Santa Claus is a magical being who brings gifts to children all over the world and is heavily aided by the magic of Christmas. But in the case of magical beings, it is all the more interesting to look at them through the prism of science.
A selection of well-known and lesser-known scientific facts about Santa Claus
Children from all over the world write letters to Santa Claus, so he has his hands full on Christmas Day. Arnold Pompos of Purdue University calculated in 1998 that Santa visited approximately two billion children in 800 million households during that time and traveled a distance of approximately 100 million miles, more than the distance of the Earth from the Sun (150 million miles).
Santa hands out presents when children are sleeping, i.e. from approximately 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. He apparently only has ten hours to deliver the gifts, but appearances are deceiving. Children live all over the Earth, which rotates on its axis. The world is divided into time zones, and Santa flies from east to west, adding an extra day to the original ten hours. In total, he has 34 hours to gift all the children.
Speed 4,705,882 kilometers per hour
However, Santa’s task is not easy, so he has to hurry. According to the BBC, Santa would have to fly at a speed of 4,705,882 kilometers per hour, which is 7.4 times faster than the fastest man-made object. In 2021, the Parker probe of the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) became that, which reached a speed of 635,266 kilometers per hour. If Santa really moved that fast, he probably would have vaporized practically immediately with the reindeer due to the high temperature created by friction with the atmosphere. Fortunately, the magic of Christmas protects them all from this fate, adds the BBC.
The sleigh is not pulled by reindeer at all, but by reindeer
Even the reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh are special and special. If we ignore the fact that they can fly and that Rudolph’s nose lights the road, the sleigh is not actually pulled by reindeer at all, but by reindeer (female reindeer). The reason is simple, Gerald Lincoln and David Baird of the University of Edinburgh told the British newspaper Telegraph – all the reindeer in the depictions of Santa and his sleigh always have antlers on their heads. However, male reindeer shed their antlers after the rut and do not have them for Christmas. At that time, only pregnant females have antlers on their heads, which protect their food from males.
According to the Live Science server, female reindeer build large reserves of fat for the winter, which can make up 50 percent of their body weight. Reindeer fat protects against the bitter winter, when temperatures can drop to -43 degrees Celsius. Male reindeer also build up fat reserves, but they use up most of their energy during rut, and fat usually makes up about five percent of their body weight in winter. Reindeer females are thus significantly better prepared for pulling heavy loads than males, who might not be able to pull them.
Is Rudolph neutered?
However, while researching reindeer, Professor Lincoln discovered one more interesting fact – shedding of antlers in males can be stopped by castration. “Rudolf can thus be a neutered male or female. However, I like the idea that Rudolf was a female more,” adds the scientist.
Reindeer, regardless of sex, reach an adult weight of several tens of kilograms, and the creation of several kilograms of fat reserves requires a large amount of food. However, in the tundra where reindeer live, there is little grass and other vegetation, so they feed on lichens.
Finding enough food is one thing, processing it is another. Reindeer are ruminants, just like deer or cows, so in the summer they spend a huge amount of time chewing their food. It is an important process and helps ruminants to break down food into smaller and more digestible parts. However, in a busy summer schedule, it can be very difficult for reindeer to find time to sleep.
They sleep or they don’t sleep
Neuroscientist Melanie Furrer and chronobiologist Sara Meier from the University of Zurich, together with other colleagues, examined four female reindeer in 2023. They hooked them up to electroencephalography (EEG) machines and examined their brain waves. Brain waves similar to non-REM (NREM) sleep appeared during chewing, but due to the noise caused by the chewing movement, the scientists could not confirm with certainty that the waves were indeed identical.
The REM stage is the stage of the deepest sleep. During it, the eyes move quickly under the eyelids and vivid and bizarre dreams appear during it. At the same time, its name – rapid eye movement – is derived from rapid eye movement.
Although it was not possible to confirm that the reindeer were actually sleeping based on the shape of the waves alone, other clues pointed to it. The reindeer were calm and relaxed while chewing, often with their eyes closed. At the same time, they were more difficult to disturb and did not respond to quiet sounds made by other ruminating reindeer.
Perhaps the most convincing evidence of sleep while ruminating, however, was the fact that reindeer that were prevented from sleeping needed to make up for the sleep deficit later. However, time spent chewing reduced this need, the scientists found.
Reindeer eyes can also see UV light
Reindeer are not only looking for food in summer, but also in winter. About 90 percent of the light that occurs in the Arctic at that time is either UV light or blue visible light. Glen Jeffery from University College London led a team of scientists from Dartmouth in the USA and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, who revealed that reindeer eyes can also see ultraviolet (UV) light.
Many species of lichens glow in UV light, similar to UV paints under UV light in, for example, dance clubs. According to NASA, the human eye can perceive light with a wavelength of 700 nanometers (red) to 400 nanometers (violet), but reindeer can also see light with a wavelength of up to 320 nanometers, thanks to which they are able to find food and navigate even in such challenging conditions.
