Learn how earworms could be helping your memory; how auroras are created; and what your cat should drink instead of milk. Maybe that song stuck in your head is helping your long-term memory by Cameron Duke Karen Michele Nikos-Rose. (2021, June 15). That Song Is Stuck in Your Head, but It’s Helping You to Remember. UC Davis. https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/song-stuck-in-head-helps-remember Kubit, B. M., & Janata, P. (2021). Spontaneous mental replay of music improves memory for incidentally associated event knowledge. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001050 We have the first experimental evidence for how auroras are created by Briana Brownell Physicists report definitive evidence how auroras are created. (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/uoi-prd060321.php Auroral Electron Acceleration. (2021). Uiowa.edu. https://homepage.physics.uiowa.edu/~ghowes/research/aurora.html Schroeder, J. W. R., Howes, G. G., Kletzing, C. A., Skiff, F., Carter, T. A., Vincena, S., & Dorfman, S. (2021). Laboratory measurements of the physics of auroral electron acceleration by Alfvén waves. Nature communications, 12(1), 1-9. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-23377-5.epdf A Feline Myth Debunked: Don't Give Your Cat Milk by Anna Todd Fries, W. C. (2009, July 17). Cats and Dairy: Get the Facts. WebMD; WebMD. https://pets.webmd.com/cats/guide/cats-and-dairy-get-the-facts#1 Bradshaw, J. (2019, May 20). Why can’t cats drink milk? Plus 6 other feline myths. BBC Science Focus Magazine; BBC Science Focus Magazine. https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/why-cant-cats-drink-milk-plus-6-other-feline-myths/ Causes and diagnosis of lactose intolerance. (2018, November 29). Nih.gov; Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK310263/ 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 how earworms could be helping your memory; how auroras are created; and what your cat should drink instead of milk.
Maybe that song stuck in your head is helping your long-term memory by Cameron Duke
We have the first experimental evidence for how auroras are created by Briana Brownell
A Feline Myth Debunked: Don't Give Your Cat Milk by Anna Todd
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/earworms-aid-memory-how-auroras-happen-dont-give-cats-milk
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 that song that’s stuck in your head could be helping your memory; the first experimental evidence for how auroras are created; and why you should NOT give your cat milk.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
So no one told you life was gonna be this way, but catchy songs will get stuck in your head time after time. We call them earworms, and what a wicked game they play. But earworms aren’t just background noise. That earworm digging into your brain might actually be doing a good thing. It might help you solidify long-term memories.
When you think about a song, it can have the power to take you back to childhood, a past relationship, or even just a simple moment that somehow became entwined with it. The relationship between music and memory is one we all intrinsically understand, but academically? It’s not well understood at all.
Recently, a group of researchers at UC Davis explored whether there’s a functional purpose to the way music is linked to memories, or if it’s all just dust in the wind.
The researchers performed three experiments, each with around 30 participants. The experiments all involved participants listening to clips of music they had never heard before while doing various tasks. One week later, the participants came back and watched unfamiliar movie clips with those same songs as the soundtrack. They were also asked which songs they felt were the catchiest.
The researchers found that the catchiest songs were better than the others at helping participants accurately recall details from the movies. When they listened to these catchy songs, their ability to recall the movie details was just as accurate one week later as it was the day after watching the movie clip. On top of that, most participants were able to easily recall other tasks they were doing later when the songs were stuck in their heads.
The researchers think that those songs that play in your head while you’re lying in bed trying to sleep are actually a big part of how your brain commits experiences to your long-term memory, all alone in the moonlight. They hope that they might one day be able to apply this knowledge to the development of treatments for people suffering from dementia and other memory-related disorders.
When a song is stuck in your head, you might have 99 problems, but memory ain’t one.
Humans have been in awe of the aurora for thousands of years. These mostly green and red shimmering lights can fill the night sky in many far-northern and far-southern regions. But now scientists are one step closer to understanding the aurora’s unique appearance: they have the first experimental evidence for why auroras behave the way they do.
The aurora’s light show starts with our sun. The sun might look like a steady, consistent light to us, but it’s actually pretty turbulent. The sun sometimes emits intense bursts of radiation, called solar flares, and it can also suddenly release hot plasma in the form of coronal mass ejections.
These emissions sometimes head towards Earth, where they interact with the magnetic field and atmosphere to cause geomagnetic storms. When these super-energized particles hit the nitrogen and oxygen atoms in our upper atmosphere, they kick them into an excited state. Then, these atoms emit light at certain frequencies as they return to their ground state. We recognize that as the light of the aurora.
So that explains the lights, but not the unique behavior of the aurora. Most of the time, auroras have a intricate shape that looks like moving curtains of light. These are called auroral arcs.
The auroral arcs have long been a mystery. But new research from a US team has recreated this phenomenon in the lab.
It has to do with something called Alfven [AAL-fenn, al like pal] waves. No, not Elfen — this has nothing to do with the Lord of the Rings. Alfven waves are a kind of low-frequency plasma wave. They’re sometimes produced during a geomagnetic storm. In the case of the aurora, Alfven waves accelerate electrons to a blistering 12,500 miles per second, or 20,000 kilometers per second. It’s just like surfing: the electrons ride the wave and move faster and faster thanks to the wave’s energy.
When the electrons hit our atmosphere, that’s where the magic happens. They collide with our atmosphere in distinct sheet-like patterns, which creates the familiar auroral arc.
The experiment replicated this phenomenon using the Large Plasma Device at UCLA. They created Alfven waves and measured their acceleration of electrons. This acceleration matched the expected behavior of the electrons that cause the auroral arcs.
That means we’re closer to understanding what creates auroras. But even once their mystery is solved, their beauty will remain.
When you see cats in popular culture, they’re often lapping up a saucer of milk. These depictions might tempt you into treating your own cat to some dairy goodness, but you should resist. That’s because, just like us, cats can be lactose intolerant.
To understand how both humans and cats can become lactose intolerant, I’ve gotta give a quick lesson on lactose and lactase. When mammals are born, their bodies produce an enzyme called lactase that helps them digest lactose, which is the main sugar in their mother's milk. Kittens, like many other mammals (including many humans), slow down their production of lactase as they age.
And that means that dairy can wreak havoc on an adult cat’s digestive system. When a kitten or human baby drinks milk, lactase in their small intestine turns lactose into two simple sugars, glucose and galactose, that their bodies absorb into their bloodstream. But when a lactose-intolerant cat or human drinks milk, the undigested lactose moves into the colon instead of being broken down and absorbed. That leaves bacteria in the colon to break that lactose down and produce a bunch of gases in return. That also makes more liquid move into the large intestine. The result? Bloating, flatulence, and diarrhea — whether you’re a cat or a person.
But if cats are so intolerant of milk, why the stereotype? Well, the milk we buy today is a whole lot different from the milk you might find on a farm, straight from the cow. That milk is full of fat. Not only is fat the milk ingredient that cats are really attracted to, fat also helps to slow down digestion and give the lactose time to break down. That means fewer unpleasant symptoms. Even whole milk from the supermarket contains a lot less fat than it does straight from the source, so all your kitty gets out of it is an upset stomach.
If you find that Mr. Fluffy is lactose intolerant, don't fret — while the symptoms might be alarming, it’s very normal. Instead of milk, provide your kitty with plenty of water and a diet that's high in protein. They're obligate carnivores, which means they have to rely on animal tissue to meet their nutritional needs. Hey — that’s just more milk for you.
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
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ASHLEY: Today’s writers were Cameron Duke, Briana Brownell, and Anna Todd.
CODY: Our managing editor is Ashley Hamer.
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!