Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren A bogle Bomb here. Question, what all
Speaker 1: do astronauts, modernly traditional brides, American author Tom Wolf, and
Speaker 1: some people trying to keep cool in hot weather have
Speaker 1: in common? Answer? They all wear white, and that's probably
Speaker 1: what all they have in common, but you never know anyway.
Speaker 1: The sartorial thinking is this, fabrics of the lightest colors
Speaker 1: force all the solar heat fighting its way to our
Speaker 1: skin to just reflect away instead, where dark fabrics, the
Speaker 1: idea goes, and you're stuck with that heat. Is it
Speaker 1: greedily absorbs into the fabric and causes you to swelter
Speaker 1: in your own clothes. But white clothing will cheerfully bounce
Speaker 1: that solar heat right off, and you'll be more comfortable
Speaker 1: on a hot day. But while all that certainly sounds
Speaker 1: great in theory, there are a few other factors at
Speaker 1: play that might be working against the light clothing adage.
Speaker 1: At the very least, there is some compelling evidence in
Speaker 1: the form of a real, true scientific study that says
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Let's start with some research published in
Speaker 1: night in the journal Nature titled why the Bedouins wear
Speaker 1: black robes and hot deserts. The researchers were curious about
Speaker 1: the fact that in oppressive heat, the residents of the
Speaker 1: Sinai Desert wear billowing black robes instead of say white
Speaker 1: or maybe a pretty pale lavender. What they found was
Speaker 1: when they tested white robes versus black, and note that
Speaker 1: they did this by having some poor guy stand out
Speaker 1: in the heat while recording temperature, the differences were nil.
Speaker 1: They found that the black clothing did more to absorb heat,
Speaker 1: but that's where it stayed. In other words, the black
Speaker 1: soaks up additional heat, but that extra is law by
Speaker 1: the time it actually gets to your skin. A way
Speaker 1: more useful for keeping cool, however, was the fact that
Speaker 1: the robes are loose and billowing to allow air flow.
Speaker 1: There's also a concept that the whole light clothing argument
Speaker 1: is missing a key element the person who's wearing the clothes,
Speaker 1: meaning that the heat your body radiates will reflect off
Speaker 1: of white clothing as readily as heat from the sun does,
Speaker 1: bouncing back to your body and actually keeping you toastier.
Speaker 1: Not a bad theory, but it's not been tested on humans.
Speaker 1: It's only been studied in birds with white plumage, and
Speaker 1: that with mixed results. So the answer is it doesn't
Speaker 1: make a huge difference whether you're wearing black or white
Speaker 1: in hot weather as long as you choose loose, breathable
Speaker 1: clothing either way. Today's episode is based on the article
Speaker 1: should you wear light colored clothes and hot weather to
Speaker 1: stay cool? On how stuff works dot com written by
Speaker 1: Kate Kirshner. Brain Stuff is production of i Heeart Radio
Speaker 1: in partnership with how stuff works dot Com and is
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
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Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.