Gateway Arch

Looking to get some attention for your city? You could always try building a ridiculously huge, and largely impractical structure. Not only is it a good way to show Mother Nature that she's not the only one that can make big things, but people love jumbo-sized stuff. The ancient Egyptians knew it. Installation artists know it. Now you know it. Take the city of St. Louis as an example, they built an enormous arch right on the mighty Mississippi and, by gum, it put them on the map!

The Gateway Arch was completed and opened to the public back in 1967 as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States. It was designed by the one and only Eero Saarinen, and when you've got an original Eero in your city, you know you're doing something right. It is the tallest man-made monument in the western hemisphere which makes it a perfect backdrop for almost anywhere you might find yourself in the city.

The Arch isn't just for scenery. You can also go right up to it where almost any attempts to photograph it will leave it virtually unidentifiable, but that sort of makes it better and more artsy, right?

You can even walk right up to it and touch it.

This is almost certainly good luck so be sure to really get the most of it and then sit back for all the good fortune that awaits you.

If all of that is not enough, then go to the top of the arch. You get to ride in a super cramped little pod that amazingly looks bigger in a picture than it actually is. Oh, there are seats for 5 people in each pod.

Once at the top you can look down at what is probably the best view of the city.

Yep, over-sized structures are definitely the way to go. It doesn't have to be an arch, but as the "gateway to the west", a giant arch was fitting for St. Louis. 

Climate change and redhead genetics

Climate change debates have never concerned me very much. Seems to me that whether human behavior is contributing to climate change or not, we should probably be smart with natural resources and do our best to take care of the planet anyway. Nevertheless, when you make crazy claims you get my attention. Stating that climate change will lead to the extinction of redheads qualifies as a crazy claim.

A better understanding of redheads might help explain why this is a crazy claim.

Red hair is the least common natural hair color with less than 2% of the world's population being a redhead. There is no single "redhead gene", but about 80% of redheads have mutations in the melanocotin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene which helps regulate the conversion of pheomelanin, a lighter pigment with a reddish and yellow color, into eumelanin, a darker pigment that is brownish or black in color. These mutations result in more pheomelanin and hence, red hair, or at least more reddish hair. While its hard to say when these mutations first arose, it is estimated that some of them first occurred 20,000 to 100,000 years ago and even neanderthals are thought to have had red hair at some frequency.

So why would redheads be in any danger, especially because of climate change? That has to do with the fairer, more pale skin that redheads often have which is another result of the abundance of pheomelanin. Such skin is far more prone to damage from the sun and that seems to be the crux of this crazy claim. To be fair, it is not completely without merit when you consider that more redheads are found in climates that are generally darker and colder (where their fair skin may be advantageous). The world's largest redhead population is found in Scotland, a place not exactly known for bright sunshine, where about 13% of the country's population have red hair. Meanwhile, Africa, with its punishing sun, seems to be nearly devoid of redheads. So if climate change results in higher temperatures, more sun, and just an overall more Africa-like climate for the whole world then redheads will be at a disadvantage right? Not so fast! Even though it may seem like red hair is some sort of environmental adaptation and could be affected by climate change, this argument depends on redheads being less able to reproduce, presumably because the rising temperatures will increase their rates of getting skin cancer or other problems that may prevent them from having babies. Such negative selection possibly existed in more ancient populations, but nowadays we have such wonderful inventions like clothing, hats, sunscreen, and the indoors that make the extreme damaging effects of the sun less likely to increase redhead mortality rates at earlier ages moreso than any other hair color. Plus, there is another explanation for why red hair frequencies are different between populations. It probably has less to do with environmental adaptation and can be better explained by founder effects and geographic isolation, where red hair mutations were present in an appreciable percentage of the initial inhabitants of that area. This seems especially applicable to an island population like Scotland or even the rest of the British Isles, where redheads are also more numerous. Lastly, even if redheads were in trouble because of rising temperatures, the red hair mutations would probably remain in the gene pool for quite some time since these mutations are recessive, which means that even people without red hair may be carriers of red hair mutations and would not be selected against by the scorching sun. So I am pretty skeptical of this crazy claim. I mean, besides all the scientific reasoning, at the end of the day, here's why redheads are in no danger:

Because redheads can look like this! Yep, just like blondes and brunettes, redheads can be gorgeous too and combined with their rarity, that makes them pretty special. Certainly there is unfair "gingerism" now and throughout history which inappropriately labels redheads as "gingers" and acts as though they are soulless deviants, but this appears to mostly apply to males with red hair while redheaded women are to be sought after. Any potential negative selection from such cultural attitudes or even the sun seem to be largely minor when compared to the possible positive selection from the desirability of an attractive person with red hair. As long as this remains true, I don't think redheads have anything to worry about, with or without climate change.