Red is the warmest color

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There’s few certainties in life. But the sun will always rise, the seasons will change, and the Outside/Inbox will forever remain answered. From lighthouse paint hues to polar bear lovers, this week the team takes up your questions on all things red. What makes cardinals red? Why do albino animals have red eyes? ⁠ ⁠Why are so many lighthouses painted red? ⁠ Do our dogs love us? ⁠Do some animals have same-sex relationships?⁠ ⁠How do environmental changes affect pair-bonding? ⁠ Featuring Alex Funk, Jeremy D'Entremont, Karyn Anderson, and Francesco Ventura. Thanks to Outside/In listeners Liz, Tyler, Monica and Lera for their questions. We’re looking for new submissions to the Outside/Inbox! Give us your weirdest, nichest, most bizarre questions you can think of. Send us those questions by recording yourself on a voice memo, and emailing that to us at outsidein@nhpr.org. Or you can call our hotline: 1-844-GO-OTTER. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. ⁠Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. ⁠ Follow Outside/In on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠BlueSky⁠, or join our private ⁠discussion group on Facebook⁠. LINKS Here’s Karyn’s paper on how ⁠same-sex behavior⁠ in animals is far more common than previously thought. Olney, Illinois is known as “the home of the white squirrels.” Learn more about ⁠how they’re trying to protect these rare albino animals⁠ in this small Midwest town. Here’s the ⁠Northeast District’s 2025 US Light List⁠, which lists an astounding 40,000 different lights, sound signals, and other visual aids to navigation. Francesco Ventura’s paper analyzing divorce rates in albatrosses came out in 2021. ⁠You can find it here⁠. CREDITS Produced by Marina Henke, Felix Poon and Nate Hegyi. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity in the natural world collide.
0:04.0	I am your host, Nate Hedgy, here with producer Marina Henke.
0:07.0	Hey, Marina.
0:08.0	Nate, I want to tell you a fact that I recently learned.
0:11.0	Okay.
0:12.0	Do you know that multiple states can claim the same official state bird?
0:17.0	Really? The same state bird?
0:19.0	I feel like they're just not being very creative. I mean, I imagine it a lot like, you know, NFL draft, right? You know, each state, they come with their picks, their MVP, Oklahoma, wants the rough grouse. I don't know. No, many states, they can and they do have the same bird mascot. What do you think is the most popular state bird? Listen, I'm going to say that they are
0:39.6	Repin Ben Franklin, the original American mascot bird, the turkey. Okay, you're never going to
0:46.7	hear me knock a good guess, but it's not that. It is the Northern Cardinal. Ooh, great choice.
0:54.7	I mean, we've got Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia.
1:01.7	Also, lest we forget, very popular sports mascot.
1:05.7	Yep.
1:05.9	The Cardinals are world champs.
1:09.1	The St. Louis Cardinals are headed back to the World Series.
1:13.0	What do you think makes the Cardinal so popular?
1:15.9	Oh, it's got to be the color.
1:17.0	They pop.
1:18.1	Yes, so this was also my guess.
1:19.9	And turns out, we are following in suit with our species.
1:23.1	So humans tend to have a naturally heightened reaction to seeing red. This has sometimes been called
1:29.6	the red romance effect, even the red dress effect. There's even been some experiments that
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