Learn about the woman who discovered pulsars and why they matter; and, why learning styles don’t exist. You’ll also learn about cell-sized robots, in the the first edition of our Microscale Mondays mini-series with Cornell physicists Itai Cohen and Paul McEuen. 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: Pulsars Are One of Our Best Tools for Understanding the Universe — https://curiosity.im/2LlfptY Learning Styles Don't Actually Exist — https://curiosity.im/2KfRgoV Additional resources from Cornell University: Physicists take first step toward cell-sized robots — https://as.cornell.edu/news/physicists-take-first-step-toward-cell-sized-robots Graphene Origami [VIDEO] — https://research.cornell.edu/video/graphene-origami Nanobots That Can Do Just about Anything — https://research.cornell.edu/news-features/nanobots-can-do-just-about-anything Itai Cohen | Department of Physics Cornell Arts & Sciences — https://physics.cornell.edu/itai-cohen Paul McEuen | Department of Physics Cornell Arts & Sciences — https://physics.cornell.edu/paul-mceuen Want to support our show?Register for the 2019 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. After you register, simply select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2019 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 the woman who discovered pulsars and why they matter; and, why learning styles don’t exist. You’ll also learn about cell-sized robots, in the the first edition of our Microscale Mondays mini-series with Cornell physicists Itai Cohen and Paul McEuen.
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:
Additional resources from Cornell University:
Want to support our show? Register for the 2019 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. After you register, simply select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus (no need to pick nominees in every category): https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2019
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/cell-sized-robots-w-cornell-university-learning-styles-dont-exist-and-why-pulsars-matter
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 the woman who discovered pulsars and why they matter; and, why learning styles don’t exist. You’ll also learn about cell-sized robots, in the the first edition of our Microscale Mondays mini-series.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Pulsars Are One of Our Best Tools for Understanding the Universe — https://curiosity.im/2LlfptY [FREELANCER] (Ashley)
The discovery of pulsars was a huge step in advancing our understanding of the universe. But when the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the discovery, the person who actually made the discovery wasn't even mentioned. Thankfully, that person finally received recognition in 2018, and the prize may help young scientists the world over. Plus, today is her birthday! So let’s learn about pulsars to celebrate the birthday of Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
She was a graduate student at Cambridge University when her team finished building a new radio telescope at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. They started collecting data as soon as it was finished, and her job was to analyze that data — to the tune of roughly 700 feet of paper records of that data collected each week.
Her job was to spot unusual signals, and she found one less than 3 weeks later: a faint pulse that disappeared and reappeared every 1.34 seconds on the dot. After spotting more of these pulsing signals, she and her thesis advisor started calling them “pulsars.”
Pulsars are spinning neutron stars that emit powerful beams of radio waves from their magnetic poles. The beam is what Bell Burnell had detected in that first unusual telescope reading.
Here's why pulsars matter: because they're such extreme objects, neutron stars are nature's physics laboratories. They experience extreme gravity, a density beyond that of atomic nuclei, and incredibly strong magnetic fields. And we can’t recreate any of those things here on Earth. The timing of a [spinning neutron star, or] pulsar can help us precisely measure these properties.
Pulsars have helped scientists confirm a lot of things, including the fact that that massive objects cause a distortion in spacetime. That was an important aspect of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Pretty big impact, wouldn’t you say?
When the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the discovery of pulsars, Bell Burnell wasn’t mentioned since she was a graduate student when she made the discovery. She’s admitted that at the time, she didn’t feel empowered to fight the decision. But in 2018 she got some of the recognition she deserved, in the form of a $3 million special breakthrough prize in Fundamental Physics. Bell Burnell is donating the money towards funding female, minority, and refugee students to become physics researchers and counter the unconscious bias she believes still plagues scientific research. Happy birthday, Jocelyn Bell Burnell!
Microscale Mondays #1 — Overview of microscale robots [3:11] (7/15) (Cody)
CODY: Picture a robot that can conduct electricity, sense its environment, and change its shape. Seems reasonable, right? Well, now imagine that robot being the size of a human cell. Believe it or not, researchers are working on the technology to make that happen right now, and over the next few weeks, you’ll be learning all about them on our Microscale Mondays mini-series. Our guests for this series are Itai Cohen, Professor of Physics at Cornell University, and Paul McEuen, Director of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science. And this week we’ll start with an overview of these tiny robots and how they’re made. Here’s Paul McEuen.
[CLIP 3:11]
CODY: Don’t worry, because we’ll help YOU put the pieces together over the next few weeks on our Microscale Mondays mini-series. The last voice you heard was Paul McEuen, and you also heard Itai Cohen. They’re both physicists at Cornell University, and you can learn more about them and their research in today’s show notes. Next week we’ll learn about the cutting-edge technology that makes it possible to make these microscale machines.
Learning Styles Don't Actually Exist — https://curiosity.im/2KfRgoV (Ashley)
We mentioned this on a full-length episode of the Curiosity Podcast a couple years ago [November 2017], but it bears repeating: learning styles are a myth. I’m talking about the idea that different students' brains are better suited to different styles of learning. As in, some people might learn better from reading about something, while other people would learn better from being hands-on with a project. Even though decades of research show that it’s simply not true, it’s still an idea that LOTS of people have, including educators! That’s a problem, because it can actually harm a student’s ability to learn. So let’s get into the science.
The most popular model of learning style is known as VAK theory, for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. It’s one of lots of models based on the central idea that a given lesson's presentation should mesh with the student's learning style in order for it to be most effective.
But as far back as 1970, education researchers confirmed there is no evidence to support this idea. Despite this, as recently as May 2019, a survey of 700 people — including educators — found that 90 percent of them believed that people learn better in their individual learning style.
So why can’t we seem to get this straight? Believe it or not, the pervasiveness of this myth probably comes down to culture, according to researcher Catherine Scott. In a 2010 paper published in the Australian Journal of Education, she pointed out that Western cultures tend to hold an “entity” view of people, which is the idea that traits are fixed at birth. Eastern cultures, on the other hand, hold a “process” view, where traits can be shaped by experience.
The entity model predisposes teachers to decide on a child’s learning style based on limited interactions, and may influence the child’s assessment of his or her learning style from that day forward.
Studies do show that all students benefit when teachers adjust their teaching style to the subject matter and not the learner. So, for example: math taught visually, or language taught verbally.
That's not to say all students learn the same way. Everyone varies in their strengths, interests, and previous knowledge, and these do affect our learning ability.
But, as the research shows, spending time figuring out students' individual learning styles and educating teachers on how best to teach to those styles is the wrong way to go. Not only is it limiting, it also wastes time that could be spent on more effective approaches. Instead, researchers suggest the primary focus should be on identifying and introducing the experiences, activities, and challenges that enhance everybody's learning.
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, we want to thank we want to give a special shout-out to some of our supporters for today’s ad-free episode. Special thanks to Diane Carter, Eddy Young, Michael Kovitch, Ryan Day, Ben Urick, Tom Sayer, Reid, and Chase for supporting our show.
ASHLEY: YOU can support our show by nominating Curiosity Daily to be a finalist in the 2019 Podcast Awards! Find a link in today’s show notes, or visit podcast-awards-dot-com, to register. Then find Curiosity Daily in the drop-down menus for the categories of People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. It’s free to vote and will really help us out. And now, let’s recap what we learned today.
ASHLEY: Today we learned why [pulsars are cool / Jocelyn Bell Burnell was cool / etc]
CODY: And that researchers are working on robots that are the size of a human cell.
ASHLEY: And that learning styles are a myth.
CODY: And that [ad lib]
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!