Learn about a research-backed way to achieve better self control by asking for help from others; how Ambystoma salamanders “steal” DNA from other species via kleptogenesis; and how your brain can process visual information as sound.
Learn about a research-backed way to achieve better self control by asking for help from others; how Ambystoma salamanders “steal” DNA from other species via kleptogenesis; and how your brain can process visual information as sound.
For better self control, ask for support from others by Kelsey Donk
Kleptogenesis is evolution's weirdest breeding technique by Cameron Duke
Lip reading without sound lights up your auditory cortex, and scientists now know why by Grant Currin
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/boost-self-control-by-asking-for-support-gene-stealing-organisms-and-how-lipreading-works-in-the-brain
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 a research-backed way to achieve better self control; how some organisms steal DNA from other species; and how your brain can process visual information as sound.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Reaching a big goal can feel like a lonely endeavor. Maybe you’ve had to turn down invitations from friends so you could study, or avoid the break room so the office cupcakes don’t threaten your diet. But it doesn’t have to be this way; in fact, research shows that in the long run, staying isolated isn’t even the best strategy for maintaining self-control. Instead, we should be asking for support from others.
Researchers from universities around the world recently finished a study on people’s beliefs about self-control, and what the best kinds of self-control look like. They found that people are pretty biased toward the benefits of willpower, and they most admire people who can manage their temptation all on their own. That’s despite the fact that asking for support is actually more effective.
Here’s how they figured it out. The researchers had 147 participants read a story about a student who needed to study for a test, but was tempted to go out and party with friends instead. The participants generally thought that the student had more self-control in the versions where he used sheer willpower to resist temptation than the ones where he shut off his phone to avoid texts from his friends at the party.
In a follow-up study, people had to give advice to an imaginary person. Most often, they recommended resisting temptation all on their own, without asking for help or changing their environment to make success easier.
This isn’t surprising. But it is a bummer. Nearly a decade of research on the psychology of self-control shows that changing your environment to make it more supportive and asking for help when you stumble is way more effective than powering through challenges all by yourself. People are more likely to break the cycle of addiction when they rely on a community for support. And same goes for folks who want to stick to an exercise program. It’s best to have friends to help you.
Temptations can be tough. And we do need willpower to stick to our commitments. But science says it’s even better to give yourself all the support you need so that you feel less temptation in the first place. Why make things harder for yourself and rely on willpower alone? Instead, ask for help and change your surroundings. It’s not cheating; it’s just smart.
There are a lot of ways for species to reproduce in nature. There’s sexual reproduction, asexual reproduction, cloning — but maybe the weirdest of all is something called “kleptogenesis.” Klepto, as in, stealing. That’s right: Some organisms steal DNA from other species. So let’s learn about evolution’s weirdest breeding technique.
Specifically, I’m talking about Ambystoma [AM-biss-TOME-uh] salamanders. They’re amphibians you can find hiding under rocks on the forest floor in and around the Great Lakes region of North America. Some species of Ambystoma are unisexual, meaning that the whole species is female. That’s not all that uncommon; there are plenty of species that reproduce asexually. That method of reproduction is called parthenogenesis — literally “virgin birth.” For a long time, scientists thought that was how these Ambystoma salamanders bred.
But recent studies have shown that what they do is even stranger than parthenogenesis. Researchers discovered that these all-female salamanders can have between two and five sets of DNA. Humans, like many species, have two sets of DNA — one from each parent. These salamanders, though, had DNA from as many as four other species! This caused researchers to scratch their heads. These salamanders couldn’t be parthenogenic. Something else was going on. What they found was a bizarre phenomenon they called kleptogenesis — “klepto” as in “thief.”
Yeah. As it turns out, all-female Ambystoma salamanders steal DNA from males of other salamander species. Normally, salamander reproduction involves the male dropping a sperm packet on a flat surface and the female picking it up and using it to fertilize her eggs. These females do the same thing, just with males of other species. Often, they’ll pick up more than one packet at a time before fertilizing their eggs. As with many all-female species, these klepto salamanders need that sperm to kick-start the development of their embryos — regardless of if the genes are used. And for these salamanders, that’s a big if. Daughters born from these eggs may have only genes from their mother, or genes from as many as two or three different fathers. And don’t forget — the mother ALSO has several sets of her own DNA! It’s...a lot. Scientists are still trying to figure out how these salamanders determine what DNA gets passed down to their offspring.
Kleptogenesis. It’s a good reminder that biology is wild, weird, and much, much more flexible than we give it credit for.
If you’ve ever had trouble hearing someone in a noisy room, you know how helpful it is to watch their mouth as they talk. New research is shedding light on exactly why this is: it turns out that even when you can’t hear what someone’s saying, your brain can turn the sight of their lip movements into actual sound information.
Scientists have been studying lip reading for decades, and they’ve known for a while that even though lip-reading is visual, it activates the hearing center of the brain, known as the auditory cortex. But they didn’t know whether this meant that the brain was actually processing the visual information as actual speech sounds or if it was just lighting up because it sensed something it knew should be speech.
For this new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers brought 28 volunteers into a lab to analyze their brain waves using magnetoencephalography [maag-NEE-tow ehn-SEFF-ill-OHG-ruff-ee]. Each study participant sat with their heads in a sort of helmet beneath a huge white box — imagine a beauty shop hair dryer with a washing machine attached to it. Some of the volunteers listened to a recording of a woman talking with no video. Others watched a video of the same woman speaking, but with no audio.
When the participants watched the silent video of a woman speaking, the auditory cortex lit up with electrical pulses. The researchers realized that those pulses were synchronized with the sound waves that the woman in the video would have produced if there had been any sound. The activity in the auditory cortex when a volunteer only saw the woman speaking looked just like the activity of the volunteers who actually heard what she said.
The researchers think lip reading is possible because the listener’s visual center sends information about the lip movements to parts of the brain that can turn it into audio information — and that information heads right to the auditory cortex. These findings get us closer to understanding how we use our visual system to infer information about sound. The big takeaway is that your senses don’t act alone. They all work together to comprehend the big, complicated world around you.
CODY: Let’s wrap up with a quick recap.
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk, Cameron Duke, and Grant Currin, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!