The Science behind Christmas

Last week I blogged about the astronomical advent calendars, but other scientists are also using Christmas to capture the imagination.

The Communicate Science blog is running a series of Christmas Science Facts, one published each day until the 25^th December. You may be interested to know that Isaac Newton was born on Christmas day. Myrrh, one of the offering of the Magi, is an ingredient in mouth wash. Also Santa’s reindeer are most probably female – male reindeer lose their antlers at the end of the mating season at the start of December.

In The UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, journalist Tom Chivers has some analysis on the scientific truth behind the Christmas story.

The Science of Christmas: the First Noel explore the science behind the bright star that guided the three Magi (probably a Supernova in 5BC), the Virgin Birth (not known to occur naturally in mammals but common in reptiles such as the Komodo dragon).

In a second article, The science of Christmas: Santa Claus, his sleigh, and presents, Mr Chivers calculates the speed Santa will have to fly to get to all the children (10,703,437.5km), faster in fact that than last year due to an increase in weight of the favoured Christmas gifts this year.

And can reindeer really fly? Sure they can – there is a book written entirely on this subject – Can Reindeer Fly?: The Science of Christmas, by Dr Roger Highfield. As a clue to its content, you will discover that…”The antlers are actually fractal vortex-shedding devices. We are talking not aerodynamics here, but antlaerodynamics”.

And what about gifts? Why do we continue to give? Professor Martin Nowak of Harvard University suggests generosity is evolutionarily helpful because it creates a “network” of altruism. The logic is that if I help you, eventually somebody else will help me.

”Our analysis shows that gratitude and other positive emotions, which increase the willingness to help others, can evolve in the competitive world of natural selection,” says Prof Nowak.

Which is research worth celebrating at Christmas, I think.

//Esther Crooks