Merry Christmas, everybody. Happy holidays, whatever your view on the holidays of the winter season, have a lovely time of it. Figured since you haven't heard from me in a while, thought I should post something. But not just any something.
I've said before, I'm a freak for science. I've earned any number of sideways "Katie shut up" glances for scientific analyses of things. Because it's fun for me, what can I say? So of course I'm a biology major in college now - were you expecting anything different? My finals were finished up Tuesday before last, on the 13th, so I've still got a lot of the content fresh in my brain. Not that it would stop me from doing scientific analyses if the information wasn't as fresh in there. Anyway.
The other day, my brother and I were watching Christmas cartoons in the basement and Rudolph was the first on the list. If you could hear the running commentary we have on everything we do, you'd understand completely why I am the way I am. And that commentary doesn't stop for anything, certainly not classic Christmas movies. And that particular day (and this particular day) my brain is tuned in to the possible genetics of a luminescent red nose on a member of the species Rangifer tarandus, or the reindeer.
Something like that would still be tied into genetics, right? My brain quickly computed that Mr. and Mrs. Donner were heterozygous for the gene for nose color - they had both the dominant and the recessive gene for nose. Let's say T is the dominant for black nose and t is the recessive for red nose. That means there was a 25% chance that you'd end up with a red nosed reindeer, and they hit that sweet spot. That's acceptable. But here's the big question - why aren't there more red-nosed reindeer around?
Sure, a recessive gene is less common than a dominant in a lot of cases, and given the prevalence of Abominable Snowmonsters of the North, a glowing red nose would be a genetic disadvantage. It's easier to find something that glows and emits a loud high-pitched noise. (I'm not even going to bother with the science behind a light making a high-pitched noise like that - one thing at a time.) But then it might also be a genetic advantage. Can you imagine how many snowstorms the frozen North Pole gets? (Yes I am just considering the North Pole population of reindeer. They are a geographically alienated population, so population genetics dictates that I only focus on the factors of this specific region. These are the rules environmental science follows.) A glowing nose of any color could aid in the finding of food on foggy Christmas Eves, not to mention the other times of year that storms occur. So as for the usefulness of a glowing red nose, the jury is out. But the point I started out making is that, sure a recessive allele is going to be less common than its dominant mate, but that doesn't mean it only occurs two times out of the entire population of North Pole reindeer.
And we have to assume that there are more reindeer in the North Pole than just Santa's reindeer. A man who delivers toys all over the globe for all the good children has to know a thing or two about maintaining a population of flying reindeer. He also has to know that you've got to have a way to maintain the population once the core deer die. There might be longer lifespans up North, but that doesn't mean the rules of mortality are suspended. Magic does not make one immune to the laws of science. You just... amend them. So Santa is going to have more than just the eight tiny reindeer that allow his sleigh to fly. Otherwise inbreeding occurs and after a few centuries, you've got mutated deer who can't fly, riddled with genetic disorders - it's just a mess all around. So there has to be an appreciable pool of recessive alleles for a red nose. Are these deer just not breeding? Why is Rudolph the first and only red-nosed reindeer?
And this afternoon, I think, what if the gene is linked to the X-chromosome? Then the gene could be dormant for most of the reindeer population. And that would explain how the gene shows up in a male reindeer first. Mrs. Donner is without a doubt XTXt in this case, so there's a 25% chance for a red-nosed reindeer son.
But dormant does not mean absent. How many other red-nosed reindeer have Santa and his elven ilk ostracized from their cheery Northern society? What is this seedy underbelly of the North Pole society?
Away from the doom and gloom, though, I'm telling all this to Mom, and she says, "Maybe it's not genetic, maybe it's a birth defect." Not all birth defects are genetic. Cerebral palsy, for example, is caused by the fetus not getting enough oxygen. Not genetic at all - circumstantial.
New hypothesis - a freak solar flare sometime during the seven-month reindeer gestation period cause a mutation in the fetus of Rudolph leading to the specialized genes that code for his nose to code a bioluminescence gene. This would cause his nose to light up. The atmosphere is thinner up there in the polar north - solar radiation could indeed have this effect. Granted, this solar flare is causing one hell of a mutation, but unlikely does not mean out of the question.
The next question that arose, then, was how Rudolph has control over this glowing. Bioluminescence occurs frequently in deep sea fish - we're talking DEEEEEP sea where it's dark beyond belief. This luminescence helps attract prey. The animals, presumably, don't have conscious control over this glowing. So how does Rudolph? My first thought was to write that off as Santa's magic.
"Now, hang on, stop the presses!" you cry, "You reeled me in with this purely scientific discussion of one of Christmas' most popular icons. This is something I've been waiting for my entire life, and thank God you delivered it. But now you're throwing out this bullcrap about Santa's magic? Why didn't you just write it off as magic from the beginning?" Oh, come on, you can't use magic as the be-all, end-all deus ex machina till the end of time. No fantasy story does that. Otherwise the story would be over too quickly. "Bilbo's got a magic ring that needs to be destroyed?" Gandalf comments, "I'll just poof it to Mount Doom! Problem solved!" "What's this?" the White Witch of Narnia remarks, "The Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve are coming through a portal near the home of the faun Tumnus? No matter, I'll just use my freezing magic to freeze the portal before they can come back! No problem!" (I tried to come up with a Harry Potter example, but J.K. Rowling does a good job by applying the minimum amount of rules and taking magic to its best and furthest limit before the rules apply. Well done, dear lady.) See how quickly everything falls apart when you use magic to solve absolutely everything? There are rules in each story, and magic follows rules, too.
"But science!" Well, if you would have let me finish when I said "Santa's magic", you would be appeased. Mom, not letting me explain things away with magic (which I was reluctant to do) mentioned something that, in hindsight, I probably got wrong on the bio final: Some genes are only encoded for under certain conditions. Like high activity levels - anaerobic respiration occurs in your muscles. Or stress. The body under stress is a brilliant thing. You may feel totally immobilized when under stress, but your body is doing spectacular things. Raising your adrenaline levels, increasing your rate of respiration, increasing your heart rate and revving you up for a fight. Or to run, whatever happens, you know. Your body prepares you to do all sorts of things when you're under stress. The same is true throughout the animal kingdom.
And think about this: Rudolph and Hermy are being chased by a vicious Bumble. That's a pretty stressful situation! And his nose doesn't stop glowing, not for a minute. Rudolph was just told by Clarice that he's cute, is praised by his teacher for a brilliant display of flying, and he starts a little play fight with his friend. Those fights are normal among reindeer males, his adrenaline is already up from the shock and heart going pitter-pat, of course his nose is glowing. Santa, the ruler of all good in the North Pole (who rejected me as a youth because of my physical deformity) has just asked me to lead his sleigh and save Christmas? That's a hell of a lot of pressure! Of course his nose is going to glow!
"But his nose started glowing when he was born! What stress was he under at birth?" You think I didn't do some research on reindeer? Shame on you, gentle reader! When a reindeer calf is first born, you should leave it be for about 4-6 hours, so say the reindeer farmers. Let the mother tend to it. And what do Mr. Donner and Santa do? They disturb the kid. I don't know what that would do, but I can imagine it would cause excitement, raise the heart rate, some degree of stress on the body, bam! Glowing nose.
See, now, perfectly scientific explanation to Rudolph's glowing nose.
If you want an explanation of talking snowmen, such as Sam and Frosty, then I implore you to look no further than the 2013 Doctor Who Christmas Special "The Snowmen". In short, they're leftovers from an alien invasion by snow that occurred in the 19th century.
Fa la la la la la la la la!!!!
