Curiosity Daily

Art in Space, Screen Time in Lockdown, Mold vs. Chemicals

Episode Summary

Learn about the Space for Art Foundation; how screen time helped kids in lockdown; and mold vs. cleaning product safety.  More from NASA astronaut Nicole Stott: Pick up "Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet — and Our Mission to Protect It" https://www.sealpress.com/titles/nicole-stott/back-to-earth/9781541675049/  Website: https://www.npsdiscovery.com/  Follow @Astro_Nicole on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Astro_Nicole   Space for Art Foundation: https://www.spaceforartfoundation.org/ "Screen time" can be a social lifesaver for teens in lockdown — as long as it's the right kind by Cameron Duke Anwar, Y. (2021, September 2). Teenagers aren’t as lonely in lockdown if interacting positively online. Berkeley News. https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/09/02/teenagers-arent-as-lonely-in-lockdown-if-interacting-positively-online/  Magis‐Weinberg, L., Gys, C. L., Berger, E. L., Domoff, S. E., & Dahl, R. E. (2021). Positive and Negative Online Experiences and Loneliness in Peruvian Adolescents During the COVID‐19 Lockdown. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 31(3), 717–733. https://doi.org/10.1111/jora.12666  Which is worse, mold or cleaning products? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Molly) Basic Facts about Mold and Dampness. (2021). https://www.cdc.gov/mold/faqs.htm  ‌Weinhold, B. (2007). A Spreading Concern: Inhalational Health Effects of Mold. Environmental Health Perspectives, 115(6). https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.115-a300  ‌Cleaning Supplies and Household Chemicals. (2015). Lung.org; https://www.lung.org/clean-air/at-home/indoor-air-pollutants/cleaning-supplies-household-chem  ‌Alexander, R. (2018, February 22). How Your Housecleaning Products Can Be Bad for Your Lungs. Healthline; Healthline Media. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/how-your-housecleaning-products-can-be-bad-for-your-lungs  Dumas, O., Boggs, K. M., Quinot, C., Varraso, R., Zock, J., Henneberger, P. K., Speizer, F. E., Le Moual, N., & Camargo, C. A. (2019). Occupational exposure to disinfectants and asthma incidence in U.S. nurses: A prospective cohort study. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 63(1), 44–50. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.23067  ‌Svanes, Ø., Bertelsen, R. J., Lygre, S. H. L., Carsin, A. E., Antó, J. M., Forsberg, B., García-García, J. M., Gullón, J. A., Heinrich, J., Holm, M., Kogevinas, M., Urrutia, I., Leynaert, B., Moratalla, J. M., Le Moual, N., Lytras, T., Norbäck, D., Nowak, D., Olivieri, M., & Pin, I. (2018). Cleaning at Home and at Work in Relation to Lung Function Decline and Airway Obstruction. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 197(9), 1157–1163. https://doi.org/10.1164/rccm.201706-1311oc  Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.

Episode Notes

Learn about the Space for Art Foundation; how screen time helped kids in lockdown; and mold vs. cleaning product safety.

More from NASA astronaut Nicole Stott:

"Screen time" can be a social lifesaver for teens in lockdown — as long as it's the right kind by Cameron Duke

Which is worse, mold or cleaning products? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Molly)

Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.

 

Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/art-in-space-screen-time-in-lockdown-mold-vs-chemicals

Episode Transcription

CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough. 

ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about the Space for Art Foundation, with help from its founding director, NASA astronaut Nicole Stott. You’ll also learn about how “screen time” can be a social lifesaver for kids in lockdown; and we’ll answer a listener question about which is worse: mold or cleaning products? 

CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity. 

Nicole Stott, NASA (Ashley) 

Yesterday, astronaut Nicole Stott told us how going to space changed her perspective of life here on Earth. Today, Nicole is back to tell us how she's been communicating that message since returning home — with art. Nicole Stott is a former NASA astronaut who's been on two

missions to space, including a long-duration mission on the International Space Station. She's also the author of the new book, "Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet — and Our Mission to Protect It." After retiring from NASA, Nicole helped to found the Space for Art Foundation, a nonprofit that works to "unite a planetary community of children through the awe and wonder of space exploration and the healing power of art." We asked her about it. 

[CLIP 2:41] 

If you're interested in participating in the Space for Art Foundation, you can check it out at space for art foundation dot org. Again, that was Nicole Stott, former NASA astronaut and author of the new book "Back to Earth: What Life in Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet — and Our Mission to Protect It." You can find a link to pick it up in the show notes. 

"Screen time" can be a social lifesaver for teens in lockdown — as long as it's the right kind by Cameron Duke (Cody) 

Screen time can be high on the list of a parent’s worries. People claim that too much screen time will make kids and teens less social and more depressed, among other things. But according to recent research, it’s all about what kind of screen time kids are getting. The study finds that in some cases, screen time might even make kids less lonely.

This research took place during the very beginning of the COVID-19 lockdowns in Peru, back in April 2020. Researchers from Berkeley University began studying the online activity of 735 teenagers in order to find out if the quality of their screen time — specifically, of their online interactions — had an effect on their loneliness during this period of intense isolation.

So, they gave the teens a series of surveys. They had the participants report how many hours they’d spent on a screen, and rate the quality of their online interactions as either positive or negative. They also rated how lonely they felt.

The teens had a pretty diverse set of online experiences. Girls spent the most time on social media and messaging apps, the boys focused on video games, and both groups watched their fair share of online videos. Regardless of the activity, the researchers found that teens who reported more positive online interactions felt less lonely, while those who experienced more negative interactions felt more lonely — though most people reported more positive than negative interactions. More screen time just magnified these trends: the longer they spent with a screen, the more positive and negative experiences the participants had — which meant the more or less lonely they felt.

The researchers say that it’s the quality of online interactions, either positive or negative, that seems to contribute to loneliness. Endlessly doom scrolling social media can certainly have a negative impact on a person’s well-being. But meaningful interactions with friends and family online during the lockdowns went a long way toward making people feel less alone.

The result is much more nuanced than “screen time is good” or “screen time is bad.” Instead, the study suggests that the amount of screen time is less important than the quality of what’s on the screen.

LISTENER Q: Which is worse, mold or cleaning products? (Ashley) 

We got a listener question from Molly, who writes “My boyfriend and I just had a little issue- our window air conditioner got moldy and he sprayed it with Lysol. But now we can only smell Lysol. It got me wondering. Which is worse to breathe in, Lysol or mold? Obviously both are bad, but maybe one is worse than the other? Maybe Science (tm) has an answer!” Great question, Molly! 

I mean, yes, both are bad. It would be great if we had side-by-side comparisons of the immediate and long term health effects of each, but unfortunately, there’s way more research out there on the harms of cleaning products than there is about mold. Still, we do know some things. 

The harms of mold vary widely depending on the species, the environment, and the individual. Some otherwise healthy people can react to mold with symptoms like a stuffy nose, wheezing, coughing, and itchy eyes and skin. Some don’t have any reaction at all. But if you have a mold allergy, asthma, or certain immune conditions, your symptoms could be a lot worse. There’s also 

a possibility that early mold exposure could lead some children to develop asthma. 

Despite what you may have heard about the dangers of “black mold,” you can’t actually tell how dangerous a mold is by color. The CDC’s advice is to treat all mold as potentially dangerous, and try to get rid of it — with professional help, if necessary. 

That will usually involve strong cleaning products, which have their own well-documented health risks. A 2017 study found that nurses who used disinfectants like bleach and quaternary ammonium compounds — the active ingredient in Lysol — at least once a week increased their risk of developing COPD, a serious lung condition, by up to a third. And then consider the results of a 2018 study from Europe that followed more than 6,000 people for 20 years: it found that the more an individual worked with cleaning products, especially cleaning sprays, the greater their declines in lung function over time. 

So if mold and cleaning products are both bad for your lungs, what should you do? According to the CDC, you should first remove any moldy items from the area. Once mold starts to grow in porous surfaces, that’s the only way to deal with it. On hard surfaces, you can use a dilution of no more than 1 cup of bleach in 1 gallon of water. Open doors and windows to let in fresh air,

and make sure you wear gloves. And in the future, try to ward off mold growth by keeping everything cool and dry, and try switching to milder cleaning products: you’d be surprised what stuff like vinegar, baking soda, and regular ol’ soap can do. 

Thanks for your question, Molly! If you have a question, send it in to curiosity at discovery dot com, or leave us a voicemail at 312-596-5208. 

RECAP/PREVIEW 

CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll hear next week on Curiosity Daily. 

ASHLEY: Next week, you’ll learn how a newly discovered manuscript changes what we know about the legend of Merlin; 

Why breaks heal faster than sprains; 

How potty training cows could help the environment; 

Why a fear of blood makes you faint, while other phobias just make your heart race; And more! Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today. 

1. CODY: NASA astronaut Nicole Stott PAINTED WITH WATERCOLORS IN SPACE. On the International Space Station. And when she got back to Earth, she decided that art was a universal communicator she could use to help share her experience in space. And we hope that our conversation will inspire you to “find your path to action that fits in your life to be a crewmate here on spaceship Earth.” 

2. ASHLEY: When it comes to screen time, quality is more important than quantity. Researchers surveyed teens in Peru during the April 2020 lockdowns and found that those who had more positive experiences online felt less lonely, while those with more negative experiences felt more lonely. 

a. CODY: Screen time “good vs bad” -> “appropriate vs inappropriate” 

3. CODY: Mold and cleaning products are both bad for your lungs — both can cause irritation and asthma symptoms, and cleaning products have been linked to serious lung conditions and declines in lung function. Your best bet is to avoid mold altogether by keeping your living space cool and dry, but if you do need to clean up mold, get rid of any porous materials that are moldy and clean hard surfaces with diluted bleach — not cleaning sprays, which can irritate the lungs. Then, consider switching to milder cleaning products, like soap, vinegar, and baking soda. 

[ad lib optional] 

ASHLEY: The writer for today’s “screen time” story was Cameron Duke. 

CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also a writer and audio editor on today’s episode. 

ASHLEY: Our producer and lead audio editor is Cody Gough. 

CODY: Have a great weekend! [AD LIB SOMETHING FUNNY] Then, join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes. 

ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!