What makes gingers ginger?

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Doctors Adam Rutherford and Hannah Fry set out to solve the following perplexing cases sent in by listeners:

The Scarlet Mark Sheena Cruickshank in Manchester asks, "My eldest son is ginger but I am blonde and my husband brunette so we are constantly asked where the red came from. Further, people do say the 'ginger gene' is dying out, but how good is that maths or is it just anecdotal?"

Our science sleuths set out to discover what makes gingers ginger with a tale of fancy mice, Tudor queens and ginger beards. Featuring historian and author Kate Williams and Jonathan Rees from the University of Edinburgh, who discovered the ginger gene.

The Hairy Hominid "How does leg hair know it has been cut? It does not seem to grow continuously but if you shave it, it somehow knows to grow back," asks Hannah Monteith from Edinburgh in Scotland.

Hannah Fry consults dermatologist Dr Susan Holmes, from the Hair Clinic at Southern General Hospital in Glasgow, to discover why the hairs on your legs do not grow as long as the hairs on your head.

Adam attempts to have a serious discussion about the evolutionary purpose of pubic hair with anatomist and broadcaster Prof Alice Roberts.

If you have a scientific mystery for the team to investigate, please email [email protected]

Producer: Michelle Martin

Image: A woman with splendid hair, lying on grass, Credit: Thinkstock

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:03.0	The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to BBCworldservice.com
0:09.0	slash podcasts.
0:23.3	Welcome to the curious broadcasts. Indeed we do I'm dr Adam Rutherford and that is dr Hannah Fry and our questions come from you the listeners where you can send them into
0:27.8	curious cases at BBC.co. UK indeed now to kick us off at the beginning of the series we have got a couple of cases
0:34.8	that Adam and I have gone out and solved and both of them concern hair.
0:39.6	Yes and it is noticeable when one first meets you, Dr. Fry, that your hair is both...
0:46.3	I'm a supermassive ginch. Yes, it is a beacon of red hairedness.
0:49.8	There's a lot of ginger going on right here. Massive amounts of luxuriant red hair.
0:54.6	You're putting that in a much nicer way
0:56.2	than the playground bullies did when I was much younger.
0:59.2	I find that quite heartbreaking.
1:00.7	What are the types of insults that they reach out? A common one would be Ginger Minga, which I think maybe only makes sense if you're on the British Isles. Minga is a slang term for somebody who is deeply unattractive.
1:15.6	Which is very, very cruel and unfair.
1:18.6	And of course this is quite a regional thing for us Northern Europeans.
1:22.6	Yeah, the discrimination against gingers I suppose is in part because they're quite so common here.
1:27.6	Anyway, on with the show. Today's study is close to my own heart dear listener.
1:39.2	And more importantly, your head.
1:41.7	Quite.
1:43.0	And I do hope dear to you as well, Adam, because as a geneticist, the curious case of the Scarlet
1:48.4	Mark is one with DNA at its core.
1:51.0	Indeed, we have pledged to investigate your everyday questions using the
	...

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