0:05

Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name

0:07

is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's

0:10

Saturday. Time to go into the Vault. This time

0:12

we'll be picking up with part two of last

0:14

week's Vault episode, The Winter People.

0:16

Part two. This originally aired December, and

0:21

uh, here it is for you again in case he didn't

0:23

catch you last time.

0:27

Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from

0:29

how stuff dot com.

0:37

Hey you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name

0:39

is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're

0:41

back with part two of our discussion of the Winter

0:44

People, the way in which animal existence

0:46

and especially human existence is seasonally

0:49

bifurcated, and the way the seasons really

0:51

warp in command who and what we are

0:53

now. Last time, we talked about traditional

0:56

cultural beliefs and practices around wintertime.

0:59

Uh so, we talked the amazing winter

1:01

ceremonials of the Quakwa Kawak people

1:03

of the Pacific Northwest and North America.

1:06

But we wanted to talk about some other cultural beliefs

1:08

about wintertime changes to the human

1:10

being. Yeah, we were

1:12

kind of casting about for something that if

1:15

it felt felt appropriate to to bring up because

1:17

there are no shortage of winter traditions.

1:19

But we we lead with such a fantastic

1:22

example in the first episode, it felt

1:24

intimidating to try and come up with something of

1:26

of equal weight. Now, one thing you could bring up

1:29

is, of course, the traditions like the huga.

1:31

This became very popular, was it? Last year?

1:33

The year before? There were suddenly all these articles

1:35

on the internet about uh huga

1:38

and all these related concepts, especially

1:40

in you know, uh northern polar

1:43

Uh, not always polar, but northern types

1:45

of countries and cultures where they're they

1:47

have special words for getting cozy

1:50

when it's really cold and bad weather outside.

1:52

Yeah, this is interesting because I mean obviously

1:55

here in the States people do like to

1:58

to snug up and they be binge,

2:00

watched some Netflix or what have you. I

2:03

have a little hot cocoa during the colder

2:06

months or something fulfilling about that.

2:08

I hear they eat pumpkin pie. Have you heard

2:10

about this the

2:12

Americans? Like? Okay,

2:15

I mean I didn't know there are songs about it. I

2:17

assume it's true. Which song? Which song is about

2:19

eating pumpkin There's something about you

2:21

throw a log on the fire and coffee

2:23

and pumpkin pie. I'm vaguely

2:26

connecting to something from another life, all right

2:28

though. I just have a lot of questions for people

2:30

who eat pumpkin pie outside of established

2:33

holidays. Yeah, which you're the ones

2:35

is Thanksgiving and when, Well,

2:37

you can have it for Christmas, but I mean you kind

2:39

of been in the rules, right, But then mostly

2:42

it is a Thanksgiving pie. It's a delicious Thanksgiving

2:44

pie, but it's I don't know, I wouldn't

2:46

feel comfortable eating it. Fill the time of

2:48

the year. Filling from a can, crust from

2:50

a can, well, yeah, you have to use the filling

2:52

from the can because it doesn't matter, because

2:55

the because

2:57

ultimately the pumpkin is just a vehicle for

2:59

the of the nutmeg and the spice flavoring.

3:01

Yeah, and the sugar. Yeah. But no, despite

3:04

all the coziness traditions, some cultures

3:06

apparently have this special word

3:09

for the coziness seeking tradition,

3:11

and other cultures don't really. I mean,

3:13

English, as far as I know, doesn't have a word

3:16

like hugo, and I think that's why it suddenly

3:18

became so popular in the English speaking

3:20

part of the Internet. Yeah, and of course it's important

3:22

to realize that coziness during the winter months

3:25

is is something of a luxury.

3:27

Uh and uh. This led me to

3:30

seek out a possible example in a

3:33

wonderful book that I hadn't looked at in many

3:35

years, And that's Barry Lopez's

3:39

six book Arctic Dreams, Imagination

3:41

and Desire in a Northern Landscape

3:43

which is just which is just full of beautiful descriptions

3:46

of life in the far North. For

3:48

instance, he shares the following just about

3:51

the flow of seasons in general.

3:53

Quote in summer, in the sometimes

3:56

extravagant light of a July day,

3:59

one's thoughts are not of growth of

4:01

heading wheat and yellowing peaches, but

4:03

of suspension, as if life had

4:05

escaped the bounds of earth in

4:07

this country, which lacks the prolonged moderations

4:10

between winter and summer that we anticipate

4:12

as balmy April mornings and dry Indian

4:14

summer afternoons. In this two season

4:17

country, things grow and die,

4:19

as they do everywhere, but they are

4:22

more deeply than living things anywhere

4:24

else, seasonal creatures. And

4:26

he goes on later in the book to

4:28

to bring up this concept

4:31

of the polar Eskimo people that

4:34

is called purlar or neck. He

4:36

says, quote winter darkness

4:38

brings on the extreme winter depression

4:40

the polar Eskimo called parlor

4:43

neck. According to the anthropologist

4:45

Gene the Mallari, the word means

4:47

to feel quote the weight of life, to

4:50

look ahead to all that must be accomplished,

4:52

and to retreat to the present, feeling

4:54

defeated, weary, before starting a

4:56

core of anger and miserable sadness.

4:59

It is to be sick of life,

5:01

a man named Amina told

5:03

Millari. The victim tears fitfully

5:05

at his clothes. A woman begins aimlessly

5:08

slashing at things in the igloo with their knife.

5:10

A person runs half naked into the bitter,

5:12

freezing night, screaming out at the village,

5:15

eating the poop of dogs. Eventually

5:17

the person is calmed by others in the family

5:19

with great compassion and helped

5:21

to sleep. Pro Laura neck winter.

5:24

And I have to say he did not say poop. He

5:27

used a stronger curse word that we can't

5:29

say on the show. But I felt

5:31

compelled to self at it there So, as Lopez

5:34

describes it, does it seem like the idea

5:36

is that sort of the farther you go

5:38

up north or I guess toward either

5:40

of the poles, but especially because you know they're more

5:43

people are more concentrated towards the North Pole

5:46

than in like Antarctica, that

5:48

sort of the weight of the seasons

5:50

becomes more unbearable.

5:53

Yeah, that that seems to be the point he's he's

5:55

making here, and it just has to do with the fact that

5:57

you essentially have two seasons, one of life and one

5:59

of death, one of one of hardship

6:01

and one of well, I guess less hardship.

6:04

Uh. It's it's certainly an impressive concept.

6:07

And uh. It again brings to mind

6:09

accounts of say that the alleged wind

6:12

to go madness that you uh, you

6:14

hear about in uh in northern

6:17

native populations. However,

6:20

we have to point out here that not everyone is

6:22

on board with this being a true

6:24

part of pre colonial traditions and beliefs

6:26

among Native peoples of North America.

6:29

Yeah. According to Canadian scholar

6:31

who uh and scholar who specializes

6:33

in the study of First Nations people, John

6:36

Steckley, in his book White

6:38

Lies about the Inuit, he says this idea

6:41

of Arctic hysteria is

6:43

backed up by case studies, but it was

6:45

most frequently touted in the nineteen

6:48

sixties through the eighties by

6:50

anthropologists such as Jean Mallari and

6:52

others, and he points out that historian

6:54

Lyle Dick suspects, just as Stickley

6:57

himself concurs, that it's quote

7:00

more likely the creature of the white

7:02

Inuit power imbalance embodied

7:04

in specific contexts unquote, such

7:06

as forced risky explorations

7:09

during the winter, So forcing the

7:11

native peoples to, among other things, take you

7:14

out into hostile winter conditions

7:16

when their their normal pattern

7:18

of behaviors would have limited such

7:22

risky measures. So that makes sense

7:24

to me. And it has

7:26

also been suggested that there's a possible

7:29

physical explanations for

7:31

this kind of Arctic madness. Can be found in hyper

7:33

vitaminosis ah, such as

7:35

when you consume a polar bear liver exactly,

7:38

and you can and it's something you can also pick. It's most

7:40

famous for the polar bear liver. We've talked about it before

7:43

in the show as far as

7:45

polar bear liver consumption is concerned,

7:47

But you can also get it from

7:49

consuming a number of different um uh

7:52

hunted animals in these

7:54

regions, So that's one possibility

7:57

as well. So I think the take home here is that as

8:01

fascinating as the concept is, and

8:03

certainly as beautifully as Lopez wrote

8:05

about it uh in an Arctic

8:07

Dreams, it seems like it

8:09

may be a situation

8:12

that is, it is somewhat

8:14

complicated by the impact

8:16

of colonial Western society

8:19

upon the traditions of the native

8:21

people's. Well, it certainly illustrates the way

8:23

in which our reactions to the seasons

8:26

are both sort of

8:28

endogenous and exogenous, like that they

8:31

come from both inherent factors

8:33

in in the climate and in

8:36

uh, you know, physical constraints around

8:38

us that arrive when the winter months set in,

8:40

but they're also heavily tempered by what cultural

8:43

pressures were having to deal with. So

8:45

like a society of abundance is probably going to have

8:47

very different cultural ways

8:49

of dealing with winter than a society of scarcity

8:52

would, and all kinds of cultural

8:54

factors like that would play in. Certainly, of

8:56

course, if you're you know, being colonized,

8:58

that's definitely going to a act what a season of hardship

9:01

means for you. Indeed, all right, well, we

9:03

need to take a quick break, and then when we come back we

9:05

will talk more about winter changes

9:07

in winter adaptations thank

9:10

you. Thank Alright, we're back. Okay,

9:12

So, Robert, we have discussed how we

9:14

are not constant beings but sort

9:16

of like seasonal shape shifters. There

9:19

are so many ways that culturally,

9:22

that psychologically, that metabolically,

9:25

our bodies respond to the changes in

9:27

the seasons in a way that it

9:29

might be hard to beat out of us, even though we've

9:31

got all these nice climate controlled indoor

9:33

places to dwell. Now our bodies

9:36

are surfing the cycles of time. Now, there is

9:38

one way in which the changes of

9:40

the seasons affect us much more directly

9:42

and immediately, and that's by

9:44

being cold. Apart from, you know,

9:46

the vitamin D deficiency you might get from

9:49

shorter days, and the way it might affect

9:51

the way you eat and affect your

9:53

your metabolism and even affect your behavior

9:56

and your dating and your desire for meaning

9:58

and things like that, it also

10:00

is just freezing outside. Now.

10:03

It's no secret that exposure to cold can

10:05

hurt or kill you. But did

10:07

you ever wonder why they

10:09

are? Like? Several ways you can answer this question.

10:12

One is pretty straightforward and mechanical.

10:14

It's that the body has mostly liquid

10:17

content. I like to think of that

10:19

this sometimes like whenever you're feeling a little

10:21

bit down on yourself, you just think like, hey,

10:24

I'm a bag of fluids doing okay

10:26

for a bag of fluids. Yeah, and if

10:28

you if you were to freeze me solid, then

10:31

a single Jean Claude van Damn kick

10:33

could shatter you. And well, in fact,

10:35

if you were to freeze me solid, just

10:37

the act of freezing me solid would sort of shatter

10:39

me because when liquid freezes,

10:42

it can form ice crystals, which cause

10:44

damage to the body's tissues, to the cells,

10:46

to the cell membranes. But here's

10:49

another way to think about it. Animal

10:51

life is characterized by two main

10:53

physical characteristics. I'd

10:55

say motion and chemical reactions,

10:58

and cold slows down both

11:00

of these things. So cooks

11:02

out there. I wonder if you ever tried to, like

11:05

mash up some spinach art to choke

11:07

dip with a cold block of

11:09

cream cheese, Robert, do you

11:11

have any comparable experience? Uh?

11:13

No, I do not. It's impossible. I

11:16

means you're just like work in your

11:18

arm, and you've gotta you've gotta be some kind of like hydraulic

11:21

press type creature in order to achieve it.

11:23

A similar thing would be if you're into baking, and

11:25

you ever tried to like whip something with cold

11:27

butter, it's just a bad

11:29

idea. And likewise, if if

11:31

you've ever tried to trigger a chemical reaction

11:34

like lighting a fire when it's freezing

11:36

cold outside, not so easy.

11:39

The body needs to be warm, so it's

11:41

mechanical motions are kind of lubricated

11:43

and squishy, and it also needs to

11:45

be warm, so it's chemical reactions have enough energy

11:48

to take place. But not

11:50

all bodies are like this. There are creatures

11:52

in this world that can literally freeze

11:55

almost entirely solid and

11:57

thaw out and survive. So

12:00

I want to mention one example, the wood

12:02

frog Lithabades sylvaticus,

12:05

found throughout the forests of Canada and the

12:07

northern United States. So this

12:09

is a frog that survives the harsh

12:12

winter of northern Canadian forests.

12:15

How would it do that? Well, what

12:17

you'll notice it does is that when the cold

12:19

north winds set in sometime around September,

12:22

these frogs crawl down and nestle

12:25

in some dead plant matter like some leaf

12:27

litter, dead grass, and then

12:29

they literally freeze almost

12:31

entirely solid. About two thirds of

12:33

their bodies water content turns

12:36

into ice. And even temperatures as

12:38

low as zero degrease fahrenheit won't

12:40

kill them. And then when warm weather comes

12:42

back, they thaw out, they hop away unharmed.

12:45

Uh. Speaking to the l A Times, the herpetologist

12:47

Don Larson said, quote, on an organismal

12:50

level, they are essentially dead. The

12:53

individual cells are still functioning,

12:55

but they have no way to communicate with

12:57

each other. So you might be

13:00

ondering how do they do this? Well, the body

13:02

essentially manufactures cryoprotectant

13:05

chemicals. It looks like glycogen

13:07

in the frog's liver gets converted into

13:10

glucose, which keeps the frog's

13:12

individual cells alive throughout the freeze.

13:14

And then also uriah, which is the nitrogen

13:17

based crystalline compound you excrete in

13:19

your urine, might also play a role. Uria

13:21

came up a little bit earlier when we were talking about

13:24

cold protection. But Larson points out

13:26

this thing that's not known, but it's an interesting

13:28

possibility. He points out that freezing

13:31

alive might not just be a survival

13:33

mechanism, but that could actually be beneficial

13:36

to an animal that wanted to rid itself

13:39

of parasites. Oh this is so good.

13:41

I mean, we we we see

13:43

a similar cases. For instance,

13:45

where if you have frozen fish, you

13:48

know, you worry less about there being parasites

13:50

in the fish. And also if

13:52

you're worried about dust mites on one of

13:54

your child's prize stuffed animals,

13:57

you stick it in the freezer overnight and

13:59

that takes care of the mite. So all the dust

14:01

mights go to your frozen shrimp. Yeah. Well,

14:03

you know what's the difference between

14:05

a mite and a shrimp, really shrimp

14:10

hugettical bugs. So

14:12

yes, you've got the wood frog. But we've had another freezing

14:15

champion, even more hardy that I want

14:17

to mention, the red flat bark

14:19

beetle, which is kuka just clavipies.

14:22

Usually we would find them living under loose

14:24

bark in North American deciduous trees.

14:27

And I found a report from the University of Alaska,

14:29

Fairbanks that biologists Todd's formo

14:31

quote cooled the beetles in a lab

14:33

to minus seventy degrees celsius,

14:36

which is minus ninety four degrees fahrenheit,

14:38

and they did not die. And then there

14:40

was another experiment subsequently in California.

14:43

They could they found they could lower the temperature

14:46

of these beetles to minus a hundred

14:48

and fifty degrees celsius, which

14:51

is minus two hundred and thirty eight

14:53

degrees fahrenheit, colder than any

14:55

natural temperature on Earth. Without

14:57

freezing the beetles. That's incredib

15:00

Now, obviously our bodies are not like

15:02

this. We do not have such strong crier protectant

15:05

mechanisms, and freezing will definitely

15:07

injure or kill us. Direct exposure of

15:09

body parts to cold weather can lead to frostbite,

15:12

which has a simple explanation and a

15:14

more complex explanation. The simple

15:16

version is just that frost bite is when body

15:18

tissues freeze. The more complex

15:20

one is a little bit chemical. It's when ice

15:23

crystals form in the body tissues. It dehydrates

15:25

cells, causes damage to sell membranes.

15:28

Essentially, you don't want to let your outer body parts

15:31

freeze because there's sort of the point

15:33

of no return there. They don't come back. Yeah.

15:36

I feel like most of us have probably read various

15:38

accounts of explorers,

15:40

adventurers or refugees and

15:43

in really chilling environments and accounts

15:45

of frostbite where you realize

15:48

that is a it is a terrible

15:50

thing to have to experience. Yeah,

15:52

there's something especially disturbing about

15:54

it because it's almost like, um,

15:57

I don't know, just having like it's

15:59

like necrosis. You know, it's like there's a part

16:01

of the body that is dying or is dead,

16:03

but it's still attached to you. It's not like it's been

16:05

chopped off. It's just it's

16:08

still there and it's not working for

16:10

you. Yeah, it is in D and D terms

16:12

to chronic damage. Yeah. Uh

16:14

so, we obviously are not as hardy as bark

16:17

beetles, but we do have adaptive mechanisms.

16:19

And you'll see the first signs of the human body reacting

16:21

to cold weather really just within a few seconds

16:23

of exposure to sub thermo neutral temperatures.

16:27

So our skin has these thermo receptors

16:29

and the detect both absolute and relative

16:31

temperature differences, and they let us

16:33

know if the environment is too hot or too cold.

16:35

So when the body detects cold,

16:38

it begins to shunt blood away

16:40

from the extremities. You you probably feel

16:43

some sensation of this and kind of

16:45

you know, the numbness and all that when

16:48

the blood is being drawn away from the skin

16:50

and away from the arms and legs to keep

16:52

it closer to the vital organs like the

16:54

heart and the lungs. This is essentially

16:56

a choice to sacrifice the outer skin

16:58

and use it as a layer of insulation. By

17:01

keeping the blood away from the outside, the blood

17:03

stays warmer. Another defense mechanism

17:05

is runny nose. You ever wonder, like why

17:08

your nose runs in the cold? Uh?

17:10

So, cold air tends to be very dry

17:13

and of course very cold, and since you're

17:15

constantly pulling that dry air in through

17:17

the nose, when you breathe,

17:20

it dries out the exposed surfaces

17:22

within the nasal cavity and the nasal

17:24

cavity, one of the things it does when

17:26

you breathe through it is it warms the air

17:29

on the way down to your lungs. So, if you're

17:31

drawing in this really dry,

17:33

cold air that is not being appropriately

17:35

warmed inside the nose by your warm,

17:38

nice mucous layers in there and

17:40

drying out the inside of the nose, the

17:42

body tries to compensate, and so what

17:44

it does is it moisturizes these passages

17:47

by secreting mucous fluid, leading

17:49

to cold induced rhine a rhea, the

17:52

diarrhea of the nose. Yeah,

17:54

I spent a few years in my childhood

17:57

in Roddington, Newfoundland,

17:59

Canada, so we had pretty intense winters

18:02

up there. Uh so I have on one

18:04

hand, I have these really pleasant memories of scaling

18:06

giants snow banks and tunneling

18:08

through them. But I also have these persistent

18:11

memories of of wearing a full ski mask

18:13

that is at once warming but also

18:16

just soggy with

18:18

with snot you know, just

18:20

just partially frozen and partially

18:22

warmed, snot just covering the whole front

18:24

of the ski mask. You know. With exertion in

18:27

cold weather, one of the risk factors you need to

18:29

watch out for is that your clothes don't become

18:31

sweat soaked. Oh yeah, because

18:33

then though that sweat is going to cool

18:36

and then you're you're essentially freezing in your own

18:38

sweat. Yeah, no good. So

18:40

another thing we've all done it shivering.

18:43

It's one of the body's main defense mechanisms

18:45

against cold. The purpose seems to be to force

18:47

your muscles to generate extra heat.

18:50

Movement and friction tend to produce heat. If

18:52

you doubt this, just rub your hands together for

18:54

ten seconds. You'll feel them warm

18:57

up. And so the shivering is the body's

18:59

way of enlisting your muscle tissues is

19:01

a kind of emergency internal

19:03

space heater, forcing them to rapidly contract

19:06

and rhythmic patterns all over the body

19:08

and generate extra heat to keep your vital

19:10

organs and blood warm. Another adaptation

19:13

that seems to not really help very much

19:15

anymore goose bumps. Yes, you

19:17

ever wonder why, Like, what's

19:19

the point? It almost feels like when you get goose

19:22

bumps, the bumps are coming up on your

19:24

skin, which would seem to increase

19:26

the surface area of your skin, which

19:28

would make you get cold even faster. Well,

19:31

and then also it would seem to move body

19:33

hair away from the body. Yeah, it

19:36

was It's like, oh well, now this protective

19:38

layer of you know, barely visible

19:40

arm hair is not even touching

19:42

my arm anymore. But no, goose

19:45

bumps are believed to be a vestigial trait

19:47

from our recent ancestors who had much more

19:49

body hair than us, so when they got cold,

19:51

they could raise the hairs on their skin to

19:53

become extra fluffy and insulated.

19:55

And it's true that actually lower density

19:58

things are better insulated. 's right?

20:00

You notice that, like when you put insulation

20:02

in the walls in your house. It's not like

20:04

some tightly packed metal or

20:07

would kind of thing. It's this loose, fluffy

20:09

stuff because it

20:11

conducts heat less well, and

20:14

so that's essentially what your body is trying

20:16

to do. It remembers a time when

20:19

you your ancestors had much more hair,

20:21

and it's trying to fluff it up to become

20:23

less conductive of heat and to insulate

20:25

skin better from the cold. Now, of course we don't

20:28

have much of that hair anymore, but we still have

20:30

this reaction. So we get the bumps, but without

20:32

the insulation. Here's the seasonal fact.

20:35

I know you have heard what time of year

20:37

do people commit suicide the most? It's

20:40

winter, right, Yeah, well I believe that is

20:42

the That is sort of the common

20:44

idea that's out there. Yeah, I mean it sounds very

20:46

truthy. Yeah yeah, I mean we it's

20:49

it's it kind of goes back to the idea of arctic

20:51

madness. Right. It feels

20:53

appropriate like it gets a little cold here

20:55

in Atlanta and we start thinking, oh, this this

20:58

weather is driving me crazy. It's it's so

21:00

it's it's depressing me, or it's making me

21:02

behave radically, it makes me want

21:04

to just shut myself up in my home and

21:07

not encounter the outside world. Again. Yeah,

21:09

it makes your mind connect naturally to all

21:11

kinds of anecdotes that you have within,

21:13

you know, some part of your long term memory, stories

21:15

about what it's like to be in

21:18

the in the Antarctic research stations,

21:20

or or these stories about parlernarek

21:23

Um. But yeah, it turns out that this

21:25

very truthy sounding fact that more people

21:28

commit suicide in the winter is not in

21:30

fact a fact. It is a myth

21:33

and yearly suicide rates do not generally

21:35

peak in the winter, but they do appear to have

21:37

a seasonal peak, and it's not

21:39

in the winter, it's in spring and early

21:42

summer. So how

21:44

much more suicide is there in the spring, Well,

21:47

it varies a lot between societies. But according

21:49

to Fotus Papadopoulos, a professor

21:51

of psychiatry at Uppsala University in Sweden,

21:54

quote, if we take winter as a baseline,

21:57

there is a twenty to sixty higher

21:59

suicide side rate during spring. That's

22:01

a pretty big difference. I mean, that doesn't sound like noise.

22:04

That sounds like a real effect. Yeah, I

22:06

mean it. I'm hesitant

22:08

to try and

22:10

make too much sense out of it, you know, but

22:13

it does lend itself to interpretations

22:16

of Right, if the winter is about survival, then

22:19

what happens when you get to the other side of that survival?

22:21

It's like like managing to cross a rickety

22:24

bridge and you relieve that you made

22:26

it across that bridge without plummeting into the abyss.

22:28

But here you are on the other side, and you have

22:31

how many more leads to walk? You know? Um,

22:34

it's I can imagine

22:38

the other hardships of life kind of opening

22:40

up again for you in a new and

22:42

perhaps more profound way. Yeah, I can

22:45

see that too. Now, there have been scientific

22:47

attempts to look into what causes this spike

22:50

in spring and early summer for suicide

22:52

attempts. There was, for example, a massive

22:55

literature review combining

22:57

the findings of studies from nineteen seventy

23:00

nine until two thousand eleven that

23:02

had to do with seasonal variations in suicide

23:04

and that was by wu uh

23:06

Kusaga and Postolache

23:10

and in the International Journal of

23:12

Environmental Research and Public Health in in

23:16

the major findings uh were

23:19

Here are a few of them. I guess many

23:21

studies have replicated the finding of a

23:23

spring suicide peak roughly in the April

23:25

May June region of the calendar, and

23:28

this peak does not exist equally in

23:30

all populations, but shows up with varying

23:32

intensity among many or most.

23:34

There are also summer peaks for some populations.

23:37

In most studies, winter months actually have the

23:40

lowest rates of suicide of the entire

23:42

year, so when it's the coldest is when

23:44

suicide happens the least. Um

23:47

However, despite massive amounts of research,

23:49

the relationship between seasonal change and suicide

23:51

behavior is still not very

23:53

well understood, like what would cause

23:56

these seasonal variations. So here

23:58

are a few of the ideas that have been studied.

24:01

One of them is changes in sunlight and temperature.

24:03

Some studies seem to have demonstrated there's

24:06

actually a positive correlation between

24:08

suicide and exposure to sunlight.

24:11

That seems kind of counterintuitive, but

24:14

these findings are also disputed. However,

24:17

a peak in late spring and early summer would

24:19

correlate to the longest days of the year.

24:22

Also, this could be informed by findings that suicide

24:24

is more common among rural populations

24:26

than urban ones, and more common in outdoor

24:29

workers than indoor workers. It

24:32

also varies a lot by geographical region,

24:34

so spring peaks are found all over the place,

24:36

but are a varying intensity in different

24:39

countries. For example, there was a n study

24:42

that found a very narrow seasonal

24:44

fluctuation in Canada, so the

24:47

ratio of average spring to winter

24:50

suicide rates was one point zero

24:52

eight, so barely more in spring. But

24:55

in the same study in Portugal

24:57

the ratio was one point seven,

25:00

so you know, getting close to double

25:02

as many in spring. Here's

25:04

another really odd one. A series

25:06

of findings seemed to link suicide rates

25:08

to spring allergies and to

25:10

people with allergies. For example, one

25:13

of these studies was a two thousand four study that

25:15

found a correlation between the times of year

25:17

with peak suicide rates and the times

25:20

of year with the greatest concentration of allergenic

25:22

tree pollen in the air. And

25:25

that study was called tree pollen peaks are associated

25:27

with increased nonviolent suicide and

25:29

women. Now, while these changes show up in

25:31

a lot of countries, UH, there does seem

25:33

to be a flattening effect in recent

25:36

decades, Like while suicides

25:38

are still frequent, recent studies

25:40

in England, Wales, Hong Kong, Sweden,

25:42

and Denmark shows seasonal variation

25:45

on suicide rates. Uh. Really

25:47

flattening coming down, so there's not

25:49

as much variation from time of the year

25:51

to another time of the year. But in other

25:53

countries like Finland. In the United States, you

25:55

have a much more persistent seasonal pattern

25:58

still peaking in the spring. So

26:00

that just makes me think about the rural and an

26:03

urban distinction that you touched on earlier,

26:05

you know, like, maybe these are these are maybe

26:08

finling in the US. I mean, certainly there's a

26:10

urbanization going on in

26:12

in all major

26:14

Western cultures, but maybe

26:17

there's still enough of a rural base to

26:19

to support like an

26:22

uptick in rural environments. Yeah, a lot

26:24

of times people don't think to think

26:26

about suicide rates as like a public

26:28

health question, something that really should be

26:30

researched and understood, and if you can understand

26:33

the underlying causes and why and when

26:35

these things happen, that you could treat

26:37

it like a disease that can be treated and prevented.

26:40

Indeed, but to get back to the winter thing, the

26:42

winter suicide myth, I'd say that

26:45

is thoroughly busted. Not only is it not the

26:47

peak for suicide in the year, it is generally the

26:49

lowest time in the entire

26:51

year for suicide. And I wonder why

26:53

this myth is so persistent, because I think if

26:56

you'd asked me before I looked

26:58

into it, I would have thought, oh, yeah, yeah, winter time.

27:00

Well, I think part of it, especially here in the

27:02

United States and in other Western

27:05

countries, there's the link with the holidays,

27:07

with Christmas, with especially the modern

27:09

westernized American Christmas, where

27:11

it's all it's not as much about surviving

27:13

the winter, and it's more about this just

27:16

unrealistic level of happiness

27:19

that you're supposed to feel every time somebody

27:21

jingles a jingle bell uh and

27:23

and it rarely matches up with our experience

27:26

of life, much less wide life

27:29

during during the winter. I think that's exactly

27:31

right. I think that there there are two different

27:34

levels on which this myth is sticky. One

27:36

is the the sort of straightforward

27:38

truthiness feeling, which is that in the winter, it's

27:41

darker, it's colder, and we just associate

27:43

these atmospheric feelings with low

27:46

mood, and then we associate low mood

27:48

with things like suicide. But

27:50

then also there's the contrarian truthiness,

27:53

where we think, oh, it's you know, the time when

27:55

everybody's telling you to be happy, and actually

27:57

that's just making everybody more miserable, and

28:00

you're you're trying to get ready to for the holidays,

28:02

and this is leading to all this commercialism and stress

28:05

and having go to the shopping mall. And so

28:07

there's a sort of like fulk level gut

28:09

feeling that this is just driving everybody

28:11

nuts and making people miserable and unhappy.

28:14

Well, and it's also wrapped up in some of

28:16

the culture of our Christmas as well. I

28:18

mean, It's a Wonderful Life is one of our key

28:21

American holiday films, and

28:23

it is about a guy who is depressed

28:26

and contemplating suicide at Christmas.

28:28

Yeah, you forget that's a bridge jumping movie.

28:30

Yeah, but but on some level it's basically

28:33

letting it telling everybody, Hey, like, suicide

28:35

at Christmas is uh, it's

28:38

it's part of Christmas. It's in It's in the Christmas

28:40

movie that you're watching. So it's

28:44

Christmas as a as an American holiday

28:46

sent of some weirdly mixed messages.

28:48

Yeah, though, of course we should

28:50

say, no matter what time of year it is, if

28:52

you are having suicidal feelings or ideation,

28:55

you should reach out to somebody. You should talk to somebody,

28:57

let them know that's right. And hey, if

28:59

any in out there needs to make a call, you

29:01

can contact the National Suicide Preventional Lifeline

29:04

at two seven, three, eight

29:06

to five. Now here's a cold weather

29:09

question. Does true or false? Robert,

29:11

going out in cold weather can cause you to catch

29:13

cold? We hear this in all the time,

29:15

right God, in that cold you'll catch your death. But

29:18

you also here nowadays from

29:20

you know, your skeptical say like that is

29:22

a myth, not true. It's

29:25

actually more complicated than true

29:28

or false. It seems to be somewhere in between.

29:30

Now, of course, we know that the cold itself

29:32

will not make you sick. Winner

29:35

is traditionally known as cold and flu season.

29:37

But we do not live in the

29:40

you know, the miasthma theory of

29:42

disease age anymore, where people

29:44

thought that disease was caused by bad air.

29:47

We live in the age of the germ theory of disease.

29:49

So the cold weather itself does not directly

29:52

cause infection. But winter months

29:54

do seem to put us at risk for these

29:56

seasonal epidemics. And it's not an illusion.

29:58

There are studies that show that

30:01

that these these infection rates really

30:03

do go up in the winter, and there are several

30:06

reasons people have hypothesized why that might

30:08

be. A commonly cited hypothesis

30:11

is that people spend more time indoors

30:13

huddling together in winter months due to

30:16

the cold weather and physical proximity

30:18

to other people and touching and stuff can increase

30:20

your transmission rate of infectious diseases.

30:23

Of course, you're generally more likely

30:25

to catch something from somebody you're sharing

30:27

a blanket and cuddling with, but there there

30:29

are also other mechanisms that might be operative.

30:31

For example, there was a twenty sixteen study from

30:33

the Yale School of Medicine that found that some

30:36

of the human bodies viral defense

30:38

mechanisms are simply less effective

30:40

at lower temperatures. But there's actually

30:42

a much deeper way that your body adapts

30:45

to the germ threats of winter months. The

30:47

change in seasons is in your DNA.

30:50

Alright, we're gonna take a quick break and we come back. We

30:52

will dive into this. Uh.

30:54

This alarming notion that

30:57

that that winter changes our

30:59

genetic expression. Thank thank

31:01

you, thank you. All right, we're back. So

31:04

we tend to think of our d

31:06

N A is being safe from the winter.

31:08

I would think, you know, I had not really thought

31:10

about this previously. I mean, you

31:13

tend to think of your d n A as being safe

31:15

from pretty much everything except you

31:17

know that which would cause mutations

31:19

or uh maybe maybe maybe

31:21

you're not safe from cosmic rays. Maybe

31:23

you're not safe from X ray bombardment,

31:26

but you are at least safe from the seasons down

31:28

in your very d n A. But no, it

31:31

turns out o our d n A. While the

31:33

basic genome does not tend

31:36

to change the way it's expressed,

31:39

does tend to change based on a lot of

31:41

different factors. And I'll explain what that means in a minute.

31:43

So a study

31:46

in Nature Communications found that roughly

31:48

twenty three of the genes

31:50

found in human white blood cells and adipose

31:52

tissue change their expression

31:55

depending on the change in seasons. Now,

31:57

if you if you've read about this before, you might have

32:00

headlines like your DNA changes

32:02

in the winter that maybe

32:04

you know, if you're being generous, that could be thought of

32:06

as correct, but it could also meeting misleadingly

32:09

implied that the literal code of

32:11

the genome is altered, and that's

32:13

not the case. So we should explain the difference

32:16

between the genome itself and gene expression.

32:19

Your genes are sequences of

32:21

DNA code found in the cells

32:24

in your body, and the genes

32:26

generally don't change unless there's a mutation.

32:28

What changes is the expression

32:31

of individual genes and

32:33

gene expression. Whenever

32:35

you hear gene expression, you can

32:38

sort of think of that as genes

32:40

doing something. Gene expression

32:42

is when the code inside a gene is chemically

32:45

translated into a product like

32:47

a protein or a string of RNA, usually

32:49

a protein that does something

32:52

inside the body. And gene expression

32:54

is how the genome makes things happen.

32:56

So if there are changes in which genes

32:59

get express st and when this leads

33:01

to changes in the body. Yeah,

33:03

I often think about this and about

33:05

the you know, just epigenetic changes in general

33:08

as being kind of like the settings in

33:10

a video game, particularly in a simulation

33:13

game. We have all these various realism

33:15

toggles you can switch on and off, and

33:17

they ultimately affect how the game

33:20

manifests to the player. Yeah, or you can

33:22

think about I mean to follow the video game analogy.

33:24

Another way you can think of it is that the code

33:26

of the video game does not change. That like

33:29

the programming code that creates the

33:31

game is set, but different parts of

33:33

it are executing at different times,

33:36

and so the expression is sort of like the execution

33:39

of a line of code. So what's

33:41

the chemical basis for gene expression. Well,

33:43

genes are expressed when they get exposed

33:45

to another chemical called messenger RNA

33:48

or mRNA, and the mRNA

33:50

reads the code and the genes and

33:52

uses it to set off a process that creates

33:55

proteins that lead to changes within

33:57

and between cells. So the

33:59

quest and then would be how come mr and A

34:02

isn't constantly reading all

34:05

of our genes at once all the time

34:07

and setting off these these protein creating

34:09

processes all the time. Well, here's

34:11

one reason. There are tons

34:14

of genes inside a cell nucleus

34:16

of a eukaryotic organism, and

34:18

the body fits them in there by

34:21

coiling them tightly around alkaline

34:23

proteins called his stones. Now,

34:26

if you've seen a picture of this before,

34:29

it's often compared to beads along a

34:31

string. That's kind of what it looks like. The

34:34

DNA associates very easily with the his

34:36

stones because the DNA is negatively charged

34:39

and the his stones are positively charged. And

34:41

a gene from this coiled

34:44

strand of DNA that coils around

34:46

the his stones gets expressed when it

34:48

picks up a methyl marker, which makes

34:50

it loosen from the his stone core.

34:53

And once it loosens and uncoils,

34:55

the DNA can match up with mRNA and

34:57

then undergo expression, which,

35:00

as we said, generally means making proteins,

35:02

which means something is happening. So

35:04

all kinds of triggers lead to changes

35:06

in gene expression, which genes are

35:09

are sort of like being brought forth

35:11

to manufacture their will on the world.

35:13

One example, it's been shown in a lot of context

35:15

that some gene expression changes occur

35:18

over the natural day night cycle.

35:20

In the morning, you're going to be expressing some genes

35:22

and then at night you're going to be expressing others.

35:25

Uh So, for example, if you're studying

35:27

what genes are being expressed in a sample

35:29

of tissue, it could actually matter what time

35:31

of day you take the sample. So

35:34

one of the authors of this sixteen study

35:36

I mentioned earlier, the Cambridge immuno geneticist

35:39

Chris Wallace, told Wired Magazine

35:41

in a good article about this quote, we

35:44

knew that there's some genes that change their

35:46

expression throughout the day. Then it hit us,

35:48

lam, what is the effect

35:51

on genes of the length of the day

35:53

throughout the year, great piece of deductive

35:55

reasoning. So of course it's leading to experiments.

35:58

Wallace inter colleagues compare findings from

36:00

several studies which tracked gene

36:03

expression in populations

36:05

from different times of the year in both

36:07

the northern and southern hemispheres, in

36:09

the countries where Germany, Australia,

36:11

the US, the UK, Iceland,

36:14

and the Gambia. And of course,

36:16

as we we've said before, this matter is because

36:18

in the northern and southern hemispheres, winter

36:20

and summer are reversed, so in the summer

36:23

hemisphere it's summer in January and winter

36:25

in July. And this helps because it allows

36:28

you to isolate that any differences really were

36:30

caused by natural changes in the seasons

36:32

and not probably by human

36:34

cultural factors like the calendar or

36:36

the month or something like that. So they found

36:38

that in these white blood cells there were thousands

36:41

of genes that showed seasonal changes

36:43

in expression. Uh, there were two

36:45

thousand, three hundred eleven summer genes

36:48

they identified and two thousand, eight

36:50

hundred and twenty six winter genes,

36:52

and it looks like most of these changes had

36:54

to do with immune system of function.

36:57

Now, of course they were looking at white blood cells

37:00

as if the immune system we're ramping

37:02

up inflammation responses to deal

37:04

with the germ threat of winter. And

37:07

in the samples from tropical Gambia, the

37:09

changes for immune system gene expression

37:12

came not during winter, but during

37:14

the rainy season when people

37:16

are exposed to the greatest risk of malaria.

37:18

So what we're seeing here is that the body

37:21

does have some kind of seasonal

37:23

changes in the way that it expresses

37:25

your genome, different parts of the code

37:27

that makes you you get activated

37:30

depending on what time of the year it is,

37:32

uh and on you know, not so much

37:35

what time of the year it is, but the seasonal

37:37

triggers around you in the environment. And

37:39

one of the things that this is very tightly

37:41

controlling is the inflammation response.

37:44

Now, the inflammation response, as we know, it

37:46

helps keep us from getting sick. It's

37:48

very primitive, ancient type

37:51

of immune response. It's not very

37:53

pleasant, but it does help keep you

37:55

know, germs and stuff from destroying your

37:57

body. But as we also know, inflammation can

37:59

lead to all kinds of other health

38:01

problems. It can lead to metabolic

38:04

problems, it can lead to arthritis.

38:07

You know, it's implicated in wide ranging

38:09

medical problems. So this sort of opens up

38:11

a door into a whole arena of new research

38:14

that could take place about how our

38:16

genes are not just helping defend us

38:18

from these seasonal epidemics,

38:21

but also in how they put us at

38:23

risk. Now. Earlier we mentioned the idea

38:25

that there are certain like cardiovascular

38:27

problems that people have increased

38:30

risk of of of dying from

38:32

in the winter, and this also

38:34

seems to indicate that there are inflammation

38:37

related problems that could really

38:39

put us at risk in these months, and maybe studying

38:41

the way our genes change over the seasons could

38:43

help figure out ways help us figure out

38:45

ways to protect us. Now, a

38:47

question in the study, of course, is what exactly

38:50

triggers the change in gene expression. Is

38:52

it the temperature, is it the length

38:54

of the days and how much the body

38:56

has access to sunlight, or

38:58

could it be something else? I mean, maybe it's not impossible.

39:01

There could be some kind of cultural practices

39:03

that that trigger this, but it doesn't seem

39:06

likely because it's manifested across

39:08

so many different countries and regions. Yeah,

39:10

it would be different there if there's a

39:12

group where they eat a particular pickled fish

39:15

during the winter, and you could you could potentially

39:17

blame it all on that one pickled fish totally.

39:19

So the traditions that cast us

39:22

as seasonal shape shifters are in

39:24

many ways literally correct.

39:26

There are ways in which our bodies are

39:29

adapting to these seasonal changes to make

39:31

us a different kind of animal when

39:33

the winter sets in. Isn't that interesting?

39:35

I mean, not only

39:38

does it back up this idea that there there

39:40

is a winter self in some ways, but

39:42

it also just drives home the

39:45

the ever changing nature of

39:47

of of the human being. You know, not

39:50

just not just in in our thoughts

39:52

and our memories, but not just in the aging

39:54

of the body and the acquiring

39:56

and the healing of injuries or

39:59

or illnesses, but that our

40:01

our body is going through cyclical phases

40:04

in order to keep up

40:06

and thrive within the seasons of our environment,

40:09

even if we don't actually hibernate. Now

40:11

here's the question I really want to understand.

40:14

What is the biological mechanism that forces

40:16

humans to continually make new adaptations

40:19

of Charles Dickens, a Christmas Carol

40:22

starring the cast of pre existing franchises

40:24

of cartoons, well

40:27

you got flint Stones, You've got Mr

40:29

Magoo, you got uh.

40:32

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I bet there's like a Jetson's

40:34

Christmas Carol. Was it really a flint Stone's Christmas

40:37

Carrol? Yeah, there's a flint Stones. There's famously

40:39

a Mickey Christmas Carol. Yeah, yeah for

40:41

me and Muppets. Muppets

40:44

for me. I really only have two that I get,

40:46

really only one. It's got to be the musical

40:49

Scrooge. One of the few musicals that

40:51

I enjoy uh to this

40:53

day is is the Albert Finney. Albert

40:55

Finney is Scrooge, and that the film all

40:58

has wonderful songs and also like one

41:00

of the darker visions of the supernatural

41:02

elements found in a Christmas Carol, like

41:05

that the ghosts are all tremendously

41:07

frightening. Um Alec Guinness

41:09

plays Marley, and I

41:11

believe that even muscular devil show up.

41:13

There's a scene where Scrooge is in hell and

41:16

having to deal with the chains of hell, and

41:19

you have all these muscular red devils trooping

41:22

around. That's awesome. Have you ever

41:24

seen the nineteen forty nine vincent

41:27

Price Christmas Carol? What no I

41:29

had no idea he ever played No, no,

41:31

no, I don't get excited. He doesn't

41:33

play Scrooge. He just shows up holding

41:35

a book and it's like, well, Charles Dickens

41:38

and sort of introduces it. It's

41:41

it's worth a watch. It's on YouTube. It's hilarious.

41:43

It's uh, probably the worst adaptation

41:46

of a Christmas Carol I've ever seen. A list

41:48

of issues include it spells Ebeneezer

41:51

wrong in the opening credits, It gets

41:53

the title of the book wrong. It is called the

41:56

Christmas Carol. You can sometimes

41:58

see like the Wrong Side have set walls,

42:01

so there's just like beams holding up the

42:03

walls of the set, and their

42:05

Scrooge is this guy who's like krish Mesh,

42:09

Hey, creish Mesh. Now,

42:11

now here's the here's the question. You see so many different

42:13

actors who have played Dracula, so many different

42:15

actors have played Scrooge. But

42:17

how many actors can you think I have played

42:20

both? The only one that comes to my mind

42:22

off hand is Jack Palince, WHOA that's

42:24

good. Was Michael Caine ever Dracula?

42:26

Oh No, I don't think he was. It

42:29

seems like it seems like he could. He easily could have

42:31

been Kane could have played Dracula. But I go

42:33

through the others like um,

42:35

has uh Albert Finney ever

42:37

played Dracula? Knowledge

42:41

has has Luis Jordan ever played

42:43

Scrooge? No? I don't think there's ever been

42:45

a French Scrooge. Likewise, like all

42:48

the Draculas and all the Scrooges, there seems to be

42:50

very little overlap between the two roles

42:53

much, you know, much less the characters. I don't think anyone's

42:55

ever made a Christmas Carol with Dracula

42:57

in it was Gary Oldman? Ever Scrooge?

43:00

I don't think he was, But again, there's no reason

43:02

why he shouldn't. He's played Churchill,

43:05

and I believe what Albert Finney's played Churchill.

43:07

So it's there's there's every reason

43:09

in the world that you would see more crossover between

43:11

these two roles. Do you hear about the upcoming Christmas Carol

43:13

with Christian Bale is Scrooge? Is that

43:16

true? Is that real? No? I'm missing because

43:18

Christian Pale they all ever played Dracula. I

43:20

guess not. He's got to choose, right, there's

43:23

some hidden, like hooded council

43:25

that decides whether you get

43:27

to play Scrooge or Dracula, and unless you're

43:29

Jack Talents, you cannot choose

43:32

both. We're just digging ourselves deeper and deeper.

43:35

All right, Well, this week I feel like we've

43:37

we've really had a fabricous exploration

43:40

here of of how we think about our

43:42

winter selves, how we culturally

43:45

frame our winter selves in some cases,

43:47

and then what our body is actually

43:50

doing during the winter. What is it doing differently,

43:52

how is it adapting, how is it

43:55

behaving within different parameters,

43:57

and what those two different things

44:00

we have to do with each other. Yeah. So I would suggest

44:02

for listeners out there, one thing you might want

44:04

to try this winter is come up with the

44:06

new winter name for yourself. Yes,

44:09

I like this, either an adaptation

44:11

of your existing name or just something

44:14

altogether new but fitting for

44:16

the winter you. Maybe it's just your name but

44:18

with a W as the first letter. Yeah,

44:21

so Woe and Wobert. Yeah.

44:23

Or it could be more like, really more of

44:25

a title that defines what

44:27

you do. Like he who binge

44:29

watches Netflix and eats chili, that's

44:31

sort of a thing. He who foolishly buys

44:33

fresh tomatoes in the winter, that's

44:36

a good one. But hey, we'd love to hear from

44:38

all of you out there. What would your winter name

44:41

be? And indeed, how is the

44:43

winter you different from the summer you? Do

44:45

you experience seasonal effective disorder? Uh?

44:48

Do you think you have seasonal effective disorder?

44:50

Either way, let us know we would love to hear

44:52

from you. Oh and especially if we have any

44:54

listeners with Quakua heritage,

44:57

I would love to hear from you with your thoughts about

44:59

these or ceremonial traditions. Indeed,

45:02

in the meantime, you can always check out past

45:04

episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind at

45:06

stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. You'll also find

45:08

links out to our various social media accounts

45:11

such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, and

45:13

Instagram. As always, big thanks to

45:15

our audio producers Alex Williams

45:18

and Tory Harrison. And if you want to

45:20

get in touch with us directly, as always, you

45:22

can email us at Blow the Mind at

45:24

how staff works dot com

45:36

for more on this and thousands of other topics.

45:39

Does it how stuff works dot com

46:00

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