Nikki Hughes

You know, when I met up with this biologist named Nikki Hughes in North Carolina, she told me my dad always was talking about his quest for the perfect red leaf.

Respect.

The red was not there beforehand, or you would have seen it, because the leaf would have been purple, because green plus red equals purple.

So the question is...

Like, we don't know why some species go red and others don't.

I mean, you might think we know everything, but really, there's just not enough people studying these fun mysteries of life.

In a lot of parking lots, you'll notice that they have trees of a single species, but some are yellow and some are red and some are orange, even though they're all in the exact same sunlight and the exact same temperature.

You'll have a single tree and some branches will be purple and some of them will be yellow and some will be green.

And I feel like that species is a fun clue like to work on.

Like what's the difference between those branches?

It seems incredibly complicated to figure this out.