Learn about a world beyond Pluto nicknamed “The Goblin” that astronomers just discovered; what neuroscience says about whether humans have free will; and “Blue Zones” where people live longer. 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 World Beyond Pluto That Astronomers Just Discovered Do We Have Free Will? Neuroscience Might Have an Answer Blue Zones are Places Where People Live Much Longer Than Average Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about a world beyond Pluto nicknamed “The Goblin” that astronomers just discovered; what neuroscience says about whether humans have free will; and “Blue Zones” where people live longer.
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:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/a-new-world-beyond-pluto-neurosciences-take-on-free-will-and-blue-zones-where-people-live-longer
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from curiositydotcom to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about a world beyond Pluto that astronomers just discovered, what neuroscience says about whether humans have free will, and blue zones where people live longer.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity on the award-winning Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Astronomers have just discovered a new planet beyond Pluto.
CODY GOUGH: Really, not burying the lead here, are we?
ASHLEY HAMER: Nope. This discovery hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet. But the Astronomical Journal is considering the paper submission that talks about this discovery. And we found this planet by accident when we were looking for a different planet. So let's back up. In 2016, astronomers got the idea that there might be a planet about as big as Neptune somewhere far away in our solar system.
They called this world Planet Nine. And astronomers all over have been looking for it. Nobody's found it yet, but it's probably worth remembering that space is kind of big. So it might take years and years of searching before we confirm that Planet Nine exists. And in the meantime, we found another tiny world out there. It's officially called 2015 TG387. But astronomers took the TG part and ran with it. So they gave it the nickname, The Goblin.
The Goblin is a dwarf planet that orbits the sun 80 times further away than Earth. One trip around the sun on The Goblin would take about 40,000 years. That's one long year. I mean, the last time The Goblin was where it is now in its path around the sun, we hadn't even invented civilization. Let alone telescopes or spacecraft.
But check this out. Even though we didn't find Planet Nine, The Goblin might tell us a lot about our solar system. Astronomers ran some simulations of The Goblin while assuming a planet the size of Neptune or a super-Earth was also out there. Long story short, it looks like if Planet Nine did exist, then it actually shepherded The Goblin along its orbit.
In fact, Planet Nine's gravitational influence might keep a bunch of distant worlds far away from it, which would avoid the chance of a nasty collision. And here's another cool thing. There are other dwarf planets in the zone where we found The Goblin. These little worlds all travel in their own zone far away from the main mass of our solar system where you find the eight planets closest to the sun that you know and love.
Taken together, the orbits of these dwarf worlds could be a powerful argument that Planet Nine is a real thing. Now, again, the planet's discovery is still waiting for peer review. But it could have big implications. And it's a good reminder that space is pretty big. So don't ever feel like looking up at the sky as a waste of time, unless you're staring at the sun. Don't do that.
CODY GOUGH: Let's lighten things up with a fun story about philosophy, metaphysics, and free will. Neuroscience may have an answer to the question, do we have free will?
ASHLEY HAMER: Really lightning it up.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Fun stuff.
CODY GOUGH: Sure. We're just going to tell you about the nature of free will in the next two to three minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Am I a Robot let's find out.
CODY GOUGH: I promise I'll get to the neuroscience in a minute. But first, let's talk philosophy, and let me explain what I mean by free will. According to philosophers, you need two things for a person to have free will. First, you need the option to have taken a different action than the one you choose. And second, you have to be the source of your action.
So let's say you gave your friend Megan an awesome robot suit for her birthday. It's her choice to climb into it or not, but you've got the remote control that operates it. Once she's inside the robot, she doesn't have free will anymore. You control whether she uses her lasers or her jetpack. Now let's say there's a set of controls inside the robot suit but she doesn't know how to find them.
Even though she could technically do something other than what you chose for her, you're still the source of her actions. She doesn't have free will. So why does this matter? It matters because let's say the robot suit goes on a rampage through the city. Well, that's not Megan's fault, now is it, because she can't be held responsible for actions if she's not the source, right? Ah, yes. Philosophy.
We've got more background on this whole situation along with some more examples and a little more info on determinism and incompatiblism in our full write up on curiositydotcom and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But we've gotten enough of a primer on philosophy to fast-forward to where the science comes in.
In a recent study, neuroscientists Adam Baer and Paul Blum found strong evidence that we aren't actually making our own choices. At least not consciously. Participants in this study were presented with five white circles and asked to predict which of them would turn red then report whether they guessed correctly.
Then the first version of the test, the circles turned red very quickly and in the second version, they took a little more time. When participants had more time to reflect on their choice, they reported correct predictions 20% of the time. That is precisely random given there were five circles.
But when the circles turn red more quickly, the participants reported correct guesses 30% of the time. That suggests that the choice happens backward. They saw the circle turn red before they were done deciding, but it happened too quickly for them to consciously realize it. Therefore, they thought they had made their choice freely even though they had already seen the red circle.
Put more simply, the study's author said, our minds may be rewriting history. It suggests that the choices we make are not the choices we think we make. But that doesn't take into account the fact that first of all, given time, we're more likely to accurately describe the choices that we do make. And second of all, there's not necessarily a reason to think that our unconscious influence, somehow, means the chooser didn't have free will when they decided. Of course, you're free to think otherwise.
ASHLEY HAMER: You want to live longer? Then think about moving to a blue zone. We may not have the fountain of youth, but this is the next best thing. How long do you think you're going to live, Cody? Tell me, right now.
CODY GOUGH: Depends on how many cybernetic implants I get.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, right. Well, yeah. We're just going to be living for hundreds of years by the time we're old people, right?
CODY GOUGH: Anytime I think of longevity I think of our conversation with Michio Kaku about teleporting a consciousness using lasers to other planets.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: That was a bonkers conversation.
ASHLEY HAMER: It really was. But like if you teleport your consciousness, then are you really like experiencing everything there is to experience? It's just like consciousness. Like there's so much more to being inhuman.
CODY GOUGH: We already did our philosophy segment, Ashley.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, anyway. Let's talk blue zones. A blue zone is a place where people live to be really old at extraordinarily high rates, have a really high average life expectancy, or a very low mortality rate for middle-aged people. You'll find them all over the world, but here are some top blue zones.
Sardinia is a large Italian island just North of Tunisia with the most men over 100 years old in the world. The Japanese island of Okinawa is another blue zone. And Okinawan women have the longest average life expectancy of anyone on the planet. Back in the Mediterranean, elderly Greek residents of Ikaria live eight years longer than average and have a much lower dementia rate on average.
And across the ocean in the Americas, you've got plenty of centenarians in the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica and Loma Linda, California is home to an Adventist community that lives longer than anyone else in the United States. So what do they have in common? People in blue zones stay naturally active by keeping up the physical work they've done their whole lives.
Even when they reach old age, they're encouraged to support their communities. Cultural practices in blue zones are designed to lessen stress and blow off steam. And almost all of the places on the blue zone list have a long tradition of favoring vegetarian food, even if they're not strictly vegetarian. It turns out that healthy living, healthy motion, and a healthy sense of purpose all add up to a long and happy life.
CODY GOUGH: Read about today's stories and more on curiositydotcom.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow with the award-winning Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
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SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.