Learn about a new material that blocks sound while letting in light and air; how chimpanzees performed when scientists taught them how to play rock, paper, scissors; and how to be more creative by scheduling when you switch between tasks. 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: Scientists Created a Material That Blocks Sound While Letting in Light and Air — https://curiosity.im/2HXqLCN Scientists Taught Chimps to Play Rock, Paper, Scissors — https://curiosity.im/2HTOFPL To Be More Creative, Regularly Switch Between Tasks — https://curiosity.im/2HYH7eu Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Learn about a new material that blocks sound while letting in light and air; how chimpanzees performed when scientists taught them how to play rock, paper, scissors; and how to be more creative by scheduling when you switch between tasks.
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:
Amazon smart speaker users: you can listen to our podcast as part of your Amazon Alexa Flash Briefing! Just click or tap “enable” here: https://curiosity.im/podcast-flash-briefing.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/chimps-can-play-rock-paper-scissors-a-metamaterial-blocks-sound-without-blocking-light-and-staying-creative-by-switching-tasks
ASHLEY HAMER: Happy holidays. We're going to help you celebrate with some of our favorite stories from the past year.
CODY GOUGH: Enjoy these Curiosity Daily classics, ad-free. And stay subscribed to Curiosity Daily for brand new episodes, starting January 1st.
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CODY GOUGH: Hi we're here from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about a new material that blocks sound while letting in light and air, how chimpanzees performed when scientists taught them how to play rock paper scissors, and a trick for being more creative when you're doing multiple tasks.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scientists have created a material that blocks sound while letting in light and air. It's a new breakthrough from researchers at Boston University. And it could make it a little easier to keep things quiet. All without blocking oxygen and sunlight.
CODY GOUGH: Podcast studios of the future are going to be a lot more sunny.
ASHLEY HAMER: Man, I can't wait. So you might be able to soundproof your room with the right materials. But heavy materials won't cut it if you're trying to soundproof, say, a big glass-lined building lobby without blocking all the sunlight. That's why BU researchers turned to metamaterials. Those are materials that use specially engineered quirks in their shape or composition to alter light or sound waves.
For an example of how metamaterials might work, think about a magnifying glass. The curved shape of the glass focuses the light waves into a point by bending them or slowing them at different rates. Those that hit the edges bend the most or slow the least. And those that hit to center. Bend the least or slow the most. Well, you can do the same thing with a composition of an object. Instead of creating a lens with a particular shape, you can create an object that's made of different materials, each one chosen for how much they slow light waves. Engineers can use lots of different compositions and shapes to bend light to their will.
And the same goes for sound. Acoustic metamaterials can use their composition or their shape to block, slow, or reflect sound waves, depending on their purpose. But to let light and air through, a material has to almost entirely rely on its shape. No thick heavy substances here. So the researchers started by combining two materials that each blocked and bent sound waves at slightly different rates, so that the sound blocking power of the two together would be greater than the sum of their parts.
Then, they worked out the exact shape they needed, 3D printed a small ring about the size of a roll of masking tape, and placed it at one end of a PVC pipe. At the other end, they placed a loudspeaker. And the material blocked a whopping 94% of the sound. The researchers say their design is flexible, so you can build it at any size and shape to block almost any frequency. All while letting air and light through. Welcome to the future of soundproofing.
CODY GOUGH: Researchers taught chimpanzees to play rock paper scissors. And although they weren't that great at it, chimps might be better than humans at certain other strategy games. I have a great anecdote about rock paper scissors at the end of this story, by the way. But here's how this went down with the chimps. In 2017, researchers at the Japan Monkey Center showed the chimps, a monitor with a chimp hand in the paper position and a chimp hand in the rock position.
So, to teach them the game, the researchers would reward the chimps with an apple slice when they pointed at the right winner. Then the apes learned what happened with rock versus scissors and, finally, scissors versus paper. Completing the whole circle of rock beat, scissors beats, paper beats, rock gave the chimps the most trouble. But after about 300 sessions, most of the chimps had gotten it down pat. Once they had learned the game, the chimps turned out to be pretty good at it. Well, about as good as a four-year-old child, anyway.
But the big difference between human toddlers learning the game and adult chimpanzees was speed. When a group of kids aged 3 to 6 were taught the same game, it only took them about five sessions to put it all together. And while the chimps were about on par with preschoolers, even slightly older children were able to play the game with a degree of strategy instead of blind luck. So if you ever find yourself on a Planet of the Apes, you might try challenging them to a game of rock paper scissors instead of, say, a fistfight.
But there's one game that chimps actually do beat us at. There's a simple strategy game where players choose either a square on the right or a square on the left. If they both choose the same square, the first player wins. And if they choose different squares, the second player does. Shockingly, researchers found that chimpanzees were much better at recognizing their human opponents' patterns. Even more incredible, is the apes' ability to immediately memorize visual patterns. You know, Ashley, if we could just train them to recognize patterns in the stock market, so we can make millions of dollars investing. We could start a thriving monkey business.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, good one.
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CODY GOUGH: So my anecdote is when I applied to work at curiosity.com, I had to write a sample article. And I wrote it about the World Rock Paper Scissors Society.
ASHLEY HAMER: I know. I read it.
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CODY GOUGH: It never got published, because apparently there was no point. There's a World Rock Paper Scissors Society in England.
ASHLEY HAMER: No, that's amazing. That's really cool fact.
CODY GOUGH: It's like hundreds of years old.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, maybe we'll do a story on that soon.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure.
CODY GOUGH: Or never.
ASHLEY HAMER: Research from Columbia Business School has a suggestion to help you be more creative. If I gave you two creative tasks to do. You might think the best way to take them on would be to work on one until you don't know what to do next, then switch to the other task and do the same thing, right? Well, according to this research, you'll be even more creative if you schedule when you switch tasks. Even if you feel like, you haven't hit a wall yet.
This might sound like it doesn't make sense, but hear me out. When you're trying to complete a creative task, a lot of times, you might push forward without realizing you've already gotten to a point where you're not going to come up with any more fresh ideas. So what ends up happening is you get a handful of ideas that are pretty much the exact same, then you switch to another project, and you repeat the same mistake. In terms of creative efficiency, research says that actually scheduling that switch is more efficient.
For the Columbia Business School study, participants were asked to name novel uses for two objects, a toothpick, and a brick. One group was told to come up with new ideas for one object for 4 minutes, then switch to the other one for 4 minutes. A second group switched back and forth between the objects whenever they wanted to. And a third group switched back and forth regularly. toothpick, brick, toothpick, brick, and so on. The third group ended up coming up with more answers that were novel and less repetitive than either of the other two groups.
And the same result happened in further experiments, where participants used the same strategies while solving word problems and puzzles. From this research, it's clear that giving your brain something new before it's tired of the same old task is the best approach. So no matter what creative endeavor you're pursuing, whether as a hobby or as a professional effort. Your idea generation skills will benefit from regularly scheduled breaks.
CODY GOUGH: Read about today's stories and more on curiosity.con
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again, tomorrow, for 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.
CODY GOUGH: Stay curious.
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