Learn how dandelions taught researchers a new way of flying that was previously unknown to science. Then, learn how a happy marriage can make you physically healthier. You’ll also learn about curiosity in the workplace — and some of the unseen benefits of your own curiosity — from INSEAD Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour Spencer Harrison. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com — and talk to Spencer Harrison, an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD — to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Watch the Weird Way Dandelion Seeds Float in a Wind Tunnel — https://curiosity.im/2DaJvgD 7 Ways a Happy Relationship Makes You Healthier — https://curiosity.im/2D9bmhb Bosses Don't Encourage Curiosity as Much as They Think They Do — https://curiosity.im/2JFcRnH Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey 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! Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn how dandelions taught researchers a new way of flying that was previously unknown to science. Then, learn how a happy marriage can make you physically healthier. You’ll also learn about curiosity in the workplace — and some of the unseen benefits of your own curiosity — from INSEAD Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour Spencer Harrison.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com — and talk to Spencer Harrison, an Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD — to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
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!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/curiosity-in-the-workplace-w-spencer-harrison-new-flying-with-dandelions-and-physical-relationship-benefits
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got a few fun facts along with a special interview to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you learn how dandelions taught researchers a new way of flying that was previously unknown to science and how a happy marriage can make you physically healthier. You'll also learn about curiosity in the workplace and the benefits of your own curiosity from Spencer Harrison-- a professor at INSEAD.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity on the award-winning Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Researchers have discovered a new way of flying that was previously unknown to science. And you'll never guess what they were studying when they figured it out. Dandelion seeds. Cody, did you ever blow on dandelion seeds when you were a kid?
CODY GOUGH: That was like the most fun thing you could do--
ASHLEY HAMER: Totally.
CODY GOUGH: --as a six or seven-year-old.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. And you always had to make a wish.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, I never did that.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, I did. And I usually wished for a dog.
CODY GOUGH: Did it work?
ASHLEY HAMER: No. I wanted a Great Dane and I lived in a very small place. Actually, I never owned a dog growing up.
CODY GOUGH: See, I never heard that blowing on dandelions to blow the seeds away could grant you a wish. So maybe you were just lied to.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's possible.
CODY GOUGH: Who told you this?
ASHLEY HAMER: I think anyone that says that you can make a wish on anything is lying to you.
CODY GOUGH: Have you ever wished upon a star?
ASHLEY HAMER: I have.
CODY GOUGH: Did it work?
ASHLEY HAMER: I still don't have a Great Dane, Cody.
CODY GOUGH: Is it the only wish you have in your life?
ASHLEY HAMER: I wanted one so badly. And an American Girl doll, also never happened.
CODY GOUGH: Your childhood.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: So neglected.
ASHLEY HAMER: Really. So before this study, scientists already knew that dandelion seeds were impressive fliers. They've been known to travel more than 62 miles to take root in faraway lands. They do this with help from the snowy white bristles called the pampas It acts like a parachute which provides drag and helps slow the seeds fall and catch updrafts to send it into the air.
But plenty of seeds have drag enhancers and they don't travel nearly as far. That's why researchers from the University of Edinburgh gathered a bunch of dandelion seeds, a wind tunnel, a high-speed camera, and lasers to light the air around the seeds. They used long exposure photography and video to analyze the fluid dynamics of the moving air.
And what they found was pretty surprising. The tiny spaces between the bristles let just enough air through to create a long spinning bubble right above the pampas, which the researchers call a separated vortex ring. Air flowing up through the pampas hits the outside of the separated vortex ring and starts to follow it along the outside.
Up, over, down, and around again in a vertical cyclone. Fast-moving air has lower pressure. So the separated vortex ring acts as a region of low pressure right above the pampas, which helps keep it afloat. But check this out. The scientists also used X-ray scans and microscopes to figure out how each pampas was put together.
They found that they each contain an average of 100 filaments and they're 92% porous. Meaning, they're made up of 92% empty space. This is huge because engineers are trying to build smaller and lighter electronics. Once you're small and light enough, you have to play by different flight rules. And these seeds are just a fraction of a milligram. With this kind of technology, who knows what you'll be able to send up in the air in the future?
CODY GOUGH: Multiple research studies have shown that a happy marriage isn't just good for your mental and financial health, it's great for your physical health, too. Speaking of feel good news, we'll get into how and why a happy union can make you healthier, I mean, physically, literally.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Are you healthier now that you're married.
CODY GOUGH: I actually feel like I've gotten sick less often since they got married.
ASHLEY HAMER: Interesting.
CODY GOUGH: Not weird.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's cool.
CODY GOUGH: Let's find out some more science. By the way, these health effects apply to unions in which both partners describe themselves as happy and thriving. So it doesn't necessarily have to be marriage. First and foremost, being in a happy relationship can boost your immune system. And this might be because the happily couples tend to have lower levels of the stress hormone, cortisol.
High cortisol levels can cause serious damage to your body over time, including suppressing the immune system. Here's another quirky perk. Happy marriages help you get a good night sleep. You might complain that your spouse steals the covers, but a 2009 study showed that married women actually have a 10% better chance of getting a good night sleep than those who are not married.
Happily married couples are also shown to have healthier hearts, a higher chance of surviving a heart attack, better career success, and a lower chance of dying early. And that's a lower chance by a hefty 20%. You can find the research studies and even more benefits in our full write up today on curiositydotcom and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today's episode is sponsored by Pimsleur. Pimsleur is the conversational method for learning a new language. It was developed by Dr. Pimsleur spelled, P-I-M-S-L-E-U-R. And the Pimsleur method is scientifically proven to work for you. With Pimsleur, you learn by actually talking and training your ears to understand native speakers. It's perfect for turning your downtime into a new skill.
CODY GOUGH: In fact, 75% of Pimsleur customers learn a new language on the go.
ASHLEY HAMER: You can reach an intermediate level in just 30 days. I did this, Cody. I was playing a four night a week show that involves a ton of driving. So every time I was driving to the show, I did these Pimsleur lessons, and by the end of it, I could walk by someone speaking Spanish and just know what they said. It wasn't like I had to think about it. It was amazing
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ASHLEY HAMER: P-I-M-S-P-E-A-K-S.com/curiosity.
CODY GOUGH: A few weeks ago, we did a story about how bosses don't encourage curiosity in the workplace as much as they think they do. Well, after we ran that article, I actually had the chance to talk to Spencer Harrison. He's an associate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD and he was behind a lot of the research in the story we ran. In our conversation about curiosity, here's what he had to say.
SPENCER HARRISON: Curiosity is kind of a strong predictor of longevity. And I have a colleague, Karyn Dossinger, who's at Suffolk University and she does amazing work on curiosity as well. That's just now looking at whether or not people are willing to try new hobbies once they retire and what she finds is that people that are willing to try new things, especially, things that are kind of pushing their creative boundaries, it actually leads to this fun upsurge in life satisfaction.
So I think that that shows that as individuals, we are always willing to explore. But your question gets at one of these really interesting fundamental dilemmas that we all have with our human psychology. And it's that-- so imagine, one of the things that often encourages organizations to change is failure or all of a sudden there's a brand new competitor that's stealing all of your consumers or there's some sort of threat to the organization.
And the problem is that those moments, as much as we think that it's a really good opportunity to learn when things aren't working, it's also really hard to learn because at that moment, we're stressed. And when we're stressed and learning at the same time, what actually happens is our focus narrows, and we're not really exploring a wide variety of options. We're really focusing on how do I alleviate this one pain point that is causing me to be anxious about what's going on?
So those moments, actually, aren't really good for curiosity. They're good for solving a specific well-defined problem but then once that problem is alleviated, there usually isn't a sense of, OK, we just dodged a bullet here. Let's go back and rethink this and dig in again. It's more, OK, we're fine again, let's settle back into the status quo.
So I think what's fun that is organizations that encourage curiosity are the ones that remember their founding DNA. Most organizations start because a group of energized people get together and they've uncovered some sort of a mystery, some sort of a puzzle that they feel like they can solve better than the other organizations that currently exist are able to do.
And so there is curiosity that's built into the DNA of organizations. As they scale, as you were kind of implying Cody, we begin to focus more and more on execution. But if we can keep some of that DNA-- so it could be in the meetings that John was referring to.
So imagine if our meetings were moments where we were actually curating surprises and bringing them in to surprise each other with weird data and odd things that are going on around the organization that we could learn from, then meetings would be a lot more interesting because I know John's going to show up to this meeting and he's going to have something weird to say and I'm going to learn as a result of it.
But most of our meetings, we feel like are huge wastes of time in part because we aren't learning and we feel like we could be doing something more productive with our time otherwise. So I think that if organizations aren't encouraging curiosity, it is a huge risk for them, because that means that they're not learning as much as they should, which means at some level, they're plateauing and once they start to plateau, it's going to be really hard for them to avoid the downward trajectory that comes right after it.
CODY GOUGH: So there you go. Curiosity is a strong predictor of longevity and it's hard to be curious when you're stressed. This answer from Spencer Harrison was part of a much longer conversation I had with both him and Survey Monkey's Chief Research Officer John Cohen. You can stream or download our entire uncut conversation for free on our Patreon page at Patreon.com/curiositydotcom all spelled out. Feel free to follow us on Patreon for future stuff too when we don't have time to fit it in our 10-minute episodes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow with 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.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.