Learn about how scientists are predicting viral content by measuring people’s brain activity; how Tuvan throat singers are able to produce two notes at once; and how effective facemasks are in preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
Learn about how scientists are predicting viral content by measuring people’s brain activity; how Tuvan throat singers are able to produce two notes at once; and how effective facemasks are in preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
How our brains forecast what goes viral online by Kelsey Donk
How does Tuvan Throat singing work? by Cameron Duke
How effective are masks for preventing Coronavirus by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Likhit)
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/do-masks-prevent-coronavirus-how-tuvan-throat-singers-sing-two-notes-at-once-and-predicting-viral-content-by-measuring-brain-activity
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 why your brain is a powerful forecaster of what goes viral online; and new research that figured out how Tuvan throat singers are able to produce two voices. We’ll also answer a listener question about how effective facemasks are in protecting people from viruses.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
It might seem like a tough task to know what’ll “go viral.” If it was easy, then marketing executives would have a much easier job. But our brains are surprisingly powerful forecasters of what goes viral online. In fact, scientists may be able to tell what’ll be the next big thing by looking at your brain activity.
This is a big deal because people around the world spend more than a billion hours watching internet videos every day. And new research says that the way our brains react — even during just the first few seconds of these videos — could be a pretty good predictor of what will go viral and what won’t.
The research involves a method scientists have used in the past called neuroforecasting. They use it to predict people’s choices based on activity in specific regions of their brains. Researchers using this approach have been able to correctly predict people’s financial decisions, like whether they’ll make a purchase or donate to charity. That individual data has also been a pretty good predictor for what other people will do: it’s correctly forecasted things like album sales and crowdfunding success. For this new study, Stanford researchers wanted to see if they could use this same technique for predicting how people would spend their money to predict how they’d would spend their time.
The researchers collected a few dozen videos from Youtube and had 36 people watch them while they were in an fMRI machine. The participants could choose which videos they watched, and were only required to watch the first four to eight seconds — after that, they could stop and move on to another video at any time. Once they were finished, the participants rated each video based on how it made them feel and whether they thought it would be popular.
As you might expect, when someone spent more time watching a video, they tended to have more activity in the brain regions associated with reward. When they watched a video they couldn’t stand for more than a few seconds, the regions sensitive to punishment lit up.
But here’s the wild part. During the first four seconds of each video, the individual participants’ brain activity could predict how popular that video was online. Like, if the beginning of a video made participants’ reward centers light up, that video tended to be popular on Youtube. If it made their punishment centers light up, that video tended to be unpopular. Researchers couldn’t predict a video’s virality by looking at how long the participants spent watching the videos or even how they rated the video afterward. Brain activity was the only accurate predictor.
Researchers hope that eventually, neuroforecasting will be a useful tool not only for designing viral content, but also for helping people kick addictions and build better habits. For now, though, feel free to check out the latest viral video. Your brain will reward you for it.
It’s possible to sing two pitches at the same time. In fact, it’s not only possible, but it’s an important part of at least one Central Asian culture. But how is it possible? Scientists recently put singers in an MRI machine to find out.
I’m talking about the art of Khöömei [HOO-may], also known as Tuvan throat singing (or biphonic, diphonic, or multiphonic singing). It’s a vocal technique where the singer literally produces two separate tones at the same time. One voice is a low, rumbling drone that some people compare to the drone of a bagpipe, while the other is a high-pitched whistle-style tone. While forms of biphonic singing can be found in a few cultures, Khöömei [HOO-may] is a traditional folk singing style of the Tuvans, an ethnic group native to Mongolia and The Republic of Tuva. Scientists have been captivated by Khöömei [HOO-may] for a long time, but its mechanics have been a pretty big mystery until now.
Recently, an international group of researchers decided to solve this mystery. They recruited members of the Tuvan music group Huun-Huur-Tu [HOON-her-TOO] to sing individually in a vocal booth. First, the researchers analyzed the sound of their voices to learn which frequencies they were producing. Then they had one of the musicians sing in an MRI machine.
The researchers used that MRI data to construct a computer model of the singer’s vocal tract, which they used to simulate the singing. From that, they figured out that Tuvan throat singing involves constricting the vocal tract in two different spots at the same time: both at the front of the mouth by raising the tip of the tongue and at the back of the throat by raising the back of the tongue.
Human vocal cords vibrate to make sound, but as with most musical sound, it’s made up of many other frequencies called harmonics — kinda like how white light is made up of many different colors. The position of the vocal tract will shape these harmonics into three individual clusters — one each for the mouth, throat, and vocal cords — called formants.
You can do this yourself! Try reciting vowels on one pitch with your mouth open. [DEMONSTRATE] Hear how tweaking different parts of your mouth and throat changes the sound without changing the pitch? That’s how you change the frequency of your formants. Well, Khöömei [HOO-may] singers have figured out how change their formants so precisely that they can actually merge two of them into one sharp cluster of harmonics that stands out from the lowest formant. That’s how they produce that signature dual-voiced effect. Now, if you spend the rest of the day trying to do this yourself? We won’t blame you.
We got a listener question from Likhit [LICK-hit] who asks, “How useful are masks in preventing you from catching the coronavirus? Can reusable masks be sanitized and reused, like in boiling water or by using a disinfectant?” Good question, Likhit!
There’s been a lot of conflicting advice over the last few months about how to keep yourself and others safe from the coronavirus, but some of the most confusing has centered on masks. Even before the pandemic hit, recommendations by the CDC and the WHO were that if you weren’t a healthcare worker or someone infected with a contagious illness, you shouldn’t wear a mask. After all, surgical masks were originally introduced as a way to keep surgeons from infecting their patients. It wasn’t until recently that people began considering them as a way to protect the person actually wearing the mask.
So how effective are masks at preventing the coronavirus? Well, the research isn’t all that clear-cut, but they seem to bre more effective at protecting other people from you than they are at protecting you from other people. But that’s nothing to sneeze at, pardon the expression. Research is showing that a significant portion of people with coronavirus don’t show symptoms, and even people who eventually show symptoms can spread the virus before that happens. That means that technically, any of us could be infected without knowing it.
In that case, the reason you’d wear a mask is the same reason you wouldn’t double-dip a chip. Even if it may not make a difference to you, it keeps other people away from your germs — and when others do the same, they end up protecting you. We’re all helping each other.
But not all masks are created equal. A 2013 study tested the effectiveness of different homemade mask materials against surgical masks and found that while the surgical mask did the best, the next best things were a cotton T-shirt and a pillowcase. But that was when the mask was clean and dry. Once your breath makes it damp — which happens faster than you’d think — your mask isn’t as effective. At that point, you should remove it by the ear loops, taking care not to touch the inside or outside, and clean it.
So what about cleaning? Well, you shouldn’t attempt to clean a surgical mask, since that’ll damage it. But for cloth masks, the CDC says you can just toss it in the washing machine. To be extra safe, you can put it on the hot setting, or if you don’t have enough laundry for a full load, you can give your mask a soak in boiling water.
But I need to stress one thing: masks are just one part of a bigger strategy. Masks alone won’t protect you. Washing your hands, practicing social distancing, and isolating yourself if you have symptoms are all crucial for keeping this virus at bay.
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CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll hear next week on Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Next week, you’ll learn about some tricks for dealing with uncertainty from Renee Lertzman, who’s a Climate, Energy and Environmental Psychologist. You’ll also learn about why housecats affect local wildlife more than wild predators; why soft drinks taste better from a can than they do from a bottle; and more!
CODY: We’ll also take a deep dive into what fishing can tell us about climate change, in our interview with Captains Keith Colburn and Sig Hansen from the hit show “Deadliest Catch.” So stay tuned!
ASHLEY: Okay, so now, let’s recap what we learned today.
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Ashley Hamer, Cameron Duke, 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: Have a great weekend, and join us again Monday to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!