WEBVTT - Can people really die of fright?

0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840
<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.600
<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know

0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:16.560
<v Speaker 1>from House Stuff Works dot com? Boom, Hello, welcome to

0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:21.840
<v Speaker 1>the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck. We're all together now, yeah,

0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.079
<v Speaker 1>the stuff you should know nation as one together. But

0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.320
<v Speaker 1>this is special time. It is I like it, Chuck. Um.

0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.720
<v Speaker 1>Have you ever been scared, like really truly like about

0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.159
<v Speaker 1>to lose your life? Scared? No, thankfully, but you know

0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:42.080
<v Speaker 1>who has multiple occasions. Our producer Jerry has uh been

0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.120
<v Speaker 1>scared to the point like she was an elevator once

0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.000
<v Speaker 1>that started to fall. I think you should create you

0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:50.239
<v Speaker 1>should describe that a little for a little better. This

0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.160
<v Speaker 1>is the in Atlanta that is an outdoor elevator made

0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:57.320
<v Speaker 1>of glass. You see everything and what your five hundred

0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.160
<v Speaker 1>seven hundred stories up? So yeah and go ahead, chucked

0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.240
<v Speaker 1>well and the elevator was dropping and it caught, so

0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:05.440
<v Speaker 1>she thought she's gonna die. Then she's been held up

0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:09.600
<v Speaker 1>at gunpoint, which was scared her to death, and she

0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:12.199
<v Speaker 1>was in a storm in a boat one time where

0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.720
<v Speaker 1>she feared for her life. So Jerry and she has

0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.120
<v Speaker 1>to deal with us every week. So but at least

0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.880
<v Speaker 1>she's been to the Bahamas before, assuming she made it,

0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:23.319
<v Speaker 1>so I haven't. But Jerry is. She teeters on the

0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.520
<v Speaker 1>edge of death constantly. So you know, I can tell

0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.080
<v Speaker 1>you that, Um. While Jerry was she's cool as a cucumber,

0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.880
<v Speaker 1>by the way, to to everybody who who hasn't met her, UM,

0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.560
<v Speaker 1>but I can tell you she was still there were

0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.400
<v Speaker 1>some things going on with her physiologically, whether she liked

0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.120
<v Speaker 1>it or not. Right specifically, she was under the iron

0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:48.120
<v Speaker 1>fist of one of our favorite things in human physiology,

0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.360
<v Speaker 1>fight or flight. It's our favorite thing. Chuck, give a

0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:53.200
<v Speaker 1>brief overview of fight or flight. I know we've talked

0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:55.840
<v Speaker 1>about before, but sometimes we have latecomers. You know. Well,

0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:57.840
<v Speaker 1>it's you know, it's a physical reaction. Your body goes

0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:03.800
<v Speaker 1>through your adrenaline surges. Uh, people's dilate breathing fast. That

0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:05.880
<v Speaker 1>was a high coup. That was a high coup right there.

0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.120
<v Speaker 1>Holy cow, you're good. Adrenaline, like I said, pumping through

0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:12.120
<v Speaker 1>your veins and all of a sudden, it's literally a

0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:14.799
<v Speaker 1>physical chemical reaction in your body. What happens, though, is

0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:20.280
<v Speaker 1>the threat leaves and things calm down. UM. Usually ideally, well,

0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.000
<v Speaker 1>what one of the one of the ways that all

0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:27.040
<v Speaker 1>these reactions start happening is through adrenaline. It acts on

0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.440
<v Speaker 1>things like your myo cardial tissue, your heart tissue, uh

0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.520
<v Speaker 1>and basically says, work faster, work harder. It makes your

0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:38.359
<v Speaker 1>veins constrict to maximize blood flow. Um and and basically

0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:40.679
<v Speaker 1>adrenaline is flowing throughout your body and it's just got

0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:42.720
<v Speaker 1>you really jacked up, really keyed up. So are either

0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.560
<v Speaker 1>gonna run or fight? Right? As you said, the thing

0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:51.240
<v Speaker 1>is is there is a conception, um among most lay

0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:55.919
<v Speaker 1>people that you could conceivably, if this happened to you, uh,

0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.720
<v Speaker 1>in a sudden enough fashion, you could conceivably be scared

0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.520
<v Speaker 1>to right, scared to death, not scared half to death.

0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.960
<v Speaker 1>And as just as a sidebart, let me say that

0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:07.320
<v Speaker 1>makes no sense whatsoever. Scared half to death. And I

0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.919
<v Speaker 1>researched to find the background on that and I couldn't

0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.080
<v Speaker 1>find any. But you can't be half dead. Clearly, it's

0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.080
<v Speaker 1>you're alive or you're dead. You're dedicated to your craft

0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.000
<v Speaker 1>and apparently see everything in black and white, So kudos

0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.240
<v Speaker 1>to you. Yeah. So okay, Well, basically what we're what

0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.200
<v Speaker 1>we're talking about is called sudden death. Can you be

0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.520
<v Speaker 1>scared to death? Right? Um? Sudden death is basically, uh,

0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:31.920
<v Speaker 1>it doesn't necessarily have to have to do with just

0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.600
<v Speaker 1>fear only it could be panic or um actually relief

0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:39.120
<v Speaker 1>to you. Could you can conceivably experience such a sense

0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.320
<v Speaker 1>of relief that you're you could have organ failure usually

0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.360
<v Speaker 1>sudden death. What the the the definition of it is

0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.640
<v Speaker 1>where basically somebody who is otherwise healthy just drops dead.

0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:51.080
<v Speaker 1>Most of the time it has to do with heart

0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:56.280
<v Speaker 1>cardiac arrest or or um some sort of infarction, right um.

0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.960
<v Speaker 1>And this is not supposed to happen. Is the weird thing?

0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.800
<v Speaker 1>I mean, well to you or I it makes sense,

0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.120
<v Speaker 1>you know, like you get scared to die? Um. Medical

0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:10.480
<v Speaker 1>science doesn't generally take too much for granted. It likes

0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.440
<v Speaker 1>to say, well, yeah, okay, this, this is related to this,

0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.480
<v Speaker 1>but what are the points in between? Right? And there's

0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.680
<v Speaker 1>actually an emerging field. It's called neuro cardiology. Have you

0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.960
<v Speaker 1>heard about this? There is a guy and his name

0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:29.279
<v Speaker 1>is doctor Martin Samuel's and he is often called the

0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:33.720
<v Speaker 1>death doctor. And he is this leading proponent of neuro cardiology,

0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:36.680
<v Speaker 1>is kind of the father of it. And uh, from

0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.239
<v Speaker 1>what I gather he doesn't do too much research because

0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.159
<v Speaker 1>the problem is this is a this could very easily

0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:46.400
<v Speaker 1>become an unethical field. Yeah, it's kind of hard to

0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:48.799
<v Speaker 1>perform a study and say, all right, we're gonna scare

0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.920
<v Speaker 1>you really badly and if you're still alive afterward, we're

0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.080
<v Speaker 1>going to make some notes on that, and if not,

0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:56.680
<v Speaker 1>then thank you for your time, and here's you. And

0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:00.640
<v Speaker 1>even more to Dr Samuel's credit, he refuses to um

0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.240
<v Speaker 1>test on animals for ethical reasons. So basically he's just

0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.680
<v Speaker 1>having to collect anecdotal evidence. Whenever he can get his

0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.040
<v Speaker 1>hand on a heart um from somebody who's experienced sudden death,

0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.200
<v Speaker 1>he likes to do that, I'm quite sure. And one

0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.919
<v Speaker 1>of the things that he's found, and this is actually

0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:22.320
<v Speaker 1>a well known um uh symptom of stress uh, and

0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:27.560
<v Speaker 1>that is um contraction bands along the heart UM. They

0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.640
<v Speaker 1>look like little red stripes. And basically what it is

0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.839
<v Speaker 1>the adrenaline is come in in such a concentrated form

0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.200
<v Speaker 1>or in such an amount because of this huge fear

0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.400
<v Speaker 1>response or whatever UM that it's just destroyed cells. It's

0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.320
<v Speaker 1>just blown them out, and so you've got lesions formed

0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.480
<v Speaker 1>along your heart tissue, not good to have and actually,

0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:54.159
<v Speaker 1>um unsurprisingly UH, this has shown up in cocaine users

0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.320
<v Speaker 1>as well. UM, so you can have you can can

0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.880
<v Speaker 1>you can create contraction bands along your heart from drug

0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.320
<v Speaker 1>abuse or from being scared. The thing is, it's like

0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.000
<v Speaker 1>when you come out of it, you're you're not like,

0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.320
<v Speaker 1>oh my heart hurts. You know that you can't tell.

0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.560
<v Speaker 1>And apparently if this happens enough, over time, the heart

0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:16.080
<v Speaker 1>becomes weak and stops functioning properly. Interesting. It is interesting stuff,

0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:20.360
<v Speaker 1>and there's actually um there again we should say, uh.

0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.159
<v Speaker 1>Neuro cardiology is something of an emerging field. UM, so

0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.200
<v Speaker 1>they're still trying to get as much proof as they can.

0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:30.279
<v Speaker 1>I found another unrelated study that found that UM, the

0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:36.960
<v Speaker 1>prevalence of contraction bands in UM accident victims, the the

0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.960
<v Speaker 1>the degree and the severity of contraction bands actually uh

0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:46.320
<v Speaker 1>increases the longer time. The longer the time between the

0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.039
<v Speaker 1>accident and between death goes by. So your heart's just

0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.960
<v Speaker 1>pumping and your adrenaline is flowing. But then you die.

0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.040
<v Speaker 1>So if you just die immediately, you don't your your

0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.240
<v Speaker 1>your body doesn't have time to release that it tryingly

0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:01.320
<v Speaker 1>create contractions. So there's a clear link. But queen adrenaline

0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.160
<v Speaker 1>and contraction bands. And we do know that something like

0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.919
<v Speaker 1>fear can release adrenaline, right, yeah, uh you know, like

0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:09.800
<v Speaker 1>you were saying earlier with this doctor, it's you can't

0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.880
<v Speaker 1>ethically perform a test like this, but what you can

0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.600
<v Speaker 1>do is you can look at statistics and things like

0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:17.680
<v Speaker 1>that over time. And a couple of people have done this.

0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:19.560
<v Speaker 1>The one, the one I like to call it the

0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:24.280
<v Speaker 1>Baskerville Effect from the famous Hound of Baskerville's Sir author,

0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.200
<v Speaker 1>Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a physician himself. What

0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:30.600
<v Speaker 1>a mouthful, uh he was. And in the Hound of

0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.200
<v Speaker 1>Baskerville's one of the main characters has a heart attack

0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.640
<v Speaker 1>because they were scared by a ghostly dog that haunted

0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:39.960
<v Speaker 1>the area. So I've always I've read that many many

0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.520
<v Speaker 1>years ago. I've always been ghostly dog. It's not that

0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:48.360
<v Speaker 1>scary ghost person. Scary Yeah dog, scary ghost dog, not scary.

0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.800
<v Speaker 1>So uh. One the one I liked was China and

0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.840
<v Speaker 1>China and Japan. Actually the number four is supposed to

0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.000
<v Speaker 1>be unlucky. Yeah, we've talked about that before. We have,

0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.960
<v Speaker 1>indeed in our Terrible Terrible Friend of podcast. You're being harsh,

0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:07.920
<v Speaker 1>um and apparently in in China and Japan the number

0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.520
<v Speaker 1>four is unlucky because its pronunciation is similar to the

0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.480
<v Speaker 1>word for death, first of all. And so what they

0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.760
<v Speaker 1>did was they studied uh some data over the course

0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:22.640
<v Speaker 1>pretty expansive data, yeah, twenty five years, and they looked

0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.080
<v Speaker 1>at the death certificates of about two hundred thousand Chinese

0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.760
<v Speaker 1>and Japanese people over that period. And then they had

0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:32.560
<v Speaker 1>a control group of forty seven million, uh, white folks

0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.520
<v Speaker 1>like you and I. And what they found was the

0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:40.200
<v Speaker 1>mortality was indeed higher for the fourth of the month

0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.560
<v Speaker 1>compared to the white control group in China and Japan. Yeah,

0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:48.760
<v Speaker 1>people with chronic heart disease UM they saw a increase

0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.840
<v Speaker 1>in deaths on the fourth of any given month UM

0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.240
<v Speaker 1>and for people who were in the hospital with with

0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.320
<v Speaker 1>heart problems, there was a forty seven percent increase compared

0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:04.440
<v Speaker 1>to UM any the white control control group is interesting.

0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.080
<v Speaker 1>So you you obviously, as we covered in that Terrible

0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.560
<v Speaker 1>Friday the thirteenth podcast, um we we we said that

0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.040
<v Speaker 1>you know, there's not a lot to it, but that

0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.840
<v Speaker 1>doesn't mean there's no fear associated with it, right, right,

0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.240
<v Speaker 1>So it's entirely possible that you know, these people are

0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.040
<v Speaker 1>are already suffering from heart problems. But you know, the

0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:24.800
<v Speaker 1>fourth of the month rolls around there a little more

0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.840
<v Speaker 1>jacked up the calendar. You know, they're there, yeah, there,

0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.920
<v Speaker 1>there's They're just a little more vulnerable than other days

0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.520
<v Speaker 1>of the month. So it would be kind of um

0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.199
<v Speaker 1>self initiated and Chuck, I know you're hot and heavy

0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.440
<v Speaker 1>for another study about sudden death, aren't you. Yeah, there's

0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:44.520
<v Speaker 1>a good one. Um. Remember the earthquake in north Ridge

0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.840
<v Speaker 1>and in southern California. Yeah, how could I forget six

0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.000
<v Speaker 1>point seven on the Richter scale? Was it? I didn't

0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.440
<v Speaker 1>even know that? Good for you? On a normal day

0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.240
<v Speaker 1>in l A, there's about five sudden deaths, which we

0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:59.800
<v Speaker 1>talked about, Um, when the north Ridge earthquake hit, there

0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:05.040
<v Speaker 1>were twenty four sudden deaths that day, big spike almost

0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.679
<v Speaker 1>five times. And a few of these they linked to

0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.200
<v Speaker 1>physical exertions, you can throw those out, But most of

0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:14.040
<v Speaker 1>these were actually attributed to the you know, tremendous fright

0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.319
<v Speaker 1>caused by the earthquake. And the average agent was a

0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.719
<v Speaker 1>little bit high, sixty eight years old. But only of

0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.439
<v Speaker 1>these people had any kind of heart disease previously in

0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.719
<v Speaker 1>the past so there was genuine sudden death, even though

0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.040
<v Speaker 1>they were a little bit on the old side. So that's,

0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.560
<v Speaker 1>you know, again pretty clear link, right. But of course

0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:38.200
<v Speaker 1>correlation is not causation, and so neurocrdiologists like Dr Martin

0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.280
<v Speaker 1>are gonna keep looking into it. Um. And actually one

0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.840
<v Speaker 1>other thing, all of this is based on something called

0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.480
<v Speaker 1>voodoo death. Have you heard about that? I have Walter Cannon. Yeah,

0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.680
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen forty two, he he wrote a paper, um,

0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:54.720
<v Speaker 1>and basically he said that there was a lot more

0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.040
<v Speaker 1>prevalence of sudden death in places where voodoo was practiced.

0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:00.960
<v Speaker 1>And he went on to postulate that this was because

0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.800
<v Speaker 1>people believed in voodoo and and and um, that kind

0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.440
<v Speaker 1>of mysticism so much that when they were led to

0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.440
<v Speaker 1>believe that they had just been hexed or should be

0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:14.720
<v Speaker 1>dead under voodoo practices, um, they actually did die. Um.

0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.000
<v Speaker 1>In some cases they died because they wouldn't drink food

0:11:18.080 --> 0:11:21.160
<v Speaker 1>or water because they thought it was poisoned by so

0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.640
<v Speaker 1>they died of that. But some of them also died

0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.640
<v Speaker 1>of sudden death as well. And that's actually the basis

0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.080
<v Speaker 1>of all of this. The Hound of the Basker bill

0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.160
<v Speaker 1>is sure, but really as far as medical science goes um.

0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.280
<v Speaker 1>It was Cannon who first really started looking at sudden death,

0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.760
<v Speaker 1>and it continues today, and it still will continue because

0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:42.800
<v Speaker 1>we like to know why we die. We can try

0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.440
<v Speaker 1>to stop it. And Canon was a Harvard physiologist, so

0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.200
<v Speaker 1>he's he wasn't some fly by night crap, but no,

0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:50.480
<v Speaker 1>he was definitely one worth listening. There was another thing

0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.880
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to talk about have you here, which is, uh,

0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.360
<v Speaker 1>have you ever heard of someone supposedly their hair turning

0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.199
<v Speaker 1>white overnight because of fear? Sure I have of that.

0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:03.800
<v Speaker 1>Not quite true. That's a bit of an urban myth

0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.360
<v Speaker 1>from what I could tell the just just send it

0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:08.480
<v Speaker 1>to his chick. We we both did some research here,

0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:13.320
<v Speaker 1>and uh, apparently fear and stress and that kind of

0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.240
<v Speaker 1>emotion can cause your hair to turn white. But there's

0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.719
<v Speaker 1>no way it could happen overnight. It would cause a

0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.880
<v Speaker 1>change of metabolic function. I think, um, that that could

0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.960
<v Speaker 1>turn your hair a different color or make it lose

0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.520
<v Speaker 1>its color. Right, yeah, okay, but there is a way

0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.920
<v Speaker 1>it can turn gray, um, seemingly overnight, but it's not

0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:35.119
<v Speaker 1>from from fear. What that's called is diffuse alopecia areata.

0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.520
<v Speaker 1>It's like selective hair loss. Right. Yeah, basically that's a

0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.240
<v Speaker 1>sudden hair loss um, which can happen overnight. But um,

0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:46.080
<v Speaker 1>the biochemistry of alopecia isn't that well understood. So if

0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:47.920
<v Speaker 1>you have a mix of dark and gray hair or

0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.440
<v Speaker 1>white hair, the uncolored hair is less likely to fall out.

0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.160
<v Speaker 1>So theoretically you could wake up with a lot less

0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.240
<v Speaker 1>hair and the only hair that sticks around is white.

0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.520
<v Speaker 1>So it's a bad morning, yeah, but it's that's not

0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.920
<v Speaker 1>quite this same thing as being scared scared white? Right. Also,

0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.240
<v Speaker 1>even if if it could change your hair color, which

0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.280
<v Speaker 1>were not entirely certain it could, it would only do

0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.080
<v Speaker 1>it from the scalp down. Everything that is out of

0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.600
<v Speaker 1>your head, like your fingernails, your well, not fingernails. If

0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:16.920
<v Speaker 1>you have fingernails growing out of your head, you have

0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.319
<v Speaker 1>much bigger problems in your hair being white. But um,

0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.800
<v Speaker 1>anything that's coming off of your body, fingernails, um, your

0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.960
<v Speaker 1>hair that those are dead cells. It's dead. So there's

0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:29.240
<v Speaker 1>no change that could could take place aside from maybe

0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:31.000
<v Speaker 1>a flow be going over them. Right, what do you

0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:35.400
<v Speaker 1>mean scalp down? Now, the scalp towards your skull, under

0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:41.640
<v Speaker 1>the skin subdermal head of a cat. Uh, So this

0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:45.040
<v Speaker 1>entire podcast is based on one of my favorite articles

0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.280
<v Speaker 1>on the site right now. It's called can You Really

0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:49.920
<v Speaker 1>Scare Someone to Death? It was written by our esteem

0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:54.839
<v Speaker 1>colleague Molly Edmonds, who not only has uh this article

0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.959
<v Speaker 1>to be proud of, she and another colleague of ours

0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:01.320
<v Speaker 1>who we love very much, Kristen Can, just launched their

0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.560
<v Speaker 1>own podcasts. They called stuff Mom Never Told You. You

0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.360
<v Speaker 1>can find that on iTunes, alongside ours and a bunch

0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:11.760
<v Speaker 1>of other how Stuff Works podcasts um at our homepage.

0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.400
<v Speaker 1>On iTunes, you can just type in how stuff works

0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.560
<v Speaker 1>is one word in the iTunes search bar room, and

0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:19.800
<v Speaker 1>you can also type all sorts of cool things into

0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.440
<v Speaker 1>the search bar at how stuff works dot com, including

0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.280
<v Speaker 1>can you really scare someone? In debt? But now Josh,

0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:27.680
<v Speaker 1>it's still not over there? Or goodness in the form

0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.600
<v Speaker 1>of you people aren't going anywhere. It's listener mail, times mail,

0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:35.560
<v Speaker 1>so listener mail. I've got quite a few today. These

0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.400
<v Speaker 1>are things that we've titled stuff we should Know, not

0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:43.280
<v Speaker 1>necessarily corrections, although some are. We did the podcasts on Commas,

0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.600
<v Speaker 1>which got a lot of good response from Yeah, we

0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.120
<v Speaker 1>were kind of worried about that. If I remember correctly, yeah,

0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:49.600
<v Speaker 1>we didn't want to treat it lightly. And we actually

0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:51.640
<v Speaker 1>had people who had family members and commas and they

0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.200
<v Speaker 1>thought we'd were respecting, which went a really long way too.

0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.280
<v Speaker 1>That was huge actually. But in that podcast we mentioned

0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.200
<v Speaker 1>the film Diving Bell and Butterfly, and I had seen

0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.400
<v Speaker 1>the movie and I said something about, um, the main

0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.760
<v Speaker 1>character was was able to uh. I think I said

0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:10.040
<v Speaker 1>he used Yeah, that he used a computer and looked

0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.360
<v Speaker 1>at the keys of the computer to write his memoir.

0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.320
<v Speaker 1>Not true at all. What he what he did was

0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:19.000
<v Speaker 1>he blinked the letters to someone who who transcribed this

0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.960
<v Speaker 1>book for him and it was a really basically the

0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:24.640
<v Speaker 1>main part of the film. And I can't explain why

0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.520
<v Speaker 1>I didn't remember that so for a while. So we

0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:35.280
<v Speaker 1>need to thank Kendra Wallpi of Philadelphia and Tita of Montreal, Canada.

0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.160
<v Speaker 1>I especially would like to thank whoever sent the computer

0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:42.360
<v Speaker 1>device in quotes, which apparently we called it and then

0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:46.120
<v Speaker 1>sent us the Wikipedia link um, which you know right, great,

0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:50.440
<v Speaker 1>Thank you, And Jesse Aiden of Vienna, Austria sent that

0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:55.680
<v Speaker 1>in So another quickie hypo allergenic cats, Josh, you've goofed

0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:59.280
<v Speaker 1>up and said that created a new species. Not true.

0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.720
<v Speaker 1>Not true is not a new species. It was a

0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:06.120
<v Speaker 1>new breed. And we got quite a few people, Philip Fast,

0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:10.600
<v Speaker 1>Scott Ruddick, Matt we Abou of Boston, j Scott Brunig

0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:16.520
<v Speaker 1>who is from Princeton University, Jamie vander Ratt of Saskatchewan, Canada,

0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.080
<v Speaker 1>and actually put this in the form of a hiku,

0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:23.960
<v Speaker 1>which is ain't speciation because they can interbreed. Still, I

0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:28.560
<v Speaker 1>learned a lot beautiful uh and I'm sorry a quick

0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.960
<v Speaker 1>when just came in before we recorded Keyshore the Lowdika.

0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.760
<v Speaker 1>Two more quickies, I'm sorry one more quickly. Yeast is

0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.160
<v Speaker 1>a fungus from our Moonshine podcast. I think you said

0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:45.120
<v Speaker 1>something about this plan and all of our biology friends said, no,

0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:50.240
<v Speaker 1>it's a fungus, and West Sivak, Brian Ray, Sam S

0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.000
<v Speaker 1>and John Salter told us all that it was, in

0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:57.040
<v Speaker 1>fact the fungus fantas amungus. Thank you all of you. Um, well,

0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.960
<v Speaker 1>we'll try to, you know, not screw up quite as much.

0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:01.800
<v Speaker 1>But if not, what would you have to write to

0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.679
<v Speaker 1>us about? So keep them coming right, Yes, keep us

0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.000
<v Speaker 1>diligent and uh, if you want to learn a little

0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:12.440
<v Speaker 1>more about Friday right. Other superstitions Urban Legends. You got

0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.119
<v Speaker 1>a great article on that, right, There's a lot more

0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.880
<v Speaker 1>on the Friday thirteenth article there, Yes, yeah, there is. Um.

0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.119
<v Speaker 1>You just go on to our handy search bar start

0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.879
<v Speaker 1>randomly typing letters, or you could make a more specific

0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.720
<v Speaker 1>search and type in Friday thirteenth or urban legends, something

0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.280
<v Speaker 1>like that, and you can do that at how stuff

0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:34.879
<v Speaker 1>works dot com for more on this and thousands of

0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:40.400
<v Speaker 1>other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com brought

0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.639
<v Speaker 1>to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready,

0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:44.240
<v Speaker 1>are you