Learn about how birds could help us predict natural disasters; fairy tales’ old origins; and how breaks and sprains heal. Kivi Kuaka: how birds could be the key to an early warning system for natural disasters by Briana Brownell Hakai Magazine. (2021). Can Birds Help Us Avoid Natural Disasters? | Hakai Magazine. Hakai Magazine; Hakai Magazine. https://www.hakaimagazine.com/news/can-birds-help-us-avoid-natural-disasters/ The project - Kivi Kuaka. (2021, May 3). Kivi Kuaka. https://kivikuaka.fr/theproject/?lang=en Your Favorite Fairy Tales Are Way Older Than You Think by Ashley Hamer Folk tales are older than you think - Durham University. (2021). Dur.ac.uk. https://www.dur.ac.uk/news/research/?itemno=27041 Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales | Royal Society Open Science. (2016). Royal Society Open Science. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.150645 No fairy tale: Origins of some famous stories go back thousands of years. (2016, January 20). Science News. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/no-fairy-tale-origins-some-famous-stories-go-back-thousands-years Keats, J. (2017). The Origins of an Ancient Fairy Tale. Discover Magazine; Discover Magazine. https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-origins-of-an-ancient-fairy-tale Fairy Tales: September 2021 podcast playlist | Podcast Brunch Club. (2021, August 31). Podcast Brunch Club. https://podcastbrunchclub.com/fairytales/ Why do breaks heal faster than sprains? by Cameron Duke Clemence Lim. (2021, June 14). Better to break a bone than to tear a ligament or tendon? Ask your Physio. Core Concepts Physiotherapy; Core Concepts Pte Ltd. https://www.coreconcepts.com.sg/article/better-to-break-a-bone/ Healing Expectations for Different Tissue Types - Symmetry Physical Therapy. (2017, July 25). Symmetry Physical Therapy. https://symmetryptaustin.com/healing-expectations-for-different-tissue-types/ J Gordon Betts, Desaix, P., Johnson, E., Johnson, J. E., Korol, O., Kruse, D., Poe, B., Wise, J., Womble, M. D., Young, K. A., & College, O. (2013). Anatomy & physiology. Openstax College, Rice University. Ligament. (2020). Physiopedia. https://www.physio-pedia.com/Ligament ligament | Definition, Function, Types, & Facts | Britannica. (2021). In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/ligament CORRECTION: In the original version of this episode, the words "osteoclasts" and "osteoblasts" were defined incorrectly; the current version of this episode reflects the correct meaning of each term. Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Learn about how birds could help us predict natural disasters; fairy tales’ old origins; and how breaks and sprains heal.
Kivi Kuaka: how birds could be the key to an early warning system for natural disasters by Briana Brownell
Your Favorite Fairy Tales Are Way Older Than You Think by Ashley Hamer
Why do breaks heal faster than sprains? by Cameron Duke
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/early-warning-birds-ancient-fairy-tales-breaks-vs-sprains
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 birds could be the key to an early warning system for natural disasters; why your favorite fairy tales are older than you think; and why breaks heal faster than sprains.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Birds could be the key to an early warning system for natural disasters by Briana Brownell (Cody)
Natural disasters can be hard to see coming, but scientists may have found something that will make predicting hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis much easier. Make that somethings. And those “things” are... hundreds of migratory birds. Here’s why.
On the day after Christmas in 2004, there was a magnitude 9 earthquake off the coast of Indonesia. And it caused one of the most powerful and devastating tsunamis in recorded history. The earthquake was so strong that it slowed the Earth’s rotation and shortened the length of a day by about two and a half microseconds. Between 20 minutes and seven hours after the quake, waves up to 100 feet or 30 meters tall crashed to shores in 14 countries across the Pacific. Nearly a quarter of a million people were killed by the tsunami. There had been no warning.
The question on everyone’s mind was the same: could we find a way to warn the public about a future tsunami, and give them enough time to get to safety?
Well, reports from survivors gave scientists an idea. Before the tsunami hit the coast of Indonesia, people living there noticed birds coming to shore. It seemed that the birds were able to sense the approaching swell.
That’s because birds can hear infrasound: extremely low frequency sound that humans are unable to detect. Tsunamis, earthquakes and storms emit these low sounds. That means that thanks to their perceptive hearing, migratory birds can safely travel through many miles of the Pacific Ocean without running into storms in the area.
So, scientists decided to team up with this unlikely set of collaborators. The project, called Kivi Kuaka [k-VEE koo-WAY-kah], intends to fit hundreds of migratory birds with GPS tags and track their movements from the International Space Station. Scientists think watching the birds’ movements could help them identify early signs of natural disasters.
The scientific team has identified five species of migratory birds to act as “storm sentinels”: the Bristle-thighed Curlew, the Bar-tailed Godwit, the Pacific Golden Plover, the Wandering Tattler and the Sooty Tern. These bird species have two things in common (or, three, if you think they
all have kinda funny names). For one, they travel great distances in their migration, which often takes them through areas with strong storms and extreme conditions. And on top of that, they also have a high sensitivity to infrasound.
Once the project is up and running, scientists hope that the data will help warn of impending natural disasters so that locals are more likely to find their way to safety in case of a major event. The first field missions are planned for 2021 and 2022. Here’s hoping birds of a feather save lives together.
Your Favorite Fairy Tales Are Way Older Than You Think by Ashley Hamer (Ashley)
Beauty and the Beast claims it’s a “tale as old as time” — and according to research, it may not be far off. A few years ago, anthropologists mapped the ages of dozens of folktales — and some of the modern classics like Beauty and The Beast? They’re way older than you’d think.
Here’s the problem these researchers faced: they wanted to analyze folktales passed down through oral tradition, and oral tradition? It’s not written down. Biologists face a similar problem when they’re trying to trace the evolution of traits that aren’t preserved in the fossil record. That approach is called phylogenetics [FYE-low-genetics], and it basically involves mapping animals’ shared traits on an evolutionary tree so you can figure out which ancestor they came from. So these researchers tried the same thing with folktales: they traced common traits in language and storytelling back to their shared roots. Instead of an evolutionary tree, they
basically created a language tree.
They started by choosing 76 folktales that they thought could work with their method. To figure out how the folktales were related to their region’s language history, the researchers used existing family trees of Indo-European languages. This is one of the largest language families on Earth, and it includes most of Europe and a lot of Asia. Indo-European’s language ancestor is called Proto-Indo-European, which probably existed between 5,000 and 9,000 years ago. Any folktales associated with Proto-Indo-European would have to be very, very old.
And one folktale emerged as a likely contender. It’s called “The Smith and the Devil,” and it’s about a blacksmith who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to weld any materials together. He then welds the Devil to a tree until it gives him back his soul. Gotcha, Devil! The tale dates all the way back to the Bronze Age, around 6,000 years ago. And yet, most of us have probably never even heard of it.
But a few other ancient tales you definitely have heard of. The researchers say that “Beauty and the Beast” and “Rumplestiltskin” probably emerged between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago.
Knowing how old these fairy tales are isn’t just a fun piece of trivia. It can help anthropologists understand more about culture from way back then. I mean, if the Smith and the Devil really did exist 6,000 years ago, that means that metalsmithing existed further back than we thought. Fairy tales always contain a lesson — it turns out that sometimes, that lesson is about human history itself.
Why do breaks heal faster than sprains? by Cameron Duke (Ashley)
If you had to choose, would you rather break your arm or sprain your wrist? Before you give your answer, think about this: even though most of us assume sprains are milder injuries than breaks, they’re actually harder to bounce back from. Sprains, strains, and ligament tears can take much longer to repair than a broken bone. And if you don’t believe me? Here’s the science.
It all comes down to what it takes to rebuild after an injury. Despite the dry, chalky skeletons you see in museums, bones are active, living tissue. The hard parts are mostly composed of calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate, but within that, there are tons of blood vessels, nerves, and specialized cells. For example, there’s bone marrow tissue deep inside a lot of your long bones, and that makes red blood cells for your whole body.
Your bones also have a kind of construction crew. Like, there’s a type of cell that builds bones, called osteoblasts. They’re constantly depositing new bone material throughout your life. Osteoclasts, on the other hand, are the wrecking crew: they’re constantly breaking your bones down to release calcium into your blood.
When a break happens, the osteoblasts and osteoclasts get right to work building and refining new bone while the blood vessels bring in nutrients to keep them going.
A sprain is damage to a ligament, which makes up the connections between bones. These are thick bands made of a fiber called collagen. Ligaments have a construction crew, too: they’re called fibroblasts, and their job is to build and maintain collagen. When a ligament is damaged, those fibroblasts get to work repairing it. But there’s one crucial difference: blood vessels don’t run through ligaments. The fibroblasts don’t have the all-you-can-eat buffet that the bone’s construction crew does. On top of that, repairing collagen fibers in a ligament or a tendon is a more complex process than repairing bone tissue.
As a result, a broken bone will often heal in four to six weeks, depending on the bone and the break. But a torn ligament? Healing can take upwards of twelve weeks for a partial tear. A full tear often won’t heal without surgery.
So be careful on your next extreme adventure. Even a minor sprain could lay you up for longer than you’d think.
RECAP
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
1. ASHLEY: Scientists want to use migratory birds to help predict natural disasters. These birds can detect the infrasound emitted by storms, tsunamis, and earthquakes, which helps them avoid these disasters during their migrations. The Kivi Kuaka project intends to fit hundreds of migratory birds with GPS tags and track their movements from the International Space Station. Hopefully, their movements will give us early signs of impending disasters.
2. CODY: Beauty and the Beast and Rumplestiltskin are probably between 3,000 and 4,000 years old, according to a study that mapped a bunch of folktales onto a phylogenetic tree. The oldest tale that study found was called “The Smith and the Devil,” which is about a blacksmith who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to weld any materials together. He then welds the Devil to a tree until it gives him back his soul.
3. CODY: Sprains take longer to heal than bones because ligaments don’t have a dedicated blood supply and because it’s more complicated for your body to repair collagen than it is for it to repair bone. As a result, a broken bone will heal in four to six weeks, while even a partial ligament tear can take upwards of 12 weeks to heal. [ad lib optional]
ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Briana Brownell and Cameron Duke.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer, who was also a writer on today’s episode. ASHLEY: Our producer and audio editor is Cody Gough.
CODY: [AD LIB SOMETHING FUNNY] Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!