Secretly Incredibly Fascinating: The Color Red

Episode notes

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why the color red is secretly incredibly fascinating.

Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week’s bonus episode.

LINKS FOR KATIE GOLDIN:

• Katie Goldin on Bluesky
• @ProBirdRights on Bluesky
• ‘Creature Feature’ podcast (iHeartRadio)
• When Is a Bird a ‘Birb’? An Extremely Important Guide (Audubon)

RESOURCES USED TO INFORM THE EPISODE’S LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

• native-land.ca
• U.S. Department Of Arts And Culture
• The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland (Smithsonian)
• “Finding Lenapehoking” (YouTube / Hudson River Maritime Museum)
• Why Do They Call It Beacon? (The Highlands Current)
• Dutch & Native American Heritage In The Hudson River Valley (National Park Service)

RESEARCH SOURCES:

• Red: The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau
• The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair
• Fate of the Cave Bear: The lumbering beasts coexisted with the first humans for tens of thousands of years and then died off. Why? (Smithsonian Magazine)
• The Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave: Bears Of The Recess (French Culture Ministry)
• Finally, the Beauty of France’s Chauvet Cave Makes its Grand Public Debut (Smithsonian Magazine)
• The Tongva (Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society)
• Spain’s Prehistoric Cave Paintings Open to the Public for the First Time in Twelve Years (Smithsonian Magazine)
• Stone man joins carved animals in neolithic farmyard (The Guardian)
• Researchers Investigate the Use of Color at Çatalhöyük (Archaeology Magazine)
• Our full live SIF episode about weasels is available to all Maximum Fun members! Visit maximumfun.org/join to support SIF and hear our weasel chat.
• Compound Summary: Carthamin (National Institutes Of Health)
• Photoreceptors / Rods and Cones (Cleveland Clinic)
• Eye Health A-Z: Cones (American Academy Of Opthamology)
• Science Questions With Surprising Answers: What is it about red that makes bulls so angry? (West Texas A&M University)
• Earliest Evidence of Indigo Dye Found at Ancient Peruvian Burial Site (Smithsonian Magazine)
• The Oldest Example of a Prestigious Red Dye Was Found in a Rare 3,800-Year-Old Textile (ThisIsColossal.com)
• Only One Country’s Flag Doesn’t Have Red, White or Blue—Can You Guess It? (Reader’s Digest) — the answer is Jamaica.
• Savignano Sul Rubicone, Italy — Crossing the Rubicon (Atlas Obscura)
• How Spanish conquistadors, and a tiny cactus-dwelling insect, gave the world the colour red (The Conversation)
• Why Tiny Cactus Bugs In Red Food Dye Are A $35 Billion Industry | Big Business (Business Insider / YouTube)

PAST SIF EPISODES ABOUT COLORS: we’ve covered indigo, purple, green, orange, magenta, beige, blue, and gray. Maximum Fun members pick most of our episode topics. Become a member to suggest and vote on other colors you’d like to hear!