Learn about why the Big Five personality traits may not be reliable in developing countries; why Brazil's Ilha da Queimada Grande island is full of outrageously venomous snakes; and why wounds in your mouth heal so quickly. 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: The Big Five Personality Traits May Not Be Reliable in Developing Countries — https://curiosity.im/2KgKNJm Snake Island Is Teeming With Nothing But Outrageously Venomous Snakes — https://curiosity.im/2SvwQtq Why Do Mouth Wounds Heal So Quickly? — https://curiosity.im/2SGgpuF 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 why the Big Five personality traits may not be reliable in developing countries; why Brazil's Ilha da Queimada Grande island is full of outrageously venomous snakes; and why wounds in your mouth heal so quickly.
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/big-five-personality-traits-are-weird-why-mouth-wounds-heal-so-quickly-and-snake-island
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 big problem with the Big Five personality traits; an island that’s full of outrageously venomous snakes; and why wounds in your mouth heal so quickly.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
The Big Five Personality Traits May Not Be Reliable in Developing Countries — https://curiosity.im/2KgKNJm (Ashley)
New research may change the way we look at the Big Five personality traits. And it’s a great example of how even with the most rigorous science, our understanding of the world is subject to change. The Big Five is also known as the five-factor model, and you’ve heard us talk about it before: it’s the research-backed set of five traits that professionals use to measure personality. And researchers have also used them in a LOT of scientific studies, to analyze everything from people’s leadership potential to their choice of romantic partner. You can remember the five traits by using the acronym OCEAN, which stands for: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Essentially, this model works because of a statistical method called factor analysis. It basically takes a large number of variables and groups them into a limited number of "factors," or larger variables, that seem to explain each individual variable. If a lot of people take the same personality test, you can use factor analysis to tease out the few important traits that each answer maps onto. So for example, a question about how much someone likes change would map onto openness, and a question about procrastination would map onto conscientiousness. With all this data, the Big Five model has been pretty accurate for measuring personalities and predicting behaviors... at least, in developed countries. But this model has also been used in developing countries to predict some pretty high-stakes qualities, including job performance and credit eligibility. And that’s where this new problem comes in.
A new study published in Science Advances dove into four databases of personality data, which covered 300-thousand people from 30 different countries. When the team completed the factor analysis for the Big Five in other countries and compared it to the data from the United States, there were a LOT of mismatches. In many cases, the factor that a set of questions was supposed to measure actually mapped onto a completely different factor in a different country. So like in Ghana, for example, all the datasets showed that agreeableness could be explained by openness. That’s… a big difference. Here’s part of the reason this might have happened: the Big Five was originally tested in developed countries using participants who were mostly college grads, relatively wealthy, and white. There’s actually a scientific term for this population, and it goes by the acronym WEIRD. That stands for western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. The United States is WEIRD, for example, as are places like the UK, Australia, and Germany. Now, don’t panic: this study doesn’t “disprove” the Big Five, because the researchers say the mismatch could happen for lots of reasons, from the way face-to-face interviews were conducted, to cultural differences, to how the tests were translated. In fact, there was less of a mismatch with online surveys, so the in-person test administrators may have had something to do with it. But whatever ends up being the case, the researchers stress that we must improve the way we measure personality before we can actually understand the effects of personality traits in developing countries.
Snake Island Is Teeming With Nothing But Outrageously Venomous Snakes — https://curiosity.im/2SvwQtq (Cody)
You know what’s definitely NOT a WEIRD place? Brazil’s Ilha da Queimada Grande [EEL-yah dah kay-MAH-dah GRAHN-je]. Also known as? Snake Island. And it’s aptly named for the fact that it’s teeming with nothing but outrageously venomous snakes. According to some estimates, there's about one snake per square meter. Ready to pack your bags to visit yet? Up to 4,000 of the snakes on the island are deadly golden lancehead vipers, and theirs is one of the strongest venoms on the planet. Which begs the question: why would snakes on an isolated island need such strong venom? Well it turns out that it’s birds who helped shape the evolution of the golden lancehead snake.
11,000 years ago, rising water levels turned a peninsula into an island, which left the snakes stranded to evolve on their own. There were no land predators to worry about, but no land prey either, so the only source of food was birds.
So, while most venomous snakes can sink their teeth into their prey and then wait for the toxin to take effect, the golden lancehead's meals will fly back to the mainland if they get half a chance. That's why their venom has to work so quickly — the fact that it's literally strong enough to melt human flesh is an unintended side effect.
You might not expect that a place literally crawling with deadly snakes would require a warning, but apparently, it does — at least, according to Brazil’s government. And their warning is not just for people. The golden lancehead is listed as critically endangered, and this is the only place in the world that it lives. You don't have to warn us twice. We'd much rather visit Paradise island instead.
[NHTSA - DRIVE SOBER]
ASHLEY: Today’s episode is sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
CODY: Everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk. You could get in a crash.
People could get hurt or killed. But let’s take a minute to look at some surprising statistics. Almost 29 people in the United States die every day in alcohol-impaired vehicle crashes. That’s one person every 50 minutes. And even though drunk-driving fatalities have fallen by a third in the last three decades, drunk driving crashes still claim more than 10,000 lives each year.
ASHLEY: Drunk driving can have a big impact your wallet, too. You could get arrested and have to deal with huge legal expenses. You could possibly even lose your job. So, what can you do to prevent drunk driving? Well, you could plan a safe ride home before you start drinking. Or designate a sober driver, or call a taxi. If someone you know has been drinking, take their keys and arrange for them to get a sober ride home.
CODY: We all know the consequences of driving drunk. But one thing’s for sure… You’re wrong if you think it’s no big deal. Drive sober or get pulled over.
Why Do Mouth Wounds Heal So Quickly? — https://curiosity.im/2SGgpuF (Ashley)
Why is it that a cut on your finger seems to last for days, but a cut in your mouth heals so quickly? While there are a lot of factors at play, research has found one intriguing answer that could benefit more than just your mouth: There's a molecule in your saliva that can help grow new cells.
Scientists already knew that saliva contains a peptide called histatin-1 that fights off bacteria and helps heal wounds. In a 2017 study published in the FASEB Journal, Chilean researchers set out to discover exactly how the little molecule helped heal wounds. In a series of experiments, they added histatin-1 to chicken embryo cells and several types of human blood-vessel cells and watched what happened.
There are several steps that have to happen for a wound to heal. New skin cells have to form and migrate from the wound's edges, little by little, to cover the whole thing like a Band-Aid. Active cells called fibroblasts move in, too, which helps to produce collagen, elastin, and other proteins that the new skin will need. The body also starts re-growing blood vessels, which boosts blood flow to the wound and makes it heal even faster.
It turns out that histatin-1 does all of that. Not only does it make new skin cells migrate and attach themselves to the wound, but it actually helps to grow new blood vessels.
So, if saliva heals wounds, should you lick yours? Unfortunately no, because your mouth is full of germs.
But you’ve got the right idea. The Chilean researchers hope to use histatin-1 molecules to create new materials and implants that could help speed up wound healing in the future.
ASHLEY: And now, let’s recap what we learned today.
CODY: The Big Five personality traits may not be as reliable in non-WEIRD countries — but researchers are working on ways to improve their methods
ASHLEY: And that Brazil’s snake island is literally an island of some of the most venomous snakes on the planet. We’re not gonna be visiting any time soon.
CODY: And that a peptide in your saliva helps heal wounds faster, and maybe researchers can use those molecules to speed up healing for other applications.
[ad lib optional]
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!