Learn about how our sun is different from similar stars; how deep sleep literally cleans your brain; and why some psychopaths are serial killers, while others are CEOs.
Learn about how our sun is different from similar stars; how deep sleep literally cleans your brain; and the psychology behind why some psychopaths are serial killers, while others are CEOs.
Our sun is less active than other stars just like it, and scientists aren't sure why by Grant Currin
Deep sleep flushes toxins from your brain, and that seems to have genetic differences by Grant Currin
Why are some psychopaths serial killers and others CEOs? by Kelsey Donk
Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/differences-in-ceo-and-murdering-psychopaths-how-deep-sleep-cleans-your-brain-and-the-mystery-of-our-inactive-sun
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 how our sun is different from similar stars; how deep sleep literally cleans your brain; and why some psychopaths are serial killers, while others are CEOs.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
The sun is the most important star in the universe...at least to us here on Earth. But is there really anything special about it? Researchers compared it to hundreds of similar stars to find out. And they discovered that yeah, there’s definitely something unusual about that big ole’ ball of fire in the sky.
The sun and other stars have weather just like we do, but theirs comes from a powerful magnetic field on their surface. When magnetic activity is at its highest, the sun will be marred by dark sunspots and might even shoot out solar flares — which are usually followed by a devastating coronal mass ejection. Those are especially scary for modern civilization because they can mess with electronics and cause problems like blackouts.
There’s a longstanding disagreement among astronomers about whether the sun is as active as similar stars out there in the universe. To settle the debate, these researchers scoured our neighborhood in the universe to find stars that were about as big and hot as our sun and had similar chemistry and rotational periods. They found 369. Then they used data from space telescopes to measure how the stars’ brightness varied over time. (Since you can’t see sunspots on stars that far away, variations in brightness made a good proxy for magnetic activity.) The data revealed some interesting results.
First, it’s confirmed: our sun is way less active than the other stars, which were five times more active on average than the sun. That probably means they’re sending a lot more bursts of plasma, magnetism, and radiation out into space — and toward any planets that orbit them. Not good for the prospect of life on other planets!
Our sun was also different in the timing of its magnetic cycles. Just like Earth, the sun has magnetic poles — north and south. They basically switch places every 11 years, and solar activity like sunspots and solar flares always tend to increase near the end of that cycle. The same thing happens on the sun-like stars in the sample, but their cycles are way shorter — around three to eight years.
The big question now is why is our sun so different from other very similar stars? Researchers don’t know for sure, but they think it has something to do with its life stage. It could be that the sun will become as active as the other stars sometime in the future. That doesn’t bode well for the technologically advanced societies of Earth’s future.
But that’s not a guarantee. The other possibility is that our middle-aged sun has left its super-active party days behind. [sigh] I can relate.
The more time scientists spend studying sleep, the more obvious it becomes that a lot of important stuff is going on in the brain while you’re snoozing. Recent research has found something truly amazing: your brain actually cleans itself while you sleep.
After your head hits the pillow, you cycle through several different sleep stages. REM sleep might be the most famous stage, since that’s when all the dreaming happens. But you spend most of the first part of the night in what’s called non-REM sleep. That’s when the brain stores memories, and it’s the stage that you need most to feel refreshed in the morning. Last year, researchers at Boston University saw something remarkable in volunteers’ brains while they were in non-REM sleep.
The volunteers wore EEG caps and slept in an MRI machine. That let the researchers follow along as they passed through the various sleep stages, and it also let them measure the brain’s blood oxygen levels.
Now, I don’t want to freak you out, but in addition to blood, your head contains about half a cup, or 125 milliliters, of a clear liquid called cerebrospinal fluid. It does a lot of stuff for your brain, from fighting infections to helping cushion it when you fall. It also plays a big role in sleep and brain health. By having the volunteers sleep in an MRI machine, the researchers were also able to monitor the levels of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. What they saw was remarkable.
While the participants were in non-REM sleep, their neurons began to fire in concert. On, off, on, off. When they were off, a tide of cerebrospinal fluid rushed into the brain. Then when the neurons fired again, it flowed back out, to be replaced by oxygen-rich blood. The researchers realized that this rush of cerebrospinal fluid clears out waste that accumulates around the neurons. It actually washes your brain as you sleep.
Understanding more about how the brain clears waste while we sleep could someday lead to treatments for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Those diseases are often caused by a buildup of harmful proteins in the brain. If we could use the brain’s own cleaning system to clear them out, it could be a gamechanger for people living with these conditions.
But for now, get more sleep! It’ll keep your brain nice and clean.
When you hear the word “psychopath,” you might think of a serial killer. Or you might think of a CEO — since that is the job with the highest rates of psychopathy. But what’s the difference? Why do some psychopaths end up in board rooms and others behind bars? A recent study suggests one possible explanation: it might all come down to conscientiousness.
Researchers call the psychopaths in each of these camps “successful” psychopaths and “unsuccessful” psychopaths. There’s been a lot written about what exactly divides these two groups, but one leading theory is known as the compensatory model. Here’s how it works.
Both successful and unsuccessful psychopaths have qualities that could lead them down either path: their fearlessness could make it easier to rob a bank or to take big business risks with big payoffs; a tendency toward manipulation could be great in a fraud scheme or in a sales meeting. The compensatory model says that the psychopaths who end up successful are able to compensate for, and overcome, their more antisocial impulses. They have high levels of conscientiousness, which is an umbrella term for traits that help a person plan for the future, foster self-discipline, and delay gratification.
Recently, a group of researchers decided to put the compensatory model to the test. They studied data from more than 1,300 serious juvenile offenders held in Arizona and Pennsylvania. The data came from a seven-year longitudinal study, where researchers assessed the participants every six months for seven years. That included surveys to determine their psychopathic traits, self-control, and offense history.
When the researchers analyzed the data, they discovered that every participant with psychopathic traits got better and better at controlling their inhibitions and aggression over time. But in the most “successful” psychopaths, that effect was magnified.
The findings support the compensatory model. They suggest that psychopathic traits can lead to a successful life, as long as the person learns to control their more antisocial impulses. As one researcher put it, quote, “Psychopathy is not a personality trait simply composed of deficits.” end quote. It turns out that if you’re a disciplined, conscientious person, you’ll probably go far — even if you’re a psychopath.
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Grant Currin and Kelsey Donk, 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!