark with albinism or like you said, an
Speaker 1: alligator with albinism. It's just so um stark and surprising.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why is because it's exceedingly rare
Speaker 1: in the animal kingdom. UM. But it's still around, and
Speaker 1: it's not just mammals that can have albinism too, although
Speaker 1: it would make a lot more sense if it was
Speaker 1: just mammals that got it because it affects a very
Speaker 1: specific part of the body, the Melana sites, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk about in great, great, great detail a little bit um.
Speaker 1: But but that like, uh, like a whole cascade of
Speaker 1: events goes from or it takes place within those Melana sites,
Speaker 1: and any part of that can get messed up or disordered.
Speaker 1: And those those are what are the basis of the
Speaker 1: different types of albanism, as we'll see. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know the reason that you you indicated that it was
Speaker 1: super rare to see like a guerilla with albinism, although
Speaker 1: you can see that's because and we'll get into the
Speaker 1: genetics more specifically, but it's in autosomal recessive trait, which
Speaker 1: means that both of your parents have to have this
Speaker 1: Albanism gene. So, I mean, it's rare enough in humans
Speaker 1: when two people fall in love and mate for life
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But when you're counting on two
Speaker 1: sharks that happened to swim by, that happened to have that, uh,
Speaker 1: express their genes that way, and they happen to, you know,
Speaker 1: get friendly with one another, bump up against one another.
Speaker 1: Sure rub fins, however sharks do that thing. Uh, it
Speaker 1: makes it even more rare because you're counting on um
Speaker 1: almost just like you know, fate or destiny, not destiny.
Speaker 1: Let's not get hippie dippy about it. But you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of guerillas getting together in the midst that
Speaker 1: both have this genetic gene. They wait for the mist
Speaker 1: to settle and then they're like, no one can see
Speaker 1: I just said genetic gene too. That's just what I know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, for whatever reason, Chuck, whether it's like because
Speaker 1: the populations are isolated or what, but it it does
Speaker 1: seem to be much rarer. Albanism does seem to be
Speaker 1: much rare in like the wild than it is among humans.
Speaker 1: And even in like some human populations, it's like you
Speaker 1: could call it not rare at all. Like if you
Speaker 1: go to some parts of Africa, UM, some parts of
Speaker 1: central or South America, UM, you'll find you'll find groups
Speaker 1: that like are fairly small genetically speaking, um and and
Speaker 1: the and albinism has just become kind of like an
Speaker 1: endemic trade among the population. Yeah. And I think that's
Speaker 1: even where the first uh, the word albino was first
Speaker 1: used in the eighteen hundreds in Africa for people that
Speaker 1: had albinism. And it's I think the root is the
Speaker 1: Latin albus or albo from Spanish, Spanish and Portuguese. That's right.
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about albinism, I think most people
Speaker 1: probably know what we're talking about. But um use, really,
Speaker 1: when you see a person with albinism, they have either
Speaker 1: totally white hair or a very light colored hair UM
Speaker 1: usually UM, little to no skin pigmentation UM. Or they
Speaker 1: can have kind of like a yellowish or pinkish skin pigmentation. UM.
Speaker 1: They might have eyes that lack color or seem red,
Speaker 1: which apparently has to do with the blood vessels in
Speaker 1: the eye reflecting the red light from well back out
Speaker 1: at you the viewer. But all of this has to
Speaker 1: do with a complete in total or a greatly reduced
Speaker 1: lack of melanin. Right. Yeah, And you know, if we're
Speaker 1: gonna crumble a myth, we can crumble the myth that
Speaker 1: um you are not. Like, if you have albinism and
Speaker 1: you don't have red eyes or pink eyes, then you
Speaker 1: don't have true albinism, And that's not true at all.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different kinds of albinism, and
Speaker 1: depending on the way that genes express themselves, there can
Speaker 1: be a range of of effects on your body. Uh
Speaker 1: ed was mentioned even with the plant Kingdom with maize,
Speaker 1: you know, there's uh you can have and it's not
Speaker 1: white corn. That's a different thing altogether. But if you,
Speaker 1: because it trusts me, if you look up albanism and corn,
Speaker 1: the first thing you're gonna see as a corn snake.
Speaker 1: Even if you so you have to type in maze
Speaker 1: and then you're just gonna see white corn. But there
Speaker 1: are a few different kinds of albinism and maze, one
Speaker 1: of which basically is no pigment or chlorophyll, and that's
Speaker 1: not even gonna survive because it's a plant, one that
Speaker 1: will eventually become just a regular ear of corn. And
Speaker 1: then a third type, which is really interesting. It's striped
Speaker 1: and some parts have that pigment in some parts don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like, if you put two different types of albinism,
Speaker 1: whether it's corn or humans together, the person who has
Speaker 1: both of those different traits probably won't appear to have
Speaker 1: albinism all because you have to have matching gene mutations
Speaker 1: to have an autosomal recessive uh uh genetic disorder in
Speaker 1: albi is one of those, like you said, yeah, And interestingly,
Speaker 1: if you just sort of look at it in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: Albinism isn't necessarily harmful. Uh. There can be comorbidities, and
Speaker 1: there can be other effects that happen, of course, like
Speaker 1: with things like sun and sunburn and sun exposure, and
Speaker 1: there's our vision problems that can happen, and we'll get
Speaker 1: into all this more specifically, but just by itself, albinism
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily harmful to a person or a population, right,
Speaker 1: And there's different types to their syndromic and non syndromic,
Speaker 1: and syndromic means that you usually have other related health issues,
Speaker 1: and there are syndromic types of albinism. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that tends to UM tends to go along
Speaker 1: with albinism, along with the lack of skin and hair
Speaker 1: or pigmentation UM is vision problems, which we'll talk about,
Speaker 1: but there's other stuff too. There's they've correlated UM autism
Speaker 1: with albinism, which I couldn't find a lot on, but
Speaker 1: it maybe wonder there's also a correlation between vision um
Speaker 1: problems and autism, and it's possible, they theorize because no
Speaker 1: one knows at this point what the correlation is, but
Speaker 1: they theorized that UM has to do with a low
Speaker 1: level of visual input leading to autism. So it's possible
Speaker 1: that if you have a low level of visual input
Speaker 1: because of albinism, that could lead to autism as well, potentially. Right,
Speaker 1: so much we don't know, but we do know that
Speaker 1: it is albinism is a neural crest disorder. And this
Speaker 1: basically means, I mean, we can get as as wonky
Speaker 1: here science wise as you want to, but the easy
Speaker 1: version is it means that it's very early in embryonic development, uh,
Speaker 1: when a group of cells is folding into a crest,
Speaker 1: and at this point, if something is going on with
Speaker 1: those cells, it can affect a lot of different things
Speaker 1: moving forward, including albinism. Right, Because those neural crests, when
Speaker 1: they form the extremely early embryonic stage, they form um cartilage, bone, skin,
Speaker 1: smooth muscle, cells, neurons, They differentiate into a bunch of
Speaker 1: different stuff. But the point of that is is that
Speaker 1: like you're the gene that is responsible for whatever type
Speaker 1: of albinism you have, um like differentiated like really early on,
Speaker 1: long before many other genes were active. It also it
Speaker 1: also points out, Chuck, I think, um, something that's that's
Speaker 1: worth mentioning that at this point because it's a genetic disorder,
Speaker 1: and apparently in extraordinarily early in development genetic disorder. Um,
Speaker 1: there's no treatment for albinism. Everything treating is just to
Speaker 1: take care of the the symptoms that come along with it.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good overviewed to get us going.
Speaker 1: Don't you think so too. Yeah, let's let's take a break.
Speaker 1: I smell a break. Yeah. Well, in fact, I could
Speaker 1: just be done and we could just run a bunch
Speaker 1: of ads if you want to do it that way.
Speaker 1: I don't think everybody would like that. I think they'd
Speaker 1: rather hear is muddle through albinism. All right, we'll do
Speaker 1: a couple of messages from our sponsors and we'll be
Speaker 1: right back as watch skul So, when most people think
Speaker 1: of albinism, chuck Um, what they're actually thinking of is
Speaker 1: a specific type called oculo cutaneous albinism or O c A,
Speaker 1: which is the most prevalent form, but it's also the
Speaker 1: most distinct form as well. Yeah, and this is you know,
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen the musician Johnny Winner or or
Speaker 1: Edgar Winner or uh, you know a lot of times
Speaker 1: people with alba is m will be cast in movies unfairly.
Speaker 1: A lot of times it's it's the bad guy because
Speaker 1: they have a unique look. Uh, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: Hollywood and that's kind of what they do exactly. And
Speaker 1: we'll get into that later on too. But um, it's
Speaker 1: funny though. I did see a couple of videos where
Speaker 1: people with albinism sat and watched movie characters of people
Speaker 1: with albinism and basically just sort of made fun of it.
Speaker 1: They're just like, Okay, another bad guy. That's a surprise.
Speaker 1: But that's exactly that's what you're talking about. It. That's
Speaker 1: o c A. One is when you're talking about maybe
Speaker 1: someone with the pink or red eyes, the lack of pigment,
Speaker 1: the skin, that white white hair, right, um, and that one.
Speaker 1: So there's supposedly there's somewhere between four and maybe even
Speaker 1: nine different forms, but most scientists who study albinism recognize
Speaker 1: maybe four to five different forms. The rest of them are, um,
Speaker 1: these really really almost ex oddic rare mutations that have
Speaker 1: occurred in these really isolated communities where albinism is actually
Speaker 1: common enough that it just is mutating in a new form.
Speaker 1: So most people say four to five forms. Um, And
Speaker 1: if you're like the easygoing type, you just call it
Speaker 1: type one type two. If you're high strung like me,
Speaker 1: you probably call the most common one O C A
Speaker 1: one A. There's also O C A one B, O
Speaker 1: C A two, O C A UM three and four
Speaker 1: and so on, actually not so on. That's that's all
Speaker 1: of them. But the thing that all of these are,
Speaker 1: at least most of them sharing common is that there's
Speaker 1: either a total or complete lack of pigmentation. And then
Speaker 1: again it affects the eyes because it's that ocular cutaneous albinism.
Speaker 1: And so with this lack of pigmentation, that one, uh,
Speaker 1: that's that most people think of when they think of albinism.
Speaker 1: O C A one A there's like no pigmentation whatsoever.
Speaker 1: And everybody with albinism has those those pigment forming cells
Speaker 1: melana sites. It's just the for different reasons, those melano
Speaker 1: sites are not producing pigments to varying degrees, and in
Speaker 1: O C A one eight they're not producing pigment at all. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like you kind of said at the beginning, if you
Speaker 1: see someone that has the red or pinkish eyes, it's
Speaker 1: those are the blood vessels that you're saying. Because of
Speaker 1: the lack of pigment, and that's what's also going to
Speaker 1: lead to those vision problems. Uh. Like you kind of
Speaker 1: hinted at it. You know, a lot more light is
Speaker 1: going to be entering your eye that's not being absorbed
Speaker 1: like it would if you have pigment in your eye.
Speaker 1: It's not being diffracted. Uh at the very least, if
Speaker 1: you have albinism, you're probably gonna be really sensitive delight. Um.
Speaker 1: But it can also actually damage the retina as well, right,
Speaker 1: which is a big one. Um. As we'll see, that's
Speaker 1: a it's a huge problem that the idea that um
Speaker 1: it's called photophobia, like deep sensitivity to light. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And then also you you just can't see as well,
Speaker 1: um like you can in that in turn can lead
Speaker 1: to problems with learning in high school drops. It's like
Speaker 1: a cascading effect that all just chickins with not enough
Speaker 1: pigment in the eye. It's really astounding with just something
Speaker 1: that seems kind of small has like the impacts that
Speaker 1: it has. Yeah. And you know the great thing about
Speaker 1: most schools systems these days is they make great efforts
Speaker 1: for any kind of uh kid in school that has
Speaker 1: any sort of a challenge to say like, all right,
Speaker 1: well we have something to accommodate for that now. But
Speaker 1: it you know, it's taken a long time to get
Speaker 1: to this point and we still have a long way
Speaker 1: to go. But you know, you can't imagine somebody with
Speaker 1: albinism in the nineteen you know, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies,
Speaker 1: and what schooling must have been like when it was
Speaker 1: basically just like sorry, you know, you can't you obviously
Speaker 1: can't keep up. You're struggling to learn to read, and
Speaker 1: we don't quite know what to do with that, right
Speaker 1: and there, and and they always punctuated with him. And
Speaker 1: by the way, everything your classmates are saying about you
Speaker 1: is true. Hopefully teachers are at least kind about it
Speaker 1: even back then. Maybe, but kids are always mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. They're getting nicer, though, are they. That's great, man,
Speaker 1: that's a huge improvement. Well, they are, but it's um,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously they're still bullying and a lot of
Speaker 1: problems with that stuff. But the kids are getting better
Speaker 1: because it's I think we've proven as parents and educators
Speaker 1: that that can be taught, that you start them at
Speaker 1: a young age teaching about facial differences. Or just any
Speaker 1: kind of differences and that you know that we're all
Speaker 1: the same. Uh. You know, it sounds very free to
Speaker 1: be you and me, but we're all the same on
Speaker 1: the inside. And so that kind of like teaching that
Speaker 1: stuff actually works. That's why it's frustrating when people push
Speaker 1: back on that kind of thing. Yeah, I don't want
Speaker 1: Mike could be nice. You can't make my kid be nice.
Speaker 1: It's a First Amendment issue. That was just a little
Speaker 1: soapox moment for me. I like it. I put one
Speaker 1: foot up on there with you too, Thank you so
Speaker 1: um so there's room for you in eat chuck. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jerry's always up here. Of course she won't stop. It's
Speaker 1: a little much if you ask me, so, chuck. Before
Speaker 1: we keep moving on, because I think we need to
Speaker 1: talk about that social aspect of albinism now. Um but
Speaker 1: but before we hit that, I want to say, there's
Speaker 1: one other thing that one of the big differentiators about
Speaker 1: between the different types of albinism is, like we were saying,
Speaker 1: at what point in the process of creating melanin that
Speaker 1: the pigmentation um is disrupted, means that you could actually
Speaker 1: produce some levels of pigment or some different types of pigment. Like,
Speaker 1: we have a couple of types of pigment that we
Speaker 1: produce us humans. You melanin, that's one. That's the money melanin.
Speaker 1: Everybody thinks about its like it produces like the browns
Speaker 1: and everything like that. It gives you your tan if
Speaker 1: you have brown or dark hair, that's all you melanin.
Speaker 1: But there's also fail melanin, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: red yellow pigment producer. And people can have types of
Speaker 1: albinism where you're producing uh no you melanin whatsoever, but
Speaker 1: plenty of yellow red pao melanin. So that will adjust
Speaker 1: the different kinds of skin pigments you have. And sometimes
Speaker 1: you'll see people with albinism we have like you know,
Speaker 1: totally pale skin, but like a big shock of yellow
Speaker 1: gold hair. They're producing plenty of phao melanin. Just no
Speaker 1: you ma melanin. And those are the different like the
Speaker 1: different gradiations of of albinism have to do with how
Speaker 1: much in what type of melanin can escape out into
Speaker 1: the skin, into the eyes and into the hair. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And interestingly, birds and mammals are the only living things
Speaker 1: that have melanostes, which are those cells that produced the melanin.
Speaker 1: So this is why you're not going to see a
Speaker 1: lot of bright colored mammals. Like, you're not gonna see
Speaker 1: a lot of bright green or blue mammals. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then when its to birds to but you're like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, why are humans you know, basically shades of
Speaker 1: sort of brown? Uh? And why can birds be like
Speaker 1: pink and orange and red. It's for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1: So we talked about some of these before. But one
Speaker 1: of the reasons is their diet, like in the case
Speaker 1: of the flamingo, of flamingo is white except uh for
Speaker 1: their diet, which turns them red or pink. Yeah, they can. Um.
Speaker 1: They can also produce certain kinds of chains of amino
Speaker 1: acids that produce blue or green. They can combine some
Speaker 1: of the pigments they produce with some structural stuff, like
Speaker 1: in in the way that their feathers are built, to
Speaker 1: create entirely new colors. Um. There's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: you can do, but that's typically birds. And the reason
Speaker 1: they think that birds are so colorful is because the
Speaker 1: visual acuity in the bird world is a little more
Speaker 1: important even in the human world. As important as it
Speaker 1: is for us. But there's also another thing that that
Speaker 1: um melanin does is it can provide like structure and
Speaker 1: toughness UM. Like if you look at the outer layer
Speaker 1: of fur and like a cold um, like a cold
Speaker 1: dwelling animal, that's usually gonna be fairly dark UM. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why it's dark is because it's
Speaker 1: also providing like structure and toughness to that that outer
Speaker 1: layer for not just you know, UM, preventing U light
Speaker 1: to get through, UV to get through, right, But then
Speaker 1: you start scritching underneath, you get to that little baby soft,
Speaker 1: lighter colored undercoat. Even with my dog Charlie, who's got
Speaker 1: the longer hair, she's you know, she has an outer
Speaker 1: coat and an undercoat, and that undercoat is different. It
Speaker 1: feels a little different, it looks a little different. The
Speaker 1: exception to that, of course, is polar bears. They're not
Speaker 1: actually producing any kind of white pigment. I think it's
Speaker 1: the structure of their um, their hairs, their clear hollow tubes,
Speaker 1: so they refract light so that all of the light
Speaker 1: comes back at you. Yeah, just google green polar bear
Speaker 1: if you want to freak your kids out a little bit.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it sounds sousical. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: green polar bear. So while we're on that though we talk,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the um sort of social implicate implications of having Albanism.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's interesting that it's much more common
Speaker 1: in parts of Africa, especially in Sub Saharan Africa, but
Speaker 1: that's also where you can find some of the most
Speaker 1: uh stigma and people being ostracized, which is I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's really kind of sad that it seems like something
Speaker 1: that is more common might be accepted a little bit more,
Speaker 1: but that's not really the case, is it. No, it's not.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately the reason why is because people with Albanism
Speaker 1: in Africa are in some parts of Africa. We've learned
Speaker 1: over the years you can't just be like in Africa
Speaker 1: because it's just so ridiculously different culturally and geographically. But
Speaker 1: in some parts of Africa, I believe Bigeria, Um parts
Speaker 1: of Nigeria, if you're if you have alb albinism, you
Speaker 1: are extraordinarily valuable. I think the body of a person
Speaker 1: with albinism is worth about seventy five thousand U S
Speaker 1: dollars in in places where people are living on like
Speaker 1: six dollars a day is for like medical research. No
Speaker 1: oh no, no no, no, I know you're talking about for
Speaker 1: witchcraft and sourcery. They're considered the bone. They there's lower,
Speaker 1: there's so here's here's the problem. Um. Not only are
Speaker 1: people with albinism subject to being ostracized and isolated because
Speaker 1: they're different and they look different the people and people
Speaker 1: not just in Africa, but in other places where education
Speaker 1: is less prevalent and less standardized and science is less
Speaker 1: um relied on. I guess um, there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of myth and lower surrounding albinism, and so people think
Speaker 1: that it's like contagious. So you just want to stay
Speaker 1: away from those people because you don't want to catch it. Um.
Speaker 1: And then all the way across the spectrum to their
Speaker 1: bones are made of gold dust. And if you get
Speaker 1: your hands on the cadaver of an person without albinism,
Speaker 1: you can you can create potions and sell them to
Speaker 1: people in in the wholesale market. You can. You would
Speaker 1: pay seventy five dollars for the the corpse of a
Speaker 1: person with albinism. And it happens like people get murdered
Speaker 1: for their bodies because they're they have albinism, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's a despicable practice and trade. But part
Speaker 1: of it is like figuring out how to get across
Speaker 1: to like these large groups and populations the science behind
Speaker 1: all this, and that at the very least it's not
Speaker 1: contagious and at best their their bones are not filled
Speaker 1: with gold dust, so please stop chopping them up kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, And as far as you know here
Speaker 1: in the United States, if you know this is like
Speaker 1: we talked about, you know, kids teasing or stay airing.
Speaker 1: As as parents and educators, you should be armed, I
Speaker 1: think with the barest bones of information at least to
Speaker 1: be able to say, oh, well, you know, that is
Speaker 1: somebody with albinism and that means their body doesn't produce
Speaker 1: pigment and so their skin looks different than ours does.
Speaker 1: And if your parents you can just leave it at that.
Speaker 1: And that's really all you have to do. Like, if
Speaker 1: you want to listen to this episode and get into
Speaker 1: uh Melana sites, knock yourself out, that's parenting plus. But
Speaker 1: at the very least you should be able to describe it.
Speaker 1: And like I know when I was a kid and
Speaker 1: this is not a knock on my parents. They were
Speaker 1: both smart people and teachers. But but just scared to
Speaker 1: death of people with albinism. No, no, but they probably
Speaker 1: would not have known what to tell me. Uh. They
Speaker 1: probably would have said, oh, that's an albi now full stop,
Speaker 1: steer clear of them. That's contagious. No, I don't think
Speaker 1: that either. But I just think we have a duty
Speaker 1: these days, like to educate ourselves to the to the
Speaker 1: lowest level of understanding other people, you know, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: That's something that I've carried with myself for many, many years,
Speaker 1: is like people didn't explain the why to me, and
Speaker 1: so there didn't seem to be purposed to anything. I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't time to appreciate the things that the reasons
Speaker 1: why we were doing things, the strategy to football, it
Speaker 1: was just get out there and make sure that person
Speaker 1: doesn't get past you kind of stuff, no reason why doesn't.
Speaker 1: And it's like a stupid example, but it's a good
Speaker 1: case of it that like nobody stopped and said, here's
Speaker 1: the grand picture, here's the grand scheme of things. And
Speaker 1: the more information I would have had, the more I
Speaker 1: would have appreciated life and probably appreciated other people too,
Speaker 1: So I agree with you completely. I think that that
Speaker 1: is that is a part and parcel with making the
Speaker 1: world a better places is providing more information. Um two
Speaker 1: kids especially. Yeah, and again this is slightly tangential and soapboxy,
Speaker 1: but I think in our day, and certainly before our
Speaker 1: day as kids, there was a lot of just like
Speaker 1: shut up and don't ask questions sort of attitude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a terrible thing to do. You should do is
Speaker 1: ask questions and get questions sort. My lord, it's frustrating
Speaker 1: the whole like because I said so kind of thing,
Speaker 1: which is so prevalent when we were kids. As I understand,
Speaker 1: it's going the way of the dinosaur, which I think
Speaker 1: is great. It is, but boy, when you accidentally catch
Speaker 1: yourself saying it, that's apparent you're just like, oh no,
Speaker 1: i'll be right back. I'm gonna go flog myself. Oh
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's plenty of parent groups just waiting to
Speaker 1: flog you outside your door too. Yeah. The because I
Speaker 1: said so crowd, Yeah yeah, they're like the Guilty Remnant,
Speaker 1: the Leftovers. They just stand outside your house and smoke,
Speaker 1: which were two episodes away from finishing by the way
Speaker 1: that appens tonight. That's great man. Congratulations from from all
Speaker 1: of the stuff you should know listeners. I just have
Speaker 1: to say, and I knew this was the show that
Speaker 1: got progressively better and more bonkers, but boy, what they're
Speaker 1: thrown down in season three. I am all over it.
Speaker 1: I don't believe I made it that far. What. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I thought you I thought you like said you
Speaker 1: wish you could go back and do it over again. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the first time. I don't think I realized and then
Speaker 1: kept going after season one. Yeah, yeah, there were three seasons. Okay,
Speaker 1: well good, I've got some sticks and I gotta reframe everything. Now.
Speaker 1: I'll watch this on your recommendation. So, Chuck, I feel
Speaker 1: like we can button this up by saying society has
Speaker 1: a long way to go toward learning how to treat
Speaker 1: people with albinism. Equally agreed. Yeah, but let's do that.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's do that, and let's take a break,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk a little bit more about what limited
Speaker 1: amount we know about what causes this right after this
Speaker 1: as watched by SKA. All right, so we're back. We
Speaker 1: know and we've talked about this already that it's a
Speaker 1: recessive gene that causes albinism. But it's it's like, all right,
Speaker 1: so that's a recessive gene. This is like when you're
Speaker 1: not off in biology class when I woke up. You
Speaker 1: wake up and you go, Okay, well, I know the
Speaker 1: answer is a recessive gene. But how does that happen? Uh?
Speaker 1: And the secret to it all is a little protein
Speaker 1: called tirasinase. Right, how would you pronounce it? I just
Speaker 1: exactly like that taraskay, those tyros sinase. But that's how
Speaker 1: it's spelled tyrosinas. But tarrasin is surely is the way
Speaker 1: that you'd say, right, I think probably. So, So that's
Speaker 1: the one that's the one that is like the the
Speaker 1: catalyst for basically everything that comes after to create melanin. Right,
Speaker 1: whether it's you melanin or phao melanin doesn't matter. Tarrasse
Speaker 1: is like the beginning of it. And so in that
Speaker 1: O C A one A, the type of albinism where
Speaker 1: you just utterly lack of pigmentation altogether, tarrasinse um is
Speaker 1: an impacted. So when your terracins is impacted, your melanin
Speaker 1: production just doesn't happen. In your melano sytes and therefore
Speaker 1: you have O C A one A albinism. That's right. Uh,
Speaker 1: And if that happens early on, that whole chain reaction
Speaker 1: is going to shut down, and that's when you're going
Speaker 1: to have the complete lack of pigmentation. In the other forms,
Speaker 1: it might affected at different stages along the way of
Speaker 1: that melanin creation. So that's why you might you know,
Speaker 1: not be totally absent of pigmentation. Yeah. And again, like
Speaker 1: there's different slightly different processes that produce you melanin and
Speaker 1: other processes that produce FO melanin, so um any any
Speaker 1: one of those things. It's a very like complex intricate
Speaker 1: production to to create melanin. And so that means that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different points where that that process
Speaker 1: can break down. It's just I just find that extremely fascinating.
Speaker 1: And then also one other thing I find fascinating when
Speaker 1: you talked about um autosomal recessive traits, did you mention
Speaker 1: that means that two parents can both have the gene
Speaker 1: for albinism, but neither one have albinism, but they're considered
Speaker 1: carriers and so they can pass it along or not
Speaker 1: pass it along to their kids. Well, yeah, because I mean,
Speaker 1: and I think this is something that you would often
Speaker 1: see is two parents without albinism have a child with albinism,
Speaker 1: and someone might just be like, well, how does that work. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just very easy because you have to have both parents,
Speaker 1: and if obviously these parents didn't have both of their
Speaker 1: parents that had that genetic mutation, then they're not gonna
Speaker 1: have it. But it's interesting. It's one of those things
Speaker 1: where you sort of like the sharks sharks bumping in
Speaker 1: the night. Did you say sharks first? I think I
Speaker 1: did say sharks. That's a whole different problem. That's bumping
Speaker 1: in the night. H sharks bumping in the night. It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know this. You probably wouldn't know this about
Speaker 1: yourself if you only had one, if you were just carrier,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, right, So you probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: find this out until you had a kid exactly. And
Speaker 1: that was that's one reason why there's a lot of
Speaker 1: lower and myth around um albinism in less educated areas,
Speaker 1: like there's like a question of paternity, like this can't
Speaker 1: possibly be my kid um that kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: then on the same token too, as far as passing
Speaker 1: it along Uh, if you have albinism and you fall
Speaker 1: in love and reproduce with a person who doesn't have albinism,
Speaker 1: but it also is in a carrier of albinism, your
Speaker 1: children won't have albinism. Have both those parents. You gotta
Speaker 1: have both those parents that have passed along both those things,
Speaker 1: because again, you can have siblings that don't have albinism.
Speaker 1: Because like I think, you have a chance of getting
Speaker 1: albinism or of being passed along to you, you have
Speaker 1: a fifty percent chance or seventy chance of it not
Speaker 1: being passed along, But there's a different combination of what's
Speaker 1: not passed along. Yeah. Yeah. What I also thought was
Speaker 1: interesting was um when Ed towards the end started talking
Speaker 1: a little bit about in the animal kingdom, and you
Speaker 1: know the fact that it's for sure a disadvantage if
Speaker 1: you're living in the jungle and you're an animal, because
Speaker 1: coloration is a big part of your camouflage and survival,
Speaker 1: blending into your natural habitat as both the predator and
Speaker 1: a prey. So if you are, you know, an alligator
Speaker 1: or a guerilla with albinism, you're definitely in a disadvantage
Speaker 1: in the wild. Um. I don't know that it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's definitely in the wild, because he said, if you
Speaker 1: have like a bunch of lab rats just sort of
Speaker 1: doing their thing, then it's really not going to affect
Speaker 1: them much at all. But you know, we talked a
Speaker 1: little bit in the Cave Dwellers episode about these organisms
Speaker 1: and I think reptiles that live deep in these caves
Speaker 1: that are essentially I have no pigment and in there
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter, and in fact, some of the
Speaker 1: vision stuff might be an advantage. Yeah, like the fact
Speaker 1: that you don't have pigments like bouncing light and refracting
Speaker 1: it off. UM. I guess basically keeping it from bouncing
Speaker 1: around means that you should be able to get more light,
Speaker 1: more visual information in very low levels of light, So
Speaker 1: that would be an advantage for sure. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting. It is interesting. So I guess before
Speaker 1: we go chuck um, we should we should talk about
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other um conditions that can happen
Speaker 1: that have to do with pigmentation melanin um that really
Speaker 1: don't have anything to do with albinism, which really kind
Speaker 1: of goes to show you, like just how complex melanin
Speaker 1: production actually is you know. Yeah, and we talked recently.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but we did mention viddle igo recently. Um,
Speaker 1: this is not the same thing as albinism. This is
Speaker 1: when you have these sort of very defined areas of
Speaker 1: your body that have no melanin. Uh. It is similar
Speaker 1: because it has to do with melanin, but not albinism. No.
Speaker 1: They think that, um, there's either some sort of uh,
Speaker 1: really bad sunburn mechanical insult, like something happened to your
Speaker 1: milana sites, uh, you know, mechanically, or you might have
Speaker 1: had like some sort of chemical reaction and that whatever
Speaker 1: trauma happens to the milana sites, it triggers your immune
Speaker 1: system to target them as foreign invaders. So they think
Speaker 1: now that viduligo is some sort of autoimmune disorder. That's right.
Speaker 1: What else is there? There's poliosis, which I looked and no,
Speaker 1: it does not have anything to do with polio. They
Speaker 1: should they miss titled this one. I think they really
Speaker 1: did because it has nothing to do with it. But
Speaker 1: that's the one where someone will have like just a shock,
Speaker 1: like a little patch of white hair, just totally pigment
Speaker 1: free hair. Yeah. I know a couple of people that
Speaker 1: have that the little h like the white schwa. Sure like.
Speaker 1: Um remember John Henson from Talk Soup. Uh, yeah, he
Speaker 1: had the white schwa RT example of that guy living
Speaker 1: with poliosis. That's right. Uh. Emily calls any kind of
Speaker 1: hair thing like that a schwa. I don't know why
Speaker 1: it makes sense. I've heard it before, but I don't
Speaker 1: know what it means. I think it means exactly what
Speaker 1: it means, right, I don't. I think she just means
Speaker 1: what like if I poof my hair up in a
Speaker 1: with a big like like a pompadour, she would call
Speaker 1: that a schway. Okay, I got you. It's very I
Speaker 1: think no one outside my household really understands what it means.
Speaker 1: It's a tuft of hair. Yeah, it's a tough Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't think I realized that's what poliosis was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what it is. What do you think it was?
Speaker 1: You thought I had to do with polio, didn't you?
Speaker 1: I totally did. Actually I did too until I confirmed. Nope,
Speaker 1: just terribly named. There's also Wardenburg syndrome. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: abnormality with the pigment and the hair and skin and eyes.
Speaker 1: But this is a congenital disease also not have anything
Speaker 1: to do with albinism, right, um, and I think that's
Speaker 1: about it. There's piebald is m. You know the kind
Speaker 1: of piebald horses where there's a big um white patch,
Speaker 1: usually a like a large one sometimes on the chataful.
Speaker 1: It's the type of horse. It's actually a condition um
Speaker 1: that that humans can have as well. It's just that
Speaker 1: they bred a certain type of horse. They selected it
Speaker 1: in a certain type of horse called the piebald horse. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I have a tuxedo catos. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: curious about how that happens. I'm gonna look into that.
Speaker 1: That's classy. Yeah, classy tuxedo cat. That's right. Well that's
Speaker 1: it for albinism. Huh. That's it. If you want to
Speaker 1: learn more about albinism, you should go out and do that.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to learn, um. And you could do
Speaker 1: worse than starting at um Frontiers for Kids on their
Speaker 1: Albanism article, because it's a pretty good one, and then
Speaker 1: just go from there. Uh. And since I said just
Speaker 1: go from there, it's time for a listener mail. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is short and sweet. We got called out on
Speaker 1: something and whenever we get something wrong, we certainly like
Speaker 1: to uh and and not just a correction on a
Speaker 1: fact or something. But when we get something wrong that
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have gotten wrong, then we like to call
Speaker 1: attention to it and we try and do better. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is from Natalie from California. I wanted to start
Speaker 1: out with saying a big fan of the show, found
Speaker 1: it during lockdown and made a big difference from my
Speaker 1: boredom level as levels while working from home. But I
Speaker 1: was a bit disappointed guys listening to the child chillibus
Speaker 1: kidnapping as multiple times you guys implied that not being
Speaker 1: able to spell means that you're not smart. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you're totally right, Natalie. I didn't even think about that,
Speaker 1: but Uh, Natalie says, I'm an adult with dyslexia and
Speaker 1: I cannot spell, but save my life, in spite of this,
Speaker 1: I'm a highly intelligent and successful adult. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: fairly able us to correlate ability to spell with overall
Speaker 1: intelligence and I expect more. And Natalie, you are totally right,
Speaker 1: and that is on us and big apologies. We uh
Speaker 1: did not think that one through. No, indeed, we definitely
Speaker 1: we weren't trying to throw any shade on people with
Speaker 1: dyslexia at all, of course not. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: another thing like we all learn as we go through life,
Speaker 1: and when you learn on the air, it can be
Speaker 1: a little embarrassing sometimes. Just that's what we do as
Speaker 1: a job and so we we take that. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: was that from Natalie. Yeah, yeah, thank you for for
Speaker 1: that one, Natalie. We appreciate it. And if you have
Speaker 1: something you want to call us out on, we'll we'll
Speaker 1: take it and you can address it to stuff podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.