"Lawrence K. Altman, M.D." is a well known byline in The New York Times, but not a regular one now. So when it appears, you know something big is afoot.
Yesterday, Altman appeared in Science Times with a story that researchers had finally determined, with a hand-held video microscope and thermal imaging technology, why Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's nose is red. It solves a longstanding "glowing mystery," Altman intones.
Dutch and Norwegian researchers observed deer as they ran on a treadmill and discovered that the capillaries in reindeers' noses "are 25 percent thicker than those observed in the human nose and are believed to perform critical roles like heating, delivering oxygen and humidifying inhaled air to keep the animal’s nose from freezing."
The story was based on a study in the BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, which has a 30-year tradition of publishing special Christmas studies each year. The articles "vary from simply amusing to bizarre to creative or potentially important," Altman writes. But here's the catch: All must be based "on methodologically sound science."
It's nice to know, finally, what made Rudolph unable to join in any reindeer games, until one foggy Christmas eve. But this does not clear up all the mysteries concerning Christmas. For example, I'd like to know why, on the typical Christmas Eve, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
Altman and the BMJ leave us hanging on that one. Maybe next year…
-Paul Raeburn
[Update: For more on the science of Rudolph's nose, see the paper at Improbable Research, which bills itself as the site "that makes people laugh and then think."]
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