Learn about how you can become an early riser; whether we all see the same colors; and why sound carries farther on cold days. 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: How to Become an Early Riser — https://curiosity.im/2EltjZw Do You See the Same Colors as Everyone Else? — https://curiosity.im/2LKMkqf Here's Why Sound Carries Farther On Cold Days — https://curiosity.im/2EiJh72 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! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom 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 how you can become an early riser; whether we all see the same colors; and why sound carries farther on cold days.
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:
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! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
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/become-an-early-riser-how-temperature-affects-sound-and-do-we-see-the-same-colors
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi, we've got stories on sleep, sight, and sound from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gouff.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about how you can become an early riser. Whether we all see the same colors. And why sound carries farther on cold days.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity. On the award-winning, Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sleep is great, but mornings are a great time to get things done. The peace and quiet of the morning hours are great for challenging projects or squeezing in a workout session before work. Would you believe me if I told you that you, yes, you could become an early riser? Cody, I know this is the story for you.
CODY GOUGH: I've been looking forward to doing this one for a while, actually.
ASHLEY HAMER: Good. Man, I would be impressed if you got to work before me someday.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: Technically, it has happened a couple of times.
ASHLEY HAMER: It has, it has. You're right.
CODY GOUGH: Just not most of the time.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right, I mean, you know, I'm an early riser. I do my work out every morning before work, before breakfast, even. But there have been a lot of really successful early risers. Thomas Jefferson woke up with a sun to record the weather, and Apple CEO Tim Cook gets up at 3:45 in the morning. Now, being an early riser is not for everyone. Some people might just be genetically predisposed to being night owls. True story. But if you want to give early rising a try, here's how. First, take it slow. When you're just starting a new routine, push your wake-up time back by 15 or 20 minutes each morning. Don't jump from an 8:00 AM wake-up time straight to a 5:00 AM wake-up time.
Second, go to bed earlier, and don't bring your screens with you. The light that comes from a phone or a tablet makes your body think it's daytime. And that's no good for sleeping. Set a screen-free bedtime for yourself, and stick to it. Next, have a morning plan. Think about what you want to get done in the morning hours. If you don't have an objective, you might just wander back to bed. Whatever you do, plan to eat breakfast. It's something to look forward to in the morning. Plus, lots of complex carbs and fiber can help you feel alert.
Also, try using a gentle alarm clock. There's this app called the Sleep Cycle app. It doesn't wake you at a set time. Instead, it wakes you up near your desired time during a light patch in your sleep cycle. There are other apps and devices like fitness tracking watches that can do this. But we've got a link to the sleep cycle app in our full write-up on this. And speaking of alarm clocks, move your alarm clock away from your bed. If you have to get up to turn it off, you're less likely to hit snooze. If you use your phone, keep it out of arm's reach. And finally, stick with it. The first morning is the worst, but bodies adapt. You can do this.
CODY GOUGH: If I can do it, anyone can.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's see if you can.
CODY GOUGH: Have you ever wondered whether you see the same blue sky as your mom or your best friend? Believe it or not, scientists have wondered about this, too. And Thanks to their research, they might have some answers. The real question they're asking is, even if two people have perfectly functioning color vision, does each person experience the same color when they both look at, say, an orange together?
ASHLEY HAMER: This is a classic dorm question, right? Like maybe the blue I see is blue to me, and the blue you see is blue to you. But your brain is showing you the color orange or green or yellow. And my brain's showing me what it says is the color blue.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, man,
ASHLEY HAMER: Whoa.
CODY GOUGH: Well, here's the thing. There is evidence that suggests maybe colors are a highly individual experience. A 2009 study looked at colorblind squirrel monkeys.
ASHLEY HAMER: As you do.
[LAUGHS]
CODY GOUGH: They're like colorblind humans and most other colorblind mammals, because they only have two types of cone cells, which are sensitive to blues and greens. So the monkeys can pick out blue and yellow dots from a field of gray dots. But they can't tell red ones apart from green one. Well, most of them can't. This study gave a few squirrel monkeys a genetically engineered virus that caused one very specific effect. It would randomly target green sensitive cells and transform them into red sensitive cells. That's a type of cell no squirrel monkey is wired to process.
Yet process it, they did. The altered monkeys were quickly able to pick out all the red and green dots they wanted. And this was even though absolutely nothing had been done to their brains to give them a context for what red looks like. That's really weird. It'd be like if you were able to make a black and white film vividly technicolor just by playing it on a color TV. The monkeys' brains adapted to this new type of information really quickly.
But what were they actually seeing? It almost certainly wasn't red the way you imagine it. The kicker is that this kind of thing probably also applies to humans, with our three types of color-detecting optical cells. Every brain encounters blue, green, or red for the first time at some point. And that's probably the same time that your brain decides on what the actual perception of that color is like. Here's how color vision scientist, Joseph Carroll, puts it, quote "I think we can say for certain that people don't see the same colors." Unquote. Well, color me surprised.
ASHLEY HAMER: If you've ever been outside on a bitterly cold winter morning, and wondered why it feels like you could hear a pin drop from five blocks away. We might have an answer. It turns out that sound travels faster in warm air, but travels farther in cold weather.
CODY GOUGH: Quick, go outside and start blasting this podcast to see how many people in your neighborhood hear it. I promise your neighbors will thank you.
ASHLEY HAMER: I love it. So people often talk about the speed of sound as a constant thing. But it actually changes based on the environment. Sound is a pressure wave that relies on moving molecules to get to where it wants to go. So it can go more quickly or slowly depending on what those molecules are like. When it comes to air, humidity, and temperature, both play a role in the speed of sound. Humidity lowers the density of air, and that makes sound travel slightly faster. Heat makes air molecules move faster, so they're more ready to carry a pressure wave than slow moving molecules. That's why heat makes sound travel faster.
So you've probably seen the way a straw in a glass of water looks like it's broken in half. That's due to the refraction of light. The way rays of light bend when they move from a medium like air to a medium like water. Specifically, the speed of light slows down in water, which makes it bend toward the air-water boundary. When something like a sound wave does the opposite, moving from a slow medium like cold air to a fast one like warm air, it bends away from that boundary. That is because sound moves faster in warm air than colder air, the wave bends away from the warm air and back down towards the ground. That's why sound is able to travel farther in chilly weather.
Now, a cold winter morning is quiet for more reasons than just the speed of sound. First, there's snow, which absorbs sound. That muffles all the little noises you usually hear reverberating off of the ground. Not many people like standing out in cold weather either, so there are fewer cars, pedestrians, and animals to make sounds. You might be miserable out there in the cold. But at least you have peace and quiet as your reward.
CODY GOUGH: That's all for today. But you can learn even more on curiosity.com, this weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: This weekend, you'll learn about a science-backed way to stop hiccups using only your finger. The coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth. An alternative theory to quantum mechanics called Bohmian mechanics. 25 obscure English words you probably haven't heard. A new theory that says dark energy and dark matter might be the same weird substance, and more.
CODY GOUGH: Special thanks to Jess Reines for script assistance with today's stories, and other stories this week. This episode was edited and produced by me.
ASHLEY HAMER: Come hang out with us again, Sunday, on 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. Have a great weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: And stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.