Learn about a genetic mutation that makes people need less sleep; a lost, sunken continent at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean called Zealandia; and why the word “like” is not just a lazy language filler. Please support our sponsors! Get 10% off your first order from Saturday Morning Coffee Company at SaturdayMorningCoffeeCompany.com In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: There's a Genetic Mutation That Makes People Need Less Sleep — https://curiosity.im/2LwdjHH Zealandia Is the Lost, Sunken Continent at the Bottom of the Pacific Ocean — https://curiosity.im/2ZN3iK2 A Linguist Studied a Reality Show to Break Down the Grammar of "Like" — https://curiosity.im/2Lwdp21 Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about a genetic mutation that makes people need less sleep; a lost, sunken continent at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean called Zealandia; and why the word “like” is not just a lazy language filler.
Please support our sponsors! Get 10% off your first order from Saturday Morning Coffee Company at SaturdayMorningCoffeeCompany.com
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Download the FREE 5-star Curiosity app for Android and iOS at https://curiosity.im/podcast-app. And Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing — just click “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/a-mutation-that-makes-you-need-less-sleep-why-like-isnt-lazy-language-and-zealandia
CODY: Hi! We’re here from curiosity-dot-com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about a genetic mutation that makes people need less sleep; a lost, sunken continent at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean; and why the word “like” is not just a lazy language filler.
CODY: Let’s, like, satisfy some curiosity.
There's a Genetic Mutation That Makes People Need Less Sleep — https://curiosity.im/2LwdjHH (Ashley)
There’s a genetic mutation that makes people need less sleep. As in, a fortunate few people are able to sleep six or fewer hours without any ill effects. And new research has helped scientists get a handle on exactly what this mutation means. Back in 2009, scientists at UC San Francisco studied a family of “short sleepers,” meaning people who only get 4 to 6 hours of sleep but wake up fresh as a daisy. They figured out that their superhuman sleeplessness was due to a mutation of a gene called DEC2, which helps manage the body's circadian rhythms. And for a study published in August 2019 in the journal Neuron, those scientists started to look for other genes at play. In order to find more short-sleep genes, the scientists screened for genetic mutations in people known to be short sleepers, and hit upon one particular family with a rare variant in a gene called ADRB1. ADRB1 codes for a receptor for the hormone norepinephrine, which generally controls the body's motion and alertness. Your body pumps out norepinephrine during a "fight or flight" response, snapping your brain to attention and making your heart race. As you might imagine, norepinephrine is usually at its lowest levels during sleep. The scientists genetically engineered mice to have this same ADRB1 mutation and found that they slept for about an hour less, on average, than non-mutant mice. When they looked at the brainstems of the mutant mice, the scientists saw that cells studded with this receptor were active when the mice were awake, but quiet during their deep non-REM sleep. Stimulating the neurons carrying ADRB1 also immediately woke the mice from deep sleep. The team suggests that the mutation of ADRB1 makes neurons carrying the gene more active, which is what makes the organism become more awake and content on less sleep. Okay, so what’s next? Well, several drugs can already manipulate norepinephrine receptors to treat things like psychiatric conditions, cardiovascular problems, glaucoma, and migraines. Further research on these mutations might add sleep disorders to that list, and may even produce the overachiever's dream: adding more hours to the day by enabling the body to stay awake longer without consequence.
Oh, and we should probaby mention that the researchers estimate this genetic mutation is only present in 4 out of every hundred-thousand people. Just because you're able to wake up early and keep going after only a few hours of sleep does not mean you're what the researchers consider to be a short sleeper. So don’t use this story as an excuse to skip sleep!
Zealandia Is the Lost, Sunken Continent at the Bottom of the Pacific Ocean — https://curiosity.im/2ZN3iK2 (Cody)
If you’re disappointed at the failure of researchers to find the lost continent of Atlantis, then take heart. Researchers have actually found a lost sunken continent at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. And back in 2017, the Australian National University launched a drillship to explore it in one of the most intensive explorations of a "lost continent" ever.
The continent is called Zealandia and, as the name suggests, its highest point, the only part that breaches the surface, is New Zealand.
If you sail west from Sydney, Australia, you'll find Zealandia. Sort of. You won't be able to see most of it, but deep beneath the ocean is a chunk of land spread out over 4.9 million square kilometers that broke off from Australia about 75 million years ago.
The mission of the Australian National University expedition was to collect sediment from the continental crust beneath the ocean and test our theories about how and when Zealandia formed. Scientists currently believe that it was once a part of Gondwana, which is the supercontinent that also included Australia, Antarctica, Africa, and South America — which probably broke apart about 75 million years ago. With core samples and mineral deposits, scientists will be able to strengthen these theories — or throw them out entirely.
We've actually had an idea of Zealandia's existence since about 1919 (when it was known as Tasmantis), but it's not the only sunken continent on the planet.
There are quite a few more of these continental crumbs, in fact, but only Zealandia has been deemed big enough to actually be described as a continent. The others, including Mauritia, Madagascar, and a bunch of tiny underwater islands you've probably never heard of. They’ve all been deemed "microcontinents" or "continental fragments." But I prefer to think of them as “candidates for what might have been Atlantis.”
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‘Like’ isn’t a lazy linguistic filler – the English language snobs need to, like, pipe down — https://curiosity.im/2Lwdp21 (Republish) (from Saturday 9/28) (Cody)
CODY: Research shows that the word “like” isn’t just a lazy language filter; in fact, it, like, has grammar too. So let’s, like, talk about the word like.
Rebecca Woods is a Senior Lecturer in Language Acquisition at the University Of Huddersfield. And she reported in The Conversation that she studied the word “like” by applying a previously built corpus to the British reality TV show “Love Island.” A corpus is a representative sample of language as used by certain speakers. It’s a data-driven way to figure out how language is used, rather than relying on our perceptions, opinions and memories.
Woods transcribed the show and found that “like” was not used as a filler, the way you’d use words like “um” or “er.” That’s because “like” rarely came right before or after a pause. That means that on Love Island, participants knew what they wanted to say, and using the word “like” was an intentional part of what they said.
The corpus that Woods used came from previous research into the BBC’s makeup competition called “Glow Up.” And Woods figured out six different places in a sentence from the show where “like” made sense, and six where it didn’t. So for example, take the sentence “I’m going to create a beautiful look in 15 minutes.” You might naturally hear this variation: “I’m going to create a beautiful look in like 15 minutes.” You probably would NOT hear this one: “I’m going to create a beautiful look in 15 like minutes.”
Woods confirmed there are clear grammar “rules” both in terms of both content and how the word “like” fits into the conversation. And on top of that, these rules are understood by the speaker and the person they are speaking to. You can read details about these rules in our full write-up on this on curiosity-dot-com. But on a high level, “like” can be used to do things like highlight part of a sentence, or make sure you’re communicating an idea clearly.
As for why do “like” annoys people so much, Alexandra D'Arcy at the University of Victoria in Canada argues that it might sound more repetitive since the uses of like are pronounced in the same way.
And Woods pointed out that language gripes such as this one seem to be a proxy for demeaning certain groups. For example, the word “like” is perceived to be used more by people who are young, female, and not in positions of power. When we criticize a person based on how we think they speak, we not only draw attention away from what they are saying, but we’re likely to stop them from wanting to speak up at all. Language prejudice is real and needs to be called out.
CODY: And now, let’s recap what we learned today. Today we learned that a rare variant in the gene ADRB1 could lead you to need less sleep — but don’t skip your bedtime, because you probably don’t have that mutation.
ASHLEY: And that there’s a lost, sunken continent called Zealandia at the bottom of the ocean, which probably used to a part of the supercontinent Gondwana.
CODY: And that the word “like” isn’t just a lazy language filter — it actually serves a purpose! So stop your like, language prejudice, okay?
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CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Stay curious!