Can the sun kill you?

podcast from the revered website how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, there are employers, Hey, they are, and there where we get all of our information, right, that's right, most of it. Yeah. There's been like maybe two or three podcasts that we've done that didn't come from articles off the site. Yeah, but that's the basis, right, Okay, sure, and now everybody knows the secret. You can all go back to bed, right, I'd like to go back to bed. I know you, Chuck,

you've been here since six thirty this morning. I know I have. And like you said, that's two SIPs of coffee, whereas when we usually record, you have had seventeen cups of coffee. This is gonna be an unusually sedate podcast about the Sun. Yes, this is almost almost Sun Take two. I think I feel like this might make up a little bit for the awful suncast we did. I don't. I don't think that's correct, and I don't think it's sound take too. I think the Sun comes in for

a guest appearance, a cameo, if you will. But there's nothing that's ever gonna make up for how the Sun works, although there was something. Um, I think my favorite fact from the Sun podcast was that you remember in the core of the Sun, Um, there's just helium bouncing all over the place, and um, what I think a proton gets loose or a neutron and it gets picked up by something else, and like, this change in mass is displaced energy, and it displaced energy takes the form of

a photon, remember the tiny packet of light. Here's the here's the kicker, and I know you remember this. It takes a photon a hundred thousand years to travel from the core of the Sun to the surface, and then once it leaves the Sun, it takes eight minutes to get the Earth. That's pretty cool, but yeah, a hundred thousand years. So the light that hits your skin, Chuck, is a hundred thousand years and eight minutes old. Wow, didn't take it that way, Well now you will. That's

a great sun fact. So, um, I I have a better intro than that. Alright, Apollo seventeen, Yeah, the last Apollo mission ninety two. These guys are training to go to the Moon one last time. Let's get some people on on on the moon. Right, Um, Nixon's in office. Everybody's really unhappy. Um, So they're training, but there's a huge problem. There's a predicted solar flare coming, and not just any solar flare, a megaflare. Chuck. The last one

scene of such magnitude was a hundred and fifty years before. Right, What does it do? Solar flare? Megaflare? You know? Solar flare shoots protons um out, like highly radioactive protons out into the pound of space and at Earth. Right, Earth has a magnetic field that deflects these things, or else they'd hit Earth's surface and us these radioactive protons at about a million to three million kilometers per hour. So what's a mega just a souped up version of that. Well,

that's that's the Mega version. Yes, so say half a million kilometers an hour. It's way more protons. They're way more radioactive, and they reach much further out in space. It's just like a huge cough from the Sun, you know. Like I said, we have a magnetic field. The Moon does not have a magnetic field. So any astronauts standing on the Moon when the solar flare erupted would have gotten shot through with these radioactive protons and either would have been burned on the spot or would have just

received a lace lethal dose of radiation sickness. So they called it offer with postponed it. Luckily, the solar flare occurred between Apolo sixteen and Apollo seventeen, so Apolo seventeen went up on December second, nineteen seventy two. I think um and the solar flare took place in August of nineteen seventy two, so they escaped it by six months or so. But isn't it crazy that they could have conceivably been standing on the Moon and just been like

like some of the movies. It kind of like, um Sunshine, Oh yeah, you saw that. I didn't think you saw that. I remember we talked about the first half was too classic. Yeah, I've never seen a movie go off the rails like that, but I know it was so good. It was astounding. I know I really wanted it to finish off because Danny Boils the best. I was. I'm on team Boil all the way you are. Um. But it raises the question.

It raises an interesting point because I think we all know the answer to the question post in this podcast. Can the Sun kill you? Chuck? This is a Chuck Bryant special. It's a little elementary. I thought, I disagree when was it from. It's from a long time ago, but I don't know, like my introductions back in the day were I thought they were like written for grade school. Do you want to read the first sentence? I wanted to almost get Robert Laman here to do a dramatic

reading just to the first sentence. Anyone he's ever made it through the fifth grade can probably tell you that the sun is a star. I think it's funny how somebody, I imagine your editor went back and was like, well, there's not necessarily every person that we can say with confidence can tell you that if you've made it through fifth grade, So let's put probably in there. Yeah, so Josh, the answer can the sun kill you is most certainly yes, resounding yes, and not just by standing on the moon

in a megaflare. Yeah. Um, there's plenty of ways here on earth that the sun can get you. Basically, the point of this podcast is don't ever leave your house again, right, that's right? And you, Mr tan Man, I gotta do you know where sunscreen? Um? I you? I wear seventy on my face. I swear to God, I wear seventy. And why is it every time you come in, like on a Monday, you'll have like this bronze dark face

and he's like, oh's at the beach? So I have, um, either Greco, Italian Jewish or some Mediterranean possibly Native American in me somewhere down the line popping up. I tan extremely well. But if you've got on seventy, you can't tan? So how's it defeating the sun block? Clearly I can't, and I promise you I really do wear seventy. I don't wear and just can't like I should. I know,

and I appreciate that. Um, I don't wear as much sun block as I should, but um, like everywhere because it's just so much of me I get bored like halfway through the clumps in like my hair, so like I can't get it rubbed in. But it's not the seventies, you know, remember in the seventies, so it was just baby oil out and sun actually yeah, kind of roast you stuff like a turkey. Plus I'd be wearing a medallion right now for this time. That's right by Lizzie,

just cracking up. Yeah, guess guest producer Lizzie catch her early in the morning, and we're funnier, all right, So let's go ahead and get going here with the first way, and then then the first couple are this is the really the money is at the end of this podcast, the most interesting part. Okay, before we we announced it, can we get a drum roll for the first way the sun can kill you here on Earth? Drum roll

place It is heat stroke? That's right, yes, most obviously, Uh, you know everyone knows that the body cools itself down by sweating. You get hot, your body tempature goes up a little bit, the sweat kicks in. In my case, it can be cold outside and the sweat still kicks in. Or you could be in like a fifty degree body of water. I will never die of heat stroke, but you can dive. Heat stroke. It's when your body temperature rises above a hund in four degrees and stays there

for a prolonged period. And um, that basically means, you know, you can't find shade. It's probably you're either an infant stuck in a car, which is the saddest. That's pretty you're elderly and you're you know, somehow shut in or infirmed and your power goes out, which is equally sad. Or you're probably trapped if you're just a healthy adult out in the desert or something. And heat stroking. There's three things. Heat strokes the third in a series of

escalating problems. Right, you have heat cramps and then heat exhaustion, and then heat stroke and when you have heat stroke here in big trouble. Um. So your body is two ways of cooling itself down sweating like you said, and then pumping your blood close to the surface of your skin, which pressed which is pressed up against the ambient air

which should be cooler, which is why you flush. Right Yeah, Um in babies, like you say, if you're trapped in a car, a baby's um sweat process mechanism isn't very well developed, so it's not gonna get cool, right. And then the other problem with heat stroke is you um lose your ability to salivate, so you can't swallow. So if you're out in the desert, even if you have water, after a point, you can't. You can't drink fluids any longer.

They have to be introduced intravenously. That's right, that's bad news. That's very bad news. And your blood thickens too, Chuck with the heat stroke. Ye, really, you're one step away from saying the word coagulate. I'm just gonna like, uh, if you are very hot and you're overheated and you're not cooling down, Josh, and you see some of the following, then you're you should really try and get into some shade. Toot sweet rapid pulse, very strong, like you said, imagine

the heart's beating really fast. Um hot, dry skin, headache, dizzy, hyperventilating, and these I get the sense escalate as we go here, hyperventilate, confusion, nausea, seizures, hallucination, and then unconsciousness. So if you're hallucinating, you're about to go into the into the light or into the dark, depending on what you want to look. Especially if your hallucinations like get in the shade and your organs are gonna swell, you could go into shock and you could die, Yeah,

pretty easy. Your whole body can just shut down. And they're just from heat. That's not even from like the sun's rays or damage or anything. That's just from getting so hot, unbelievable. Um. And apparently when your blood does thick, and once you hit that hundred and four to green mark and your blisser so thick and it can't be pumped towards the surface any longer. You're not sweating, you can't swallow um. After that, you reach a point where

your body temperature just skyrockets up and that's that for you. Really, Yeah, you're cooked. I wonder how high it can get. I think it's a hundred and twelve and then you're dead. Yeah, I know that. Like when you have a really bad fever, if it gets up to a certain point, it's hospital time. Well, plus a bad fever can cause brain damage, that's right, Josh and uh I look for some Newsy items for this, And of course it's always just some sad story about

a parking lot. But workers in Japan the nuclear reactor site have been suffering from heat stroke and so they've got you know, cool rooms set up, and they're very aware of this problem from the radiation that he generated. By the radiation, yeah, and just being in those suits and they can't uh, you know, sweat and evaporate like they normally could. Goodness wow, it's like add one more risk the dangerous job they're doing. So what's what's another way the sun can kill you? Chock uh skin cancer?

Josh um, No drum roll there, no drum roll there. Um. The sun emits many different wavelengths of light, and the one that is damaging to us is UV ultraviolet light that we cannot see bluer than blue, shorter, it's bluer than blue. Do you remember now, that's right, redder than red, bluer than blue. We can't see it, that's right, but we can be damaged by it very much. So, so check there's two kinds of UV rays that hit us

here on Earth, UV A and UVB. And UV A is the kind of ultra violet radiation that really penetrates the skin down to the dermis um and does a lot of cellular damage, UM DNA damage. Right. UVB is the sun's burning rays. It's more potent actually than UV A. But uh, first of all, it can be deflected by window glass, so it doesn't hit us when we're inside UM. But secondly, it can't penetrates deep into the skin, so

it doesn't cause cancer. It just burns you literally. But UVA is the one that gets in there and can disrupt the normal function of cells. Right, and uh, if you get wrinkled and freckled, um, this is all because of UV exposure. If I reckon, if you never saw the sun's rays, he would probably look very youthful. I would think so too, for for much longer than your average joe out in the sun. We do have proteins in the skin called elastin, and they're very springy and fibrous.

It helps us to stay young. But uh, UV exposure damages and breaks down that elastin, and eventually that could lead to lesions, tumors, that kind of thing. Right, and UV A specifically goes in and UM basically turns our melana sites the melanin producing pigment producing cells in the skin. It basically says you're cancerous now because cancer is uncontrolled cellular growth. Right, that's right. So the mel the melana sites start to reproduce a little too quickly, then all

of a sudden you have a tumor. There are three kinds of skin cancer, Josh, there's the basil is a basil or basil basil I would imagine probably both, Chuck. I think if you're from England needs say basil basil cell carcinoma, uh, squamas cell carcinoma and melanoma. And the first two aren't very dangerous. Um. They're about all cases of skin cancer, the first two kinds, and you're you're doing okay. If you have one of those, you can get it removed. It's really not that big of a deal.

It turns to a melanoma. That's when it's serious. And about skin cancer. Deaths are from melanoma. Yeah. And if you if you find it early enough and treat it. Um melanoma has a pretty high survival rate I think survival rate um five year survival rate. If you get it before it gets to the limps. When it hits the limps, then the survival rates starts to drop dramatically. Yeah.

And this is an interesting fact of your whole life's UV exposure comes before your eighteen right, And I thought about that, and it makes perfect sense because that's when you're a little kid who jumps like an idiot through a sprinkler or something like that. That's when you're outside. You're not punched over a computer. Your outdoors. Yeah, and there's only I mean, if you're a parent, you should take care of your child and slather them with sunscreen.

But you know, every if your kids out playing in very active a lot, chances are you're going to be slipping up there something. Well, but I think that I don't know that that's necessarily okay though, I think that needs to be a habit, you know, kind of like your your kid, doesn't, you know, come out of the womb, Like give me some pants and some shirt. The kid knows to put on a pant right away, You're like, you need to cover up. Um. I think this needs to be part and parcel with going out if you

want to. You know, I think skin cancer is a far greater problem than people are aware. Um. And I think just you you make a good point in this article that, um, it's one of the more preventable kinds of cancers just by using sunscreen. Yeah, um, so I think it should be part of going outside. And apparently also not just on sunny days. On a cloudy, overcast days, still like eight percent of the UV rays make it to the surface containing that's too if you think that

it's not sun so it's not hurting me. That's handing that does the same thing, Chuck. Can we talk for a second about SPF. Can we solve the riddle of what SPF is? Yeah, that they recommend fifteen, but I would say higher than that if you want total protection. They changed it recently thirty. Now American Academy of Dermatology recommends thirty. They should double it just to be on the side pretty much. But there I suspect that there is something of like a mechanism like that involved. Because

SPF means a sun protection factor. Um, the number, right is the number of times longer that product will prevent a sunburn then unprotected skin. Right, So if it takes ten minutes for unprotected skin to get a sunburn, SPF fifteen, it'll take a hundred and fifty minutes in that same sunlight. Right.

The problem is they're like, well, you should still go ahead and reapply this every two hours anyway at least um and then after you sweat or after you're in the water, so that two hours at the most, so in SPF fifteen would protect you. And if they say SPF thirty is recommended, I don't understand it. But I mean, any idiot can look at suntan lotion it's SPS seventy compared to SPF five and see that it's thicker. So I guess it's just that. Either that or you can

just put primer on yourself. Right. Yeah, but that's I've always wondered what SPF was, how they how they categorize that. Yeah, you didn't know that un till now. Interesting, that's because you don't wear it. I do wear it. I just did you look like George Hamilton? I don't am I aging or something like that. No, you're just tan. I'm always tanned the beach oddly alright. So broccoli and if you want to, if you want to help yourself out, eat broccoli and eat Brussels sprouts. And if you say

I don't like Brussels sprouts, grill them. Baby, so good. I've never had that. Yeah, man, I never eight them either. But what you do is you get the Brussels sprouts, you kind of chop off a little nubby end, toss it in a bowl with some olive oil and whatever your spices, you know, salt, pepper, rosemary, whatever you like. Throw it on the grill and grill. It's so good. I do the same exact thing, but instead of the grill, I just roast them for a while until they're really

really crisp good stuff. Or another thing you can do is you chop it in half and then do it in the skillet and it kind of caramelizes on the flat sides. I have a good recipe for broccoli, So you take as much broccoli as you can find, chop off the stalks, take the whole thing, put it into a plastic bag, and throw it away. You don't like broccli, I hate broccoli. That's so weird. I love broccoli. I think broccoli is the most disgusting thing that's ever been

on this planet. I think broccoli is the worst thing the Romans ever invented. I think I think BROCCOLI's delicious. And they say, you know, steaming is probably the I mean, raw is the best way to eat it. But I'm not into raw broccoli. I have to steamine a little bit. It is kind of tasteless, though not super flavorful. You're just not having an area. No, I think it's disgusting, and it's actually the taste that I can't stand. All right.

So anyway, the reason I brought all this up is that there's a topical compound called I S C DASH four found in these vegetables, and they think that if they add this, uh, they've made a robust, more robust version called I C S four and if you add this to sunscreen, which they're trying to get done, they think it might be able to really beef up the skin cancer prevention by adding this stuff from these veggies to your sunscreen. But like it enhances its protection protectiveness

very much. So it is way too early. No, I don't think we should record at nine am any longer. This is an emergency, all right, So, Josh. The final way, and this is the most interesting and saddest condition of all is called zero dar uma pigmentosum, and that is very rare. Zero derma is Latin for dry skin, and pigmentosum refers to the colorations, the skin colorations that you get if you're one of the sufferers, one of the few sufferers. Yeah, I think there's been like two cases

in the US. Yeah, at an't given moment, I think there's about two fifty. So, Chuck, where did you find this this condition? How did you stumble upon us when you're writing this article? I think I was just looking for you know, I think it came from a skin cancer site, because you're very much likely to die from skin cancer if you have this condition, right, probably by the time you're middle aged. And so I think a person with UM zero derma pigmentosa you say that there,

we'll call it XP. Okay, that's what That's what most people call it, right, Um, people with XP are about a thousand times more likely to develop skin cancer than a person without it, and that can be up to two thousand times more likely. And so this isn't like you know, from laying out. This is like walking around in your house, right and getting indirect UV radiation from indirect sunlight any kind of sunlight whatsoever. Yeah, indirect direct

obviously is the worst, even fluorescent lights. Yeah, there was this. Uh, there's been a bunch of stories about this, and they're all very sad and titled sad titles, And this one from the New York Times is called Midnight's Children, and it's about Camp Sundown, which is a camp that these parents started who have a daughter who suffers from this, and it's basically, um, a couple of weeks out of the year in the summer, they just have a summer camp for kids to have this and it's all you know,

flip flop. It's all at night. All the activities are because they can't go out in the sun at all. And it's not just that camp, Like, don't families who have a kid with XP half to UM basically do that anyway, like flip flop their their nighttime and data. Yeah, the camp is just to give them some one and like to be able to go to camp and socialize

and flirt and do things that normal kids do. Because one of the saddest parts about this is your sequester to your house during the day and you're outfitted, you know, all the windows are outfitted with the UV blockers and everything, and um, you know, all the kids that are interviewed are like, you know, when we're awake at night, my friends are all asleep, so there's nothing to do at night.

And that's one of the big problems if you're a kid, and that and infomercials are big problems of staying up all night. Yeah, that's true, Um, chuck. They recently figured out what people with XP are lacking. Right, it's an end time, which is well, there's a couple of ways to say this. The wrong way, which is what I'm about to do, and then the right way, which will probably never get but palmer sita that sounds right, um or depending on which part of the same article you

want to consult, palm raise ada like the Greek letter um. Basically, it's a it's an enzyme that allows DNA to continue replicating successfully even when u V a yeah, UVA radiation is damaged. It it's basically like the the shield Like you guys keep going on, I'll stand here and take all the bullets and uh, there's it's actually hopeful, um that it's an enzyme because stem cell stem cells are gang busters at replacing enzymes that are missing lacking in

in conditions. So there could be an all out cre for this in the next decade or so. Well, there is none now. And one of the reasons why it's taken so long to crack the nuts, so to speak, is that it's um. It's genetic, and both parents have to have this gene that you inherit. So it's um if both parents have to have it. And it's probably not the kind of because if you have the gene and you don't have it, you don't even think about it. You're getting married to somebody who also has this gene

that you have no idea exists. All of a sudden, you have a kid that's born with this, and it's usually diagnosed by the age of two because it's so clearly, uh, the sun so clearly damages your baby. This is the story from New York Times. The mother describes this The baby was about six weeks old, and we put her to sleep in the shade of a tree. She began screaming hysterically, like three minutes later. I mean it's not

like all day long. I mean it's literally, go out into the sun and your skin starts blistering immediately, she said. In less than two minutes, her arms broke out in ferocious blisters that we thought were aunt bites. At first, each burn began as a little pin prick, then swelled up to the size of a quarter into a blister. You could literally see it happening in front of your eyes, like time lapse photography. So it's like something like a vampire in a movie goes out and the sun just

starts like burning their skin. Wow, it's unbelievably sad and that that damage. Like, like we said, there are one thousand and too sometimes more likely to develop skin cancer UM apparently, so it takes about sixty years of sun exposure before skin cancer really develops most people UM and people with XP it starts the same tumors can start by age ten, so you have like skin damage, like

horrific external skin damage. But at the same time they're the radiation damage is just working over time beneath the surface too. Yeah, well this the same girl. You know. They go to this pizza place at ten pm, one of their favorite pizza joints because it doesn't have fluorescent lights, and there's literally like a case with SODA's an ice cream with fluorescent lights, and the kid can't even go near that, like all the other kids are they're picking

out their ice cream and she can't do it. I mean, she's a very sweet girl and she says, you know, night is cool. I love the moon so much better than the sun. And it seems like she's got a great attitude, but it definitely it's a scary thing when you can't play with other kids in the day light. Like she's literally never seen the sun. She said, I've seen it on television. Wow, isn't that sad? Yes, but

there is NASA is on the scene, right. Yeah, they got a cool suit, yes, for like two grand, which is relatively cheap considering what it can let you do. But basically, you can put a kid in one of these suits, a kid with XP and one of these suits, and they can walk out into the into the sunlight. It blocks I think of UV A and UVB radiation and uh, it's bulky suit or whatever. But they can go outside and play with their friends. So there is

some hope. There's the stem cell thing to write, and there's Camp Sundown, which is awesome, and uh, if you are one of the few sufferers, I'm sure you already know about XPS, but it's the XP Society and that's like the place to go for information and support and stuff like that. So um mega flares, heat stroke, skin cancer zero derma pick mintosum anything else, I don't think

so those are the way. Yeah, and actually one extra fact about XP is a lot of the suffers go blind because it's very harsh on the eyes as well. I know, I'm so sorry. This is pretty heavy for at nine am. Really is bunge you up for the day? Well, if you wanna learn more about the sun and ways it can kill you and you want to read Chuff Bryant's first sentence in this one, it's good stuff. Um, you can type in can the sun kill you in the search bar at our venerable website How Stuff Works

dot com. Right, that's right, and it's time for listener mail. Chuck. Yes, this is a little long, but this is actually a follow up, and so few follow ups do we get. This is a guy Dan. I don't know if we read it on the air, but he was inspired by our Bhutan podcast. Remember do you need money to be happy? That kind of thing? That was his bouton onto something with gross national happiness. Well yeah, but it was the essence of it was money equating happiness and should you

give it all up and and drop out? Yeah? Yeah, well, yes, we called for stories of the end. So this new dan Ah did so a year and a half ago, and he told me he was going to do it at the time, and he actually followed up a year and a half later. Wow, So this is like a real test case. So two years ago I was living the American dream, two thousand square foot house in rural New Hampshire, working a stable job at a fortune company, raking in at six figures. I had the dog, I

had the loving girlfriend, but my life was hell. I worked mornings, nights, weekends, stressed beyond comprehension, and commuted two hours a day and spent my free time doing house related chores. Saw so little of my dog that when I came home he didn't even get up off the couch to greet me. That sad, lazy, Okay. My girlfriend and I discussed the predicament and came to the conclusion

we would choose to continue. We could choose to continue living such a dreadful life until we died, or we can make a break for a new experience on our own terms. So that's what they did. They put their house on the market, sold it that spring, quit their jobs. I got married in June with a simple celebration and a bluegrass band, and then with only a car, our dog, and a couple of suitcases, set off for Portland, Oregon. I'm not sure why Portland's, but I think that's where

everybody in its situ way to started in Portlandia. Uh. It's been close to a year now living in Portland, and it's been an interesting experience. There was a close call. We were running out of funds, still unemployed, and almost cashed in on our dreams, but we were saved by a random occurrence that landed my wife a job. They met Daddy Warbox. Despite ten percent unemployment in Portland, we both had jobs by January and we're confident that we

could be successful in our transition. Now we live in a small, one room apartment and make one third of the salary that I did back in New Hampshire. But I only work forty hours a week. I love my job. I have a thirty minute bicycle commute to work, which is along the waterfront. I only drive my car twice a month. I used to have heart palpitations from the daily stress, now I have none. I have a lot of free time on Monday's. My wife and I have

dance lessons. Wednesdays, I'm in a kickball league, which you know something about. So I've played kickball with Jerry on her team. Never should have played kickball again. Tuesday's a volunteer to local nonprofit theater. Thursdays and Fridays that catch several pints at the local pubs. And weekends I hike and experienced the great things that Portland has to offer. He's written and produced songs, and he says he actually has saved more money now than when he had the

big six figure job. But that is so cool. Isn't that cool? I'll bet his hair is increased in length by at least it has. And now when I come home, the dog is wagging his tail meeting me at the door. So what a great ending here. He says, it hasn't been easy on in traditional terms, but it has been easy for us. Once you decide that what you own has no value to you, then most things that you worry about go away. That is so cool, Dan, And

uh yeah, that's basically the essence, he said. Having free time is a great opportunity to get to know your significant other, to volunteer, and to get in shape, and that is all I have to say from Dan, well, congratulations Dan, that's a fantastic story. Yeah, I'm literally giddy you went from a dirty yuppie to a dirty hippie in a year. We applaud you for it. Yes, it's an excellent story and I'm glad he rode in. Thank

you very much for following up. Dan. Yeah, and let's I'd like to hear from Dan every year to see what's going on. So Dan, I challenge you to email us again next spring. Okay, okay, how about that. That's good stuff, Chuck Q. Have any stories of amazing transformation. It doesn't have to be necessarily like taking a step back. It could be anything. If you haven't seen so many in a couple of years and they change from pointing any to point B and it's just been astounding. We

want to hear about it. We love stories like that. Right, you can post it on our Facebook page Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know. You can tweet it to us s y s K podcast, or you can send us an old fashioned email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com for moralness and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com to learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage. The How

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