Learn about how a 4-year-old can help you unblock your creativity; how we figured out what color dinosaurs were; and why you should never hit the snooze button. 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: One Unusual Way to Unblock Your Creativity: Borrow a 4-Year-Old — https://curiosity.im/2LsTIs3 How Do We Know What Color Dinosaurs Were? — https://curiosity.im/2XrvQLO Whatever You Do, Don't Hit the Snooze Button — https://curiosity.im/2Xl133r Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about how a 4-year-old can help you unblock your creativity; how we figured out what color dinosaurs were; and why you should never hit the snooze button.
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:
Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/a-trick-for-unblocking-creativity-hitting-snooze-can-ruin-your-morning-and-how-we-know-what-color-dinosaurs-were
ASHLEY HAMER: Happy holidays. We're going to help you celebrate with some of our favorite stories from the past year.
CODY GOUGH: Enjoy these Curiosity Daily classics ad free. And stay subscribed to Curiosity Daily for brand new episodes starting January 1. Hi. We're here from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you learn about how a four-year-old can help you unblock your creativity. How we figured out what color dinosaurs were. And why you should never hit the snooze button.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity. We've covered a lot of ways for being more productive or creative on this podcast. But today's tip might take the cake. If you want to kickstart your creativity, then try this. Borrow a four-year-old, definitely with their parents' permission. This idea comes from Austin Kleon, who's an artist, a prolific blogger, and the author of three books on creativity.
He's also the father of two small boys. And he's a father, who is fighting back against the stereotype that caring for kids and being creative don't mix. In fact, on his blog, he insists that children can be a magic elixir for unblocking creativity. Of course, time spent changing diapers and handing out yogurts is time not spent on your work. And yet, what kids eat up in time, they can give back in inspiration.
For example, after visiting a sculpture garden in Austin, Kleon wrote this on his block. Quote, "Towards the end of our visit, I spent at least half an hour at the very edge of the garden with my back to the beautiful art and scenery, watching the cars whiz by on Robert E Lee Road. Going to an art museum with a two-year-old will make you rethink what's interesting and what's art. After all, what are cars but fast, colorful, kinetic, sculptures." Unquote.
Well, some would say that Kleon's child pulled him away from art, Kleon sees it instead as a case of being inspired by his child to see the world with fresh eyes. And looking at the same old stuff in a new way is key to creativity. A cartoonist named Linda Barry is one of many artists who has agreed with Kleon. She once shared a story about how when she was working as a University professor, she actually paired up her students with four-year-olds, to try to get them to approach problems in a way that was less tight and focused.
That's because kids can remind us not to take things too seriously. And to be adventurous. And to really see our weird and gorgeous world. All the important sources of inspiration. The takeaway is that sometimes the key to unblocking yourself, is to break out of that received wisdom and self-consciousness that can strain how you think about the problems you're facing. Kids let their eyes and mind guide them. And to borrow a bit of that mentality, all you've got to do is hang out with a kid, keep an open mind, and listen.
ASHLEY HAMER: Have you ever wondered how we know what color dinosaurs were? Well, we have. And yes, it turns out we actually do have ways of figuring this out. For example, in 2010, researchers had a surprising revelation when they were doing a close examination of the feathers of a dinosaur named sinosauropteryx. That was the first dinosaur we found with feathers, which we'd discovered back in 1996.
When those feathers were examined under a microscope, they were found to have surviving melanosomes, which are the tiny cellular organelles that generate melanin. And thus, pigment. You'll find melanosomes in pretty much every animal. But it wasn't until a couple of years earlier in 2008, that a team of researchers from Yale had even started looking for them in fossilized birds. They did so with an eye toward comparing them to modern birds.
And what they found indicated the relationship between the physical shape of the melanosomes and the pigment that they would produce. That discovery made the color producing process a lot less mysterious. Which motivated the 2010 study of the sinosauropteryx feathers. So what color are dinosaurs? For now, we can't answer that question for every dino. But when it comes to sinosauropteryx, the picture is nearly complete.
These little beasts, which were only about a meter long, had a robber mask around their eyes, dark reddish coloration on their backs, a pale belly, and long striped tails. Sounds really raccoon-like, right? It's not too surprising that a dinosaur would bear a close resemblance to a non-related living animal. Color patterns evolve because they work. And because they work, they evolve more than once.
So next time you think of dinosaurs, if you picture your raptors with leopard prints, your duck bills with zebra stripes, or your brachiosauruses with bright blue peacock plumage, you may not be too far off the mark.
CODY GOUGH: I just can't believe that we can figure out what color dinosaurs are, but we still can't figure out what the fox say.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think they just say, [ROAR] that's my impression. YouTube knows what the fox say.
CODY GOUGH: Sure does. Here's a pro tip for your next wake up call. Whatever you do, do not hit the snooze button. Science suggests it'll only make things worse. Even if it feels so good. One academic who agrees with this is Mary Carskadon, A professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. She says that hitting the snooze button causes what's known as drockling. That's the phenomenon of drifting in and out of sleep in the early morning.
Drockling feels great. And there's a reason for this. Your body temperature naturally warms up a couple hours before your body is ready to wake up. If your alarm clock wakes you up before you're ready, your body temperature is at its lowest, and braving your cold bedroom can be hard. But going back to sleep will make your morning a lot harder. Waking up at different times each morning disrupts your internal alarm, which makes it harder for your body to know when to start getting sleepy.
You're also giving yourself sleep inertia, which is that groggy feeling you get after you abruptly wake up from a deep sleep cycle. The problem is, that when you drift back off after hitting snooze, your body may enter a deeper sleep stage than it was in before. Which would make the groggy feeling even worse. The result is that even if it might feel like you're getting more rest, you're actually making yourself more tired.
So what's the alternative. Research shows that you should set your alarm for the same time every day. Eventually, you will retrain your body clock to get sleepy at the right time and feel awake when it's time to start your morning. Don't worry. Coffee is always an option. And remember, if you really want a better night's sleep, also consider banishing your smartphone from the bedroom.
ASHLEY HAMER: I did. I know I've said it before, but that was the one best thing that I've ever done for my sleep.
CODY GOUGH: And I wrote this script yesterday, and this morning, I did not hit snooze a single time.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice.
CODY GOUGH: It was hard.
ASHLEY HAMER: It would have been harder if you had.
CODY GOUGH: Exactly. Now, let's recap what we learned today.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today, we learned that you can unblock your creativity by hanging out with kids. I got to find myself one.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: And that we can actually figure out the color of certain dinosaurs by analyzing their melanosomes, which generate pigment.
ASHLEY HAMER: And that you should never hit the snooze button.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again tomorrow, to learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.