Learn about how that dark sense of humor can mean a higher IQ, the origin of the word “orange,” and how the arctic produces “zombie fires.”
Learn about how that dark sense of humor can mean a higher IQ, the origin of the word “orange,” and how the arctic produces “zombie fires.”
A Dark Sense of Humor May Mean You Have a High IQ by Joanie Faletto
Which "Orange" Came First: the Color or the Fruit? By Reuben Westmaas
Arctic wildfires can turn into "zombie fires" by Steffie Drucker
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/a-dark-sense-of-humor-may-mean-a-high-iq-origin-of-the-word-orange-and-zombie-fires-in-the-arctic
ASHLEY HAMER: Hi. You're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiositydotcom. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today, you'll learn about how that dark sense of humor can mean a higher IQ, the origin of the word, orange, and how the Arctic produces zombie fires.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
NATALIA REAGAN: Ever have an inappropriate joke pop in your head during a somber moment, or maybe laughed at a joke that was a little too morbid? Well, I've got some good news. Having a dark sense of humor doesn't necessarily mean you're a twisted sociopath. I mean, you could be, just not necessarily. But according to a study published in 2017, it may mean you have a high IQ. That study found that people with the highest preference and comprehension of dark humor also had the highest verbal and nonverbal intelligence, as well as emotional stability.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers recruited 156 people and tested their verbal and nonverbal intelligence. Next, they gave the participants a series of dark jokes to read and then asked them a series of questions. How hard was it to understand the joke? How surprised were they by the joke's content? Was the joke novel to them? Sure enough, the people who understood and enjoyed the jokes the most tended to be the more intelligent and educated of the study's participants.
The researchers suggest that processing morbid humor requires a little bit more brain work than processing more vanilla jokes. Specifically, they pointed to a phenomenon called frame blends, where a particular situation is framed in one way then shifted to a different frame to create a humorous effect. When the subject matter of either frame is sinister or otherwise unpalatable, that should require even more cognitive resources. That's because the brain would actually have to overcome this distaste to get the punchline of the joke. For example, here's one of the jokes.
We're in a morgue. A physician is lifting a white cover sheet off a body with a woman standing beside him. The woman confirms, sure. That's my husband. Anyway, which washing powder did you use to get that so white? In this case, you start with a framing that a woman in mourning is identifying her dead husband's body. But then those elements are blended with the stereotype of a housewife who's obsessed with cleaning products. This is also why it took me a second to get that joke. It takes some extra mental energy to combine the two, not to mention get over the morbidity enough to laugh about it. It's a killer joke.
ASHLEY HAMER: It is translated from the original German. So I think it loses something in translation.
NATALIA REAGAN: Yeah. It really did take me a second because I was, like what? And then, I was like, oh, they're making that sort of stereotype of the woman being like how did you bleach my husband so great?
ASHLEY HAMER: No, it's the sheet. She's talking about the sheet.
NATALIA REAGAN: It's been a long day, Ashley.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's all right.
NATALIA REAGAN: This is embarrassing. I was like, why didn't they just say get him so white? Oh, that's rich. OK, good. Even better. Great.
ASHLEY HAMER: Perfect.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, man.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's keep that in. I love it.
NATALIA REAGAN: Oh, man. I swear I'm not a moron. A little bit.
ASHLEY HAMER: If you've ever gone paint shopping, you know that there are a lot of colors named after things. Eggplant, burgundy, cobalt, rose. But most of them are just tweaks to basic colors. Eggplant is a kind of purple, and cobalt is a kind of blue. But there's at least one color that didn't even have a name before we got the object that named it. That color is orange. Here's how that happened.
Oranges didn't make their way to England until the 13th century. But obviously, the color was there long before that. After all, leaves turn orange every autumn. Sunsets have the same orangey glow. And orange flowers can be found all over the place. But Old English speakers didn't call it orange. The word they used was geoluhread, which roughly means yellow red.
The first recorded English usage of the word orange came sometime around 1200 CE after the citrus fruit came to England. That term was poome orenge, which descends from the old French term pomme d'orenge which translates to orange apple. The term came to France as narang, which was the noun used by the Arabic-speaking Moors of 10th century Spain. That word had its origins in the Sanskrit word, narangi.
That's where the trail goes a bit cold. But we do know that the fruit was bred sometime around 500 BCE in Southeast Asia. And some linguists believe that its ultimate origin is a dravidian word, meaning fragrant. But English isn't the only language that needed some prodding to come up with a distinct word for that warm, bright color. According to linguist Dominic Watt from the University of Leeds, it's pretty rare or for a language to even have a name for a mixture of red and yellow. But it sure was a useful addition to the English language, as long as rhyming isn't important to you.
NATALIA REAGAN: 2020 has seen a pandemic, hurricanes, and murder hornets. So this next sentence probably won't come as a shock. The Arctic is being threatened by zombie fires. I'll explain. First, let's get to know this ecosystem. The Arctic tundra gets very little precipitation. But that water has nowhere to go. So it soaks into the soil like a sponge. That wet soil goes through cycles of freezing and thawing. The region is also a carbon sink, meaning the plants and the soil they decompose in store more carbon than they put out.
This is a great service to everyone who breathes oxygen and enjoys chilly winters. Releasing carbon in the atmosphere leads to warming. Trapping it in the ground keeps things cool. But the Arctic has been heating up. Siberia has seen temperatures rise above average by 40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit this summer. We're talking temps around 80 degrees Fahrenheit or 27 degrees Celsius in Siberia. Here's why that's bad news.
The tundra is dotted with layers of ancient, frozen dead stuff called permafrost. Permafrost and the peat soil below it are chock-full of carbon. That carbon won't be released to warm the atmosphere unless there's a fire, but it's usually too cold and wet for that to happen. Now you can probably see where this is heading. Higher temperatures are melting the permafrost and drying out the peatlands. And that's making them easier to burn.
Now, fire is a normal part of any ecosystem. It frees up nutrients for plants that can spur the growth of new species. But the amount of fire in the Arctic in recent years is unprecedented. Now, these Arctic fires aren't big blazes like what has been happening in California. Instead, flameless fires slowly smolder their way across and under the ground. Think less Bambi forest fire and more Princess Bride fire swamp.
Smoldering fires burn longer and deeper into the ground, and they're harder to extinguish. The peat supplies combustible methane gas that allows the smolders to survive even cold wet conditions. So fires start in the fall, smolder beneath the surface all winter, and then reappear in the spring. Zombie fires. The nickname suddenly makes sense, right? These zombies are already transforming the tundra from a carbon sink into a carbon source and affecting other parts of the globe. In other words, what happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic. So we all need to do our part to combat climate change.
OK. What did we learn today?
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, we learned that those darker, inappropriate jokes that you laugh at and maybe feel bad about, they take a bit more mental gymnastics to understand than, say, a dad joke. So if you find yourself cracking jokes at a funeral, you might have yourself a higher IQ. It's not a bad thing.
NATALIA REAGAN: No. I've cracked a few jokes at a funeral myself. Don't feel too bad. Now, I feel a little bit better. And we discovered that when it comes to orange, it was the fruit that came before the color. When the fruit was introduced to England, there was finally a word to describe that sun-kissed hue. Orange you glad you found out, Ashley? Sorry. I had to.
ASHLEY HAMER: You did have to. It's in your contract.
NATALIA REAGAN: It really is. If I'm filling in for Cody, I got to bring the puns, you know? And they don't call me the Punisher for nothing, so.
ASHLEY HAMER: And we learned that fires burning in the Arctic can actually sit in smolder for months, only to catch again in a zombie fire. Fortunately, zombie fires require permafrost and peat, rather than bodies with brains to survive.
NATALIA REAGAN: I'd really like to think that these zombie fires are just going around saying peat, permafrost, instead of brains. One can only hope. Today's stories were written by Jodi Feleto, Ruben Wesmiss, and Steffi Drucker, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who is the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting was by Natalia Reagan and Sonia Hodgen. Today's episode was edited by Natalia Reagan. Our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.