January 15, 2009 • 16 mins
Redheads are supposedly fiery, passionate people, but is there any truth to these stereotypes? Find out what studies have to say about redheads -- and if they'll really go extinct soon -- in this HowStuffWorks podcast.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and I am Chuck Bryant. Hey, Chuck.
(00:21):
How's that? It was good? Good? Yeah, I'm working on
my radio thing. I like it. Your voice is smooth?
So is good? Smooth? Is spider smelt? Spider silk spun
from goats milk? Nothing? How's that right? So? Um? As
you know, I am a huge fan of Dr Werner
(00:41):
hobber Mill. I did know that, did you? Yeah? But
I don't think any of anyone else did. Wow. I
had never told anybody that before. Is it that obvious?
I just had a sense it's my T shirt? Isn't right? Well?
For those of you who don't know who Dr harber
Mill is, he is a sex researcher at the Universe
City of Hamburg in Germany. Hello Germany. Uh and um
(01:05):
Dr hopper Mill Uh did a study that I read
about recently on the Daily Mail. So basically I'm just
letting it all hang out here. I followed the careers
of clinical sex researchers, and I read the Daily mail. Um,
but there there was a study he he did that
I ran across um where he compared the sex lives
(01:28):
of redheads with the sex lives of brunettes and blonds.
And he found just statistically speaking, he he didn't really
actually sadly, he did pose uh an idea of why
because the case. We'll get to that in a second.
But he he found that redheads um have a noticeably
(01:49):
act much more active sex life than any other people
with any other hair color. Interesting, and the thing that
that kind of got me was that, um, the same
goes for people who die their hair red. And and
get this, uh, the the esteem doctor said that women
(02:09):
who are in a committed relationship and dye their hair red,
that is a really big red flag to the guy.
Oh that they may be stepping out there looking right.
Yeah yeah, So Emily ever done that? Uh yeah she
she she went red a little for for a time.
What was this? I think it was before we were married. Okay, yeah,
(02:35):
right exactly. You're like, I knew my kid looked like
the male man. Yeah, so um, this is what what
were you getting at here? Well? Here, you're ready? So
so the doctor basically says, well, redheads have a fiery
temperament and and they're they're very passionate, which is just
so it is, and it's not necessarily true. And the
(02:58):
more I looked into it, the more I lies that
redheads are among the most maligned and stereotyped people of
any hair colored, redheaded, blonde's the phrase red headed stepchild,
redheaded step child. Um. Did you know also that there
was a uh there actually twice there's been this this
(03:20):
big news cycle about redheads going extinct. Yeah, I've heard
about that two thousand five and two thousand seven, which
is not true. No, we just should say that right away. No,
there was one in two thousand seven. That's the most
recent one that that said that. Um, the Oxford Hair Institute,
which sounds so official. Um, it's said that that redheads
(03:40):
will be extinct by twenties sixty, right, because of the
recessive gene that carries red hair. In theory that could
that could die out. Do you want to get into genetics?
Do you uh prefer not to, but I think we
have to. Let's do it. Okay, let's just give a
brief overview redheads are. That's a phenotype. It's a it's
(04:00):
a physical trait. You can see it, you can you
can sense it. Um, they're they're genotype. The genetic trait
that that makes them red heads is this, Uh, it's
a recessive gene. It's a mutation in the MC one
our gene. Yes, and that is the melanocortin one receptor gene. Okay,
So the m c R one gene is responsible for
(04:22):
a certain pigment productions, and red heads actually uh overproduce
a red pigment called THEO melanin, and that which gives
them their red hair, and they underproduce you melanin EU melanin,
which uh gives them a pale skin. It's a darker brown.
(04:43):
It's a it's a brown pigment, right, which is underproduced.
And it's actually a genetic mutation it is. Did you
know that? Okay? So, like you said, it's also receptive, recessive,
which means it can skip generations and uh then reappear
you know, much later. Yeah, you or I could actually
have a mutated m c R one gene. And although
(05:07):
neither one of us has red hair, we'll never know
until we have kids with red hair. If either one
of us comes up with a kid with red hair,
it means that you and your wife both had this
recessive gene, it got together and the kid had to
have this mutated gene because of the the chromosomal contributions
by the parents. It means infidelity. Again. Yeah, it depends,
(05:29):
you know, I mean it could have It could have been.
It depends on what Emily did back when she dyed
her hair red, right, although you probably know by now
right if she had a child. Yeah, yeah, I've been
around the whole time. Okay, alright, So, um, so they
are not becoming extinct. Not true, No, they could, though
it would take something on the order of an evolutionary bottleneck, which,
(05:50):
as we all know, um would basically make all of
us mouth breathers because all the rampant familial inbreeding that
would it would take to you know, expand the genetic pool. Again,
it's entirely possible if everybody who had the recessive UM gene,
the MCR one mutation, um, if all of them died out,
(06:12):
there goes redheads. Technically, that's the case with everything exactly now.
There there may be a higher likelihood in an evolutionary bottleneck,
or it might take a less of an evolutionary bottleneck
for redheads to die out because they are it is
rare um. But yeah, they're They're definitely gonna be around beyond. Yeah.
(06:33):
I know quite a few redheads myself. So do I
know virtually none. I'm actually trying to think right here.
I can't come up with a single redhead. Yeah, I know, couple.
Actually we don't have anyone on staff either, do we.
This is gonna drive me crazy. Well, of course Candice
are old partner. Forget I don't know she's she really is.
And you know what, she kind of proves the good
(06:54):
doctors stier. She's fiery, she's spunky girl. She definitely is
is Okay, So redheads are gonna be around for a while,
including Candice, I imagine. Yes, And uh they they are
as as we said, my very shaky thesis for this
podcast are much maligned. I've got another piece of supporting
(07:14):
evidence that redheads are often mistreated. Yes, I know where
you're going here, do you? Yeah? Okay, so you want
to tell him about this this study. Yeah, it turns
out that and this is a cool little fact that
you can share with your friends and family. Redheads actually
require more anesthetic when undergoing surgery. Yeah, and apparently the
medical establishment, especially among anesthesiologists and an esthetist. Uh, this
(07:39):
is common knowledge, but there hadn't been an actual study
quantifying this before two thousand two, and these University of
Louisville researchers conducted this kind of UM are cruel, little archaic, maybe, Yeah.
When I read this, I thought there's got to be
a better way to find this out, but you know,
(07:59):
maybe the not. Yeah, So what we're talking about was, UM,
this this Louisville study, they took twenty female subjects um,
ten brunettes, I believe, ten redheads. All of them were
on virtually the same menstrual cycle, which ruled out any
hormonal explanation for for this, because apparently UM hormones can
contribute to your susceptibility or rejection of anesthesia. And um,
(08:25):
they gave them all the gas. They gave him what
is a desk flurane um, which is a general anesthetic gas.
And they knocked these women out and then they got
medieval on their asses. They used I looked at I
looked this up. They used bilateral intradermal needles to deliver
the electric shocks. So basically they were poking these women
(08:47):
with needles and delivering shocks, electric shocks into their body
to see if they would react and feel pain. Yeah,
because when you're when you're unconscious, it's much different from
from sleeping. When you're unconscious, your pain gateway is shut down.
Just why they do it for surgery. You don't want
someone digging into your chest cavity and be able to
feel it. Right, And it's it's it's it's a different
state and actually scary enough. We don't fully understand how uh,
(09:11):
anesthesia works on the brain. We don't know enough about
the brain. We just kind of know it works. You know,
we've figured out, I guess through trial and error patients
dying left and right, what the what the right ratio
is for the average person. Right, it's a tough job.
Very Oh, it's yeah, have the highest insurance premiums and
they also make some pretty good coin definitely. Yeah. So
(09:34):
if you're thinking of trying to get into the medical field,
you want to make a bunch of money, go anesthesia
and redheads. Exactly. So okay, let's get back to this.
So they're they're sitting there um delivering shocks to these
redheads and actually brunettes. Everyone in the UM in the
study was treated equally cruelly. And um, they're they're delivering shocks,
(09:58):
and and they they would decrease the gas or increase
the gas depending on the reaction until they stopped getting
pain reactions. So then the other really kind of startling
aspect of the study was that one of the researchers
described the shocks as um intolerable to a conscious person. Right,
(10:19):
So these weren't like little like oh I just like
the nine volt battery. These are electric shocks that you
would be like, you know, you'd come at somebody who
did this to you and you can move. So they
just keep shocking them over and over again. And then
they wrote down, you know, the ratios, and they came
up with, as you said, redheads need more on average, Yeah,
(10:40):
which is pretty substantial. It is substantial. But I mean,
what's what's what's the deal? Why? Well, before we move
on to that, just quickly, I wanted to point out
that another study a couple of years later, UM said
that the same thing happened in men. So if you're
a man out there, you're gonna need some extra gas.
It's not just for women. But because we don't know
exactly how anesthesia works, we don't know exactly why this
(11:02):
is true. Yeah, we they've just finally linked it, right,
they said there is a link, but we're not exactly
why that link is there. Well, which is the MC
one our gene, which is what we were talking about earlier.
That that that that genotype has been linked directly to
anesthesia for the first time exactly, So why what? What
(11:23):
are some of the uh, some of the reasons they've
they've given, Well, yeah, they don't know for sure, but um,
they have one explanation that, um, that gene is also
involved in hormones that stimulate pain receptors, which would make
sense kind of obvious route if you ask me. Uh,
and there I believe that another one that said that
the pigments themselves actually cause an increase in pain sensitivity. Yeah.
(11:46):
I think that was the one where they said, there's
a there's it's such an abundance of this pigment things
like to go bind to other things in our body,
and um, they're they're looking for something. Maybe they're the
pain receptors in the brain are um similar to the
to the pain receptors that these pigments would normally attached
(12:08):
to so it overstimulates the brain makes more sensitive to pain. Yeah. Yeah,
so either way, if you're a redhead, I feel bad
for you. I don't. I don't like pain. Yeah, but
being red heads kind of cool. It's like being left handed.
I wish I was a left handed redhead. Wow. Instead
I'm just a right handed burnette. I know. We're just
kind of average guys, are average average dudes. There. There
(12:30):
actually is one other good thing that came out of
this this study. Um it may actually spur development of
um a kind of anesthesia that's taylored just for redhead's. Interesting.
That's called pharmacogenetics. You heard of this, Yeah, okay, So
it's basically designing drugs to tailoring them to somebody based
(12:53):
on their genetic makeup. Right, that makes sense. It does
make sense, like it would. It definitely falls into that
controversy about genetic testing, though, doesn't it. You know, so
it's kind of a fine line, like keep red heads
out of pain, or you know, choose only blonde haired,
blue wide children in the future. Right, the boys from
Brazil eventually weird, you know what I would call that
(13:14):
if they actually do manufacture. This what they call it
red gas. Nice, That's what I call it. Nice. Yeah,
you couldn't call it red death would be you'd have
a terrible market share when red gas is pretty good. YEA, Well,
look for red gas in the future. Um And if
you want to know more about red heads and anesthesia extinction,
(13:34):
that kind of stuff, you can type those words in
in any kind of clever combination in our handy search
bar at how Stuff Works dot com. And don't go anywhere,
because Chuck's got something for you. I think it's called
listener mail. Listener mail time. See Josh, We're back here
mere seconds later. And um, I have an exceptional listener
(13:57):
mail here. This is what I've titled it. And keep
a little folder of exceptional mail. And I've been holding
onto this one for a while. And you might remember
this from our buddy Greg Storkin who wrote us at
top ten. Remember that, Oh yeah, this is one of
our first mask So I'm gonna give this. I'm gonna
give Greg his too. I'm not gonna read all ten,
but he basically wrote a top ten reasons why he's
(14:19):
obsessed with stuff you should know. So I'm just gonna
go over a few of my favorites. Uh, you purposely
leave early for work and then take side streets along
the way, simply to have more time to listen to
your new episode. So this guy's further in his commute. Uh.
You hum the jazzy theme song as you go about
your day, which I do as well. You have more
fun learning from Josh and Chuck than you did from
(14:40):
your super hot organic chemistry professor, which is awesome. A
little piece of you dies when you hear the theme
music fade back in signaling the end of the episode.
It's pretty sad. And his number one reason was you
have a full fledged man crush on Josh and Chuck.
And we bring this up because we've had, oddly quite
a few men write us and say they have man
(15:02):
crushes and we're super hot organic chemistry teachers. It's just
just weird. But the man crushed phenomenon is is a
real thing. I know you have quite a few bromance Yeah,
I know, Actor John Leguizamo. You're very hot for him.
I don't like to talk about it. And one day
that I will meet John Leguizamo, I'm not really holding
out hope. I don't want to touch him or anything.
(15:23):
It's more just like being next to him, you know
what I'm saying, to have him like punch me in
the store and be like, Hey, Josh, how's it going.
I think that's what a man crushes. It really means.
It's what you want to do, is you want to
go out and have a beer with this, Like I
have a tremendous man crush on George Clooney. Yeah, because
I want to go hang out with George Clooney and
talk about basketball and drink a beer. You know, you
know it's underrated these days, but there is such things
platonic law. Yeah, if he kissed me, I wouldn't. That's
(15:45):
not platonic. Yeah, but I wouldn't. It's George Clooney. It
would be a good story. It depends on how forceful
a kiss was, right, true, and how shading he like, Well,
if you wanna tell Chuck or I about your recent
romance or who you have am and crush on, or
you want to send us a top ten list, and
by the way, Greg, you can't expect a T shirt
(16:05):
for that top ten list, but definitely send us to
your size and your mailing address. Uh to the email
address for button to give. Actually, you've already got it,
so just send it again, will you? And if you
want to send us one for the first time, you're
not quite certain who to address it to, what email
address you need to ship it off to? You want
to send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works
(16:28):
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot com brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and I am Chuck Bryant. Hey, Chuck.
(00:21):
How's that? It was good? Good? Yeah, I'm working on
my radio thing. I like it. Your voice is smooth?
So is good? Smooth? Is spider smelt? Spider silk spun
from goats milk? Nothing? How's that right? So? Um? As
you know, I am a huge fan of Dr Werner
(00:41):
hobber Mill. I did know that, did you? Yeah? But
I don't think any of anyone else did. Wow. I
had never told anybody that before. Is it that obvious?
I just had a sense it's my T shirt? Isn't right? Well?
For those of you who don't know who Dr harber
Mill is, he is a sex researcher at the Universe
City of Hamburg in Germany. Hello Germany. Uh and um
(01:05):
Dr hopper Mill Uh did a study that I read
about recently on the Daily Mail. So basically I'm just
letting it all hang out here. I followed the careers
of clinical sex researchers, and I read the Daily mail. Um,
but there there was a study he he did that
I ran across um where he compared the sex lives
(01:28):
of redheads with the sex lives of brunettes and blonds.
And he found just statistically speaking, he he didn't really
actually sadly, he did pose uh an idea of why
because the case. We'll get to that in a second.
But he he found that redheads um have a noticeably
(01:49):
act much more active sex life than any other people
with any other hair color. Interesting, and the thing that
that kind of got me was that, um, the same
goes for people who die their hair red. And and
get this, uh, the the esteem doctor said that women
(02:09):
who are in a committed relationship and dye their hair red,
that is a really big red flag to the guy.
Oh that they may be stepping out there looking right.
Yeah yeah, So Emily ever done that? Uh yeah she
she she went red a little for for a time.
What was this? I think it was before we were married. Okay, yeah,
(02:35):
right exactly. You're like, I knew my kid looked like
the male man. Yeah, so um, this is what what
were you getting at here? Well? Here, you're ready? So
so the doctor basically says, well, redheads have a fiery
temperament and and they're they're very passionate, which is just
so it is, and it's not necessarily true. And the
(02:58):
more I looked into it, the more I lies that
redheads are among the most maligned and stereotyped people of
any hair colored, redheaded, blonde's the phrase red headed stepchild,
redheaded step child. Um. Did you know also that there
was a uh there actually twice there's been this this
(03:20):
big news cycle about redheads going extinct. Yeah, I've heard
about that two thousand five and two thousand seven, which
is not true. No, we just should say that right away. No,
there was one in two thousand seven. That's the most
recent one that that said that. Um, the Oxford Hair Institute,
which sounds so official. Um, it's said that that redheads
(03:40):
will be extinct by twenties sixty, right, because of the
recessive gene that carries red hair. In theory that could
that could die out. Do you want to get into genetics?
Do you uh prefer not to, but I think we
have to. Let's do it. Okay, let's just give a
brief overview redheads are. That's a phenotype. It's a it's
(04:00):
a physical trait. You can see it, you can you
can sense it. Um, they're they're genotype. The genetic trait
that that makes them red heads is this, Uh, it's
a recessive gene. It's a mutation in the MC one
our gene. Yes, and that is the melanocortin one receptor gene. Okay,
So the m c R one gene is responsible for
(04:22):
a certain pigment productions, and red heads actually uh overproduce
a red pigment called THEO melanin, and that which gives
them their red hair, and they underproduce you melanin EU melanin,
which uh gives them a pale skin. It's a darker brown.
(04:43):
It's a it's a brown pigment, right, which is underproduced.
And it's actually a genetic mutation it is. Did you
know that? Okay? So, like you said, it's also receptive, recessive,
which means it can skip generations and uh then reappear
you know, much later. Yeah, you or I could actually
have a mutated m c R one gene. And although
(05:07):
neither one of us has red hair, we'll never know
until we have kids with red hair. If either one
of us comes up with a kid with red hair,
it means that you and your wife both had this
recessive gene, it got together and the kid had to
have this mutated gene because of the the chromosomal contributions
by the parents. It means infidelity. Again. Yeah, it depends,
(05:29):
you know, I mean it could have It could have been.
It depends on what Emily did back when she dyed
her hair red, right, although you probably know by now
right if she had a child. Yeah, yeah, I've been
around the whole time. Okay, alright, So, um, so they
are not becoming extinct. Not true, No, they could, though
it would take something on the order of an evolutionary bottleneck, which,
(05:50):
as we all know, um would basically make all of
us mouth breathers because all the rampant familial inbreeding that
would it would take to you know, expand the genetic pool. Again,
it's entirely possible if everybody who had the recessive UM gene,
the MCR one mutation, um, if all of them died out,
(06:12):
there goes redheads. Technically, that's the case with everything exactly now.
There there may be a higher likelihood in an evolutionary bottleneck,
or it might take a less of an evolutionary bottleneck
for redheads to die out because they are it is
rare um. But yeah, they're They're definitely gonna be around beyond. Yeah.
(06:33):
I know quite a few redheads myself. So do I
know virtually none. I'm actually trying to think right here.
I can't come up with a single redhead. Yeah, I know, couple.
Actually we don't have anyone on staff either, do we.
This is gonna drive me crazy. Well, of course Candice
are old partner. Forget I don't know she's she really is.
And you know what, she kind of proves the good
(06:54):
doctors stier. She's fiery, she's spunky girl. She definitely is
is Okay, So redheads are gonna be around for a while,
including Candice, I imagine. Yes, And uh they they are
as as we said, my very shaky thesis for this
podcast are much maligned. I've got another piece of supporting
(07:14):
evidence that redheads are often mistreated. Yes, I know where
you're going here, do you? Yeah? Okay, so you want
to tell him about this this study. Yeah, it turns
out that and this is a cool little fact that
you can share with your friends and family. Redheads actually
require more anesthetic when undergoing surgery. Yeah, and apparently the
medical establishment, especially among anesthesiologists and an esthetist. Uh, this
(07:39):
is common knowledge, but there hadn't been an actual study
quantifying this before two thousand two, and these University of
Louisville researchers conducted this kind of UM are cruel, little archaic, maybe, Yeah.
When I read this, I thought there's got to be
a better way to find this out, but you know,
(07:59):
maybe the not. Yeah, So what we're talking about was, UM,
this this Louisville study, they took twenty female subjects um,
ten brunettes, I believe, ten redheads. All of them were
on virtually the same menstrual cycle, which ruled out any
hormonal explanation for for this, because apparently UM hormones can
contribute to your susceptibility or rejection of anesthesia. And um,
(08:25):
they gave them all the gas. They gave him what
is a desk flurane um, which is a general anesthetic gas.
And they knocked these women out and then they got
medieval on their asses. They used I looked at I
looked this up. They used bilateral intradermal needles to deliver
the electric shocks. So basically they were poking these women
(08:47):
with needles and delivering shocks, electric shocks into their body
to see if they would react and feel pain. Yeah,
because when you're when you're unconscious, it's much different from
from sleeping. When you're unconscious, your pain gateway is shut down.
Just why they do it for surgery. You don't want
someone digging into your chest cavity and be able to
feel it. Right, And it's it's it's it's a different
state and actually scary enough. We don't fully understand how uh,
(09:11):
anesthesia works on the brain. We don't know enough about
the brain. We just kind of know it works. You know,
we've figured out, I guess through trial and error patients
dying left and right, what the what the right ratio
is for the average person. Right, it's a tough job.
Very Oh, it's yeah, have the highest insurance premiums and
they also make some pretty good coin definitely. Yeah. So
(09:34):
if you're thinking of trying to get into the medical field,
you want to make a bunch of money, go anesthesia
and redheads. Exactly. So okay, let's get back to this.
So they're they're sitting there um delivering shocks to these
redheads and actually brunettes. Everyone in the UM in the
study was treated equally cruelly. And um, they're they're delivering shocks,
(09:58):
and and they they would decrease the gas or increase
the gas depending on the reaction until they stopped getting
pain reactions. So then the other really kind of startling
aspect of the study was that one of the researchers
described the shocks as um intolerable to a conscious person. Right,
(10:19):
So these weren't like little like oh I just like
the nine volt battery. These are electric shocks that you
would be like, you know, you'd come at somebody who
did this to you and you can move. So they
just keep shocking them over and over again. And then
they wrote down, you know, the ratios, and they came
up with, as you said, redheads need more on average, Yeah,
(10:40):
which is pretty substantial. It is substantial. But I mean,
what's what's what's the deal? Why? Well, before we move
on to that, just quickly, I wanted to point out
that another study a couple of years later, UM said
that the same thing happened in men. So if you're
a man out there, you're gonna need some extra gas.
It's not just for women. But because we don't know
exactly how anesthesia works, we don't know exactly why this
(11:02):
is true. Yeah, we they've just finally linked it, right,
they said there is a link, but we're not exactly
why that link is there. Well, which is the MC
one our gene, which is what we were talking about earlier.
That that that that genotype has been linked directly to
anesthesia for the first time exactly, So why what? What
(11:23):
are some of the uh, some of the reasons they've
they've given, Well, yeah, they don't know for sure, but um,
they have one explanation that, um, that gene is also
involved in hormones that stimulate pain receptors, which would make
sense kind of obvious route if you ask me. Uh,
and there I believe that another one that said that
the pigments themselves actually cause an increase in pain sensitivity. Yeah.
(11:46):
I think that was the one where they said, there's
a there's it's such an abundance of this pigment things
like to go bind to other things in our body,
and um, they're they're looking for something. Maybe they're the
pain receptors in the brain are um similar to the
to the pain receptors that these pigments would normally attached
(12:08):
to so it overstimulates the brain makes more sensitive to pain. Yeah. Yeah,
so either way, if you're a redhead, I feel bad
for you. I don't. I don't like pain. Yeah, but
being red heads kind of cool. It's like being left handed.
I wish I was a left handed redhead. Wow. Instead
I'm just a right handed burnette. I know. We're just
kind of average guys, are average average dudes. There. There
(12:30):
actually is one other good thing that came out of
this this study. Um it may actually spur development of
um a kind of anesthesia that's taylored just for redhead's. Interesting.
That's called pharmacogenetics. You heard of this, Yeah, okay, So
it's basically designing drugs to tailoring them to somebody based
(12:53):
on their genetic makeup. Right, that makes sense. It does
make sense, like it would. It definitely falls into that
controversy about genetic testing, though, doesn't it. You know, so
it's kind of a fine line, like keep red heads
out of pain, or you know, choose only blonde haired,
blue wide children in the future. Right, the boys from
Brazil eventually weird, you know what I would call that
(13:14):
if they actually do manufacture. This what they call it
red gas. Nice, That's what I call it. Nice. Yeah,
you couldn't call it red death would be you'd have
a terrible market share when red gas is pretty good. YEA, Well,
look for red gas in the future. Um And if
you want to know more about red heads and anesthesia extinction,
(13:34):
that kind of stuff, you can type those words in
in any kind of clever combination in our handy search
bar at how Stuff Works dot com. And don't go anywhere,
because Chuck's got something for you. I think it's called
listener mail. Listener mail time. See Josh, We're back here
mere seconds later. And um, I have an exceptional listener
(13:57):
mail here. This is what I've titled it. And keep
a little folder of exceptional mail. And I've been holding
onto this one for a while. And you might remember
this from our buddy Greg Storkin who wrote us at
top ten. Remember that, Oh yeah, this is one of
our first mask So I'm gonna give this. I'm gonna
give Greg his too. I'm not gonna read all ten,
but he basically wrote a top ten reasons why he's
(14:19):
obsessed with stuff you should know. So I'm just gonna
go over a few of my favorites. Uh, you purposely
leave early for work and then take side streets along
the way, simply to have more time to listen to
your new episode. So this guy's further in his commute. Uh.
You hum the jazzy theme song as you go about
your day, which I do as well. You have more
fun learning from Josh and Chuck than you did from
(14:40):
your super hot organic chemistry professor, which is awesome. A
little piece of you dies when you hear the theme
music fade back in signaling the end of the episode.
It's pretty sad. And his number one reason was you
have a full fledged man crush on Josh and Chuck.
And we bring this up because we've had, oddly quite
a few men write us and say they have man
(15:02):
crushes and we're super hot organic chemistry teachers. It's just
just weird. But the man crushed phenomenon is is a
real thing. I know you have quite a few bromance Yeah,
I know, Actor John Leguizamo. You're very hot for him.
I don't like to talk about it. And one day
that I will meet John Leguizamo, I'm not really holding
out hope. I don't want to touch him or anything.
(15:23):
It's more just like being next to him, you know
what I'm saying, to have him like punch me in
the store and be like, Hey, Josh, how's it going.
I think that's what a man crushes. It really means.
It's what you want to do, is you want to
go out and have a beer with this, Like I
have a tremendous man crush on George Clooney. Yeah, because
I want to go hang out with George Clooney and
talk about basketball and drink a beer. You know, you
know it's underrated these days, but there is such things
platonic law. Yeah, if he kissed me, I wouldn't. That's
(15:45):
not platonic. Yeah, but I wouldn't. It's George Clooney. It
would be a good story. It depends on how forceful
a kiss was, right, true, and how shading he like, Well,
if you wanna tell Chuck or I about your recent
romance or who you have am and crush on, or
you want to send us a top ten list, and
by the way, Greg, you can't expect a T shirt
(16:05):
for that top ten list, but definitely send us to
your size and your mailing address. Uh to the email
address for button to give. Actually, you've already got it,
so just send it again, will you? And if you
want to send us one for the first time, you're
not quite certain who to address it to, what email
address you need to ship it off to? You want
to send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works
(16:28):
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot com brought to you
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are
you
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.