Learn about how saying no to kids makes them more resourceful and why humans aren’t the only animals capable of deception. We’ll also answer a listener question about whether rocket stages ever hit ships in the ocean, with a little help from Cody Chambers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
Learn about how saying no to kids makes them more resourceful and why humans aren’t the only animals capable of deception. We’ll also answer a listener question about whether rocket stages ever hit ships in the ocean, with a little help from Cody Chambers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
Saying no to kids makes them more resourceful by Anna Todd
Humans aren't the only animals capable of deception by Cameron Duke
Do rocket stages ever hit ships? Listener question from Steve in Tennessee, answer by Cody Chambers, Flight Safety Lead at NASA's Kennedy Space Center
Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Ashley Hamer and Natalia Reagan (filling in for Cody Gough). 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/do-rocket-stages-ever-hit-ships-w-nasas-cody-chambers
[MUSIC PLAYING] ASHLEY HAMER: Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes, with Curiosity Daily from curiosity.com. I'm Ashley Hamer.
NATALIA REAGAN: And I'm Natalia Reagan. Today, you'll learn about how saying no to kids, makes them more resourceful, and why humans aren't the only animals capable of deception. We'll also answer a listener question about whether rocket stages ever hit ships in the ocean. With help from Cody Chambers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
ASHLEY HAMER: Let's satisfy some curiosity. I've got good news for the kids who don't get everything they want, and for the parents who aren't made of money. Saying no to kids can make them more resourceful. So, think back to being a child. When left to your own devices, any household object could be transformed into a dollhouse, a spaceship, or an awesome pillow fort. But what if instead of turning a shoebox into a dollhouse, your parents just bought you a dollhouse. It probably seemed amazing at the time, but in retrospect. Not quite as fun.
For at least half a century, psychologists have been researching the difference in creativity between children who had to be resourceful, and those just given what they wanted. In a 1999 study, researchers had a group of elementary school children help Bobo the bear reach his toy lion by using a random object. Including building blocks, a toy car, a pencil, a magnet, and a wooden box. The best solution, of course, is to use the large wooden box as a step to help Bobo reach his friend.
As you might expect, the children aged 6 and 7 solved the problem faster than the five-year-olds, most of the time. If the wooden box was used as a container for the other items, the older kids struggled to expand it to anything beyond a container. But for the younger children, the box was still a flexible resource. In the same way, encouraging kids to find new uses for household objects may keep their thinking flexible for longer.
If that's not enough evidence for you, take this 2015 study of adults. Some were asked to write about a time in childhood when they didn't have much, while others wrote about a time when they had a lot. Next, they were asked to solve a problem that required using bubble wrap in multiple ways. Sure enough, the participants who were primed to think about scarcity came up with many more ideas than those primed to think about abundance. When you aren't given everything, you're forced to use resources in new ways. So the next time your little one looks up at you with puppy dog eyes, think of their creativity. It'll help you say no. Or, yes. You do you.
NATALIA REAGAN: We all lie sometimes. It's human nature, right? But it turns out, well, lying isn't uniquely human. The animal kingdom is full of lying liars. And, oh, you better believe I have some examples. Have you ever heard the story about the boy who cried wolf? Well, the fork-tailed drongo missed out on that one. This is a crafty bird with jet black feathers, and a name that kind of sounds like it would be offensive. It spends most of its time following other birds around. And when it sees a predator, it will sound the alarm and everyone will scatter.
The trick is that sometimes, the drongo will sound the alarm when there are no predators around. This way, it can steal the food from its more gullible friends. Researchers estimate that the fork-tailed drongo gets about a quarter of its calories this way. But it's not just a bird trick. Young tufted capuchin monkeys are also known to make false alarm calls to scare bigger and older monkeys who are hogging all the bananas.
Those animals are crafty. But you know who also is? Gray squirrels. They bury nuts for the winter, and they don't want anyone digging up their treasure. So when they notice any would-be thieves watching, they'll just pretend to bury a nut, and then move on to a safer location. Where they can actually safeguard their find. That little trick helps make sure their cache stays stashed for the winter.
It's not just food that animals lie about. Males of many species lie about their sex. For example, some bluegill sunfish and giant cuttlefish avoid fights over mates by taking on the markings and behaviors of a female. The male mourning cuttlefish takes the prize, though. Because when he swims between a female and a male cuttlefish, he'll make like Harvey Dent, and take on two faces. He shows courtship colors to the female on one side, and mimics the female markings for the male on the other side.
While many animals lie, deception only works if they're honest, most of the time. Lying is risky. The rewards for deceiving others can be high. But so can the punishment for getting caught. In a way, the success of deception both in humans and in other animals is a reminder that most of us are honest, most of the time. And that's something we should offer feel good about.
ASHLEY HAMER: We got a listener question on our studio line. Take a listen.
STEVE: This is Steve in Knoxville, Tennessee. NASA and others have been shooting missiles from the East Coast of Florida since the 1950s. The lower stages drop into the Atlantic Ocean. How do they warn shipping? And have there been any hits or near misses? Enjoy listening to your podcast.
ASHLEY HAMER: To get the answer, I talked to Cody Chambers, the flight safety lead at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. He's in charge of protecting the people and equipment in and around the area from the hazards of rocket launches. And I caught him when he was preparing for the SpaceX Falcon 9 Crew 1 launch. We started our conversation by covering the basics. What are rocket stages, and why do we use them?
CODY CHAMBERS: This is probably the most asked question I get from friends and family. So rocket stages a stage for a rocket, is any part of the rocket that has its own fuel source and engine. Or it could be a motor, so a solid rocket motor. And the reason we need to stage rockets is because the thickest part of the atmosphere is actually down near the bottom, near the ground. In the first, say 100,000 feet. And it takes the largest amount of fuel just to get us through that thick atmosphere.
Now, instead of carrying that empty fuel tank with you, it's much more efficient than to discard the fuel tank or the stage, and then allow a lower power but higher specific impulse motor take over as you're into the thinner and thinner layers of the atmosphere, higher and higher up, and continue your ride into orbit. So really, it's a question of economy and scale. If we wanted to try to build what's known as an SSTO or a single stage to orbit vehicle, the mass of the fuel tank would actually be prohibitive because you need so much fuel just to get through the first few layers of the atmosphere.
ASHLEY HAMER: Got it. Makes me think of when you go on a long vacation. You come back kind of lighter than you left.
CODY CHAMBERS: Exactly. One of my favorite analogies is the water bottle analogy. If you're ever having a picnic or at a sporting event. If you had the choice between hanging on to all the empty water bottles that you've accumulated through the day or getting rid of them, which would you choose?
ASHLEY HAMER: So, do you always know where these rocket stages are going to fall?
CODY CHAMBERS: A major part of my job and my team of engineers' job is to understand exactly what's going to happen to these vehicles, whether it's planned or unplanned. And we do very precise and very sophisticated modeling on launch trajectories. We take wind, and weather into account, different temperature gradients in the atmosphere. And we know, very precisely, where these things are going to come down. That doesn't mean that we don't have mishaps, but we do take into account not just where they're going to come down, but a large area around that, that we then patrol and clear. And we issue what are known as notams, which are notice to airmen's, and notmars, which is notice to mariners, to let them know that we could have a stage coming down in a certain area. And keep those vessels and those aircraft clear those paths.
ASHLEY HAMER: Got it. So when you're not launching rockets, it's OK for people to be in ships and planes in this area. But then once you're about to, you'll let everybody know that it's not safe to be there. Is that right?
CODY CHAMBERS: Absolutely. Yes, we have clear zones which we patrol here, near the launch site, in the case of mishaps. But we also have clear areas out much further into the Atlantic Ocean for stage recoveries. SpaceX, for instance, lands there stages-- recovers them on their drone ship. Those areas are patrolled jointly by the Air Force as well as the Coast Guard. And it all goes into making sure that we're keeping our risk to the public down as low as possible.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody went on to tell me that, yeah, there have been rocket stage mishaps. But they usually happen with launches over land. Most recently, that happened in China in 2019. It turns out that launching over an ocean gives you a lot more room for error. Cody said the bigger threat to launches are mishaps with the launch vehicle itself. And his team puts in tons of safeguards to minimize disaster, if that happens. Including the ability to make the rocket self-destruct.
Thanks for your question Steve, and thanks to Cody Chambers and the folks at NASA for the answer. The SpaceX Falcon 9 Crew 1 launch happened last weekend. And you can find a link to a video of the whole event in the show notes. And if you have your own question, send it into our new podcast email, curiosity@discovery.com. Or leave us a voicemail at our same old number 312-596-5208.
NATALIA REAGAN: Before we recap what we learned today, here's a sneak peek at what you'll hear next week on Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Next week, you'll learn about super-habitable planets, or planets that have conditions better for life than Earth. How Venus fly traps know the difference between food and false alarms. Why turkeys don't drown in rainstorms, and more. We'll also talk to biologist and author Neil Shubin about how you have viral DNA in your cells. And now let's recap what we learned today.
NATALIA REAGAN: Well, we learned that when it comes to kids, saying no can actually boost their creativity. Yes, sometimes it's nice to take a break from being a mom, and let necessity be the mother of invention for your kiddos, since they might surprise you with their ingenuity to find solutions to the problems on their own.
And I know that for me, I remember when I was a kid, my mom would go to the Maytag store, and see if she could get one of those big Maytag boxes. And we lived like two blocks from the Maytag store, and we'd walk it down. And we'd paint it, and I turned that into a playhouse, which is this giant-- we'd carve it out, and do all these sorts of things.
And I also would try to make quick sand. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with trying to do things like that. So I feel like, I don't know. I love that. I love seeing kids use their imagination and whatever sort of resources they have to make something cool.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, definitely. It gives you an appreciation for the fully built stuff. Like, this sounds really bad, but we didn't have glue at my-- like if I wanted to make like a construction paper project. We didn't really have Elmer's glue lying around. So I learned how to make it from flour and water. And that was how I made my valentines one year. And you learn about science that way, really. You're like, oh, this is all it takes to make an adhesive. That's pretty cool.
NATALIA REAGAN: You were very resourceful. That's impressive. That is, that's very impressive.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, we also learned that humans might think we're the best liars, but we actually could learn a thing or two from our animal cousins. They'll use false alarm calls, or they'll take on the appearance of the opposite sex to get what they want. But lying is risky business. So, for the most part, animals, including humans, are mostly honest. And that's good.
NATALIA REAGAN: That is pretty nice to know. I mean, but it is funny to hear. We mentioned capuchin monkeys and I call them diablitos. Because I used to work in a field site that had capuchins, and they're great. They're very, very smart. So I can see them doing a lot of devious-- and they're also known for like if you've ever been to Manuel Antonio, which is sort of a tourist spot in Costa Rica. They are notorious for stealing things from tourists, and so on and so forth. They're excellent thieves.
ASHLEY HAMER: Is that why they're called diablitos?
NATALIA REAGAN: I just think they kind of-- they can be jerks sometimes. They also will mess with howler monkeys sometimes. And just be kind of jerks and stuff. But, you know, I mean, it's a dog-eat-dog kind of world out there, Ashley.
ASHLEY HAMER: Absolutely.
NATALIA REAGAN: We learned that NASA takes great precautions to make sure the stages, or the parts of the rocket that are shed when it takes flight, do not hit nearby ships. And this includes running models, and warning nearby ships when a rocket's about to take off. And I really want to produce a show of jet ski riding NASA employees, whose sole job is to warn ships, and other marine wildlife like manatees and whales, and whatnot, of impending rocket launches. It also could include those NASA mind blowing janitors to the ones that like, want to become a janitor at NASA because everyone's getting their mind blown, because they keep discovering exoplanets. I think it'd be an excellent show.
ASHLEY HAMER: Totally.
NATALIA REAGAN: And in fact, if anybody has a great idea for the name of this show, you know I love puns. Please, tweet it, send it in. Let's make this show happen. NASA employees on jet skis, warning ships about rocket launches. Let's do this.
Today's stories were written by Anna Todd and Cameron Duke. And edited by Ashley hammer, who's the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: Scriptwriting is by Natalia Reagan and Sonia Hodgin. Today's episode was edited by Jonathan McMichael. And our producer is Cody Gough.
NATALIA REAGAN: Have a great weekend, and join us again, Monday, to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And until then, stay curious.
[MUSIC PLAYING]