Learn about why it might actually be pretty easy to drink an elephant under the table; how carrier pigeons like Cher Ami helped win the world wars; and why night owls may have worse emotion regulation than morning people.
Learn about why it might actually be pretty easy to drink an elephant under the table; how carrier pigeons like Cher Ami helped win the world wars; and why night owls may have worse emotion regulation than morning people.
Apparently, elephants get drunk and they're total lightweights by Cameron Duke
Carrier pigeons helped win the world wars by Steffie Drucker
Night owls may have worse emotion regulation than morning larks by Grant Currin
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/elephants-get-drunk-and-theyre-lightweights-pigeons-helped-win-wars-and-night-owls-may-struggle-to-regulate-their-emotions
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 it might actually be pretty easy to drink an elephant under the table; how carrier pigeons helped win the world wars; and why night owls may have worse emotion regulation than morning people.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Is it possible to get an elephant drunk? This is actually a question science has been dealing with for years. While it’s debatable whether elephants regularly get drunk in the wild, new research suggests that these heavyweights are actually lightweights when it comes to alcohol.
First, though, a disclaimer: nobody is getting elephants drunk, at least not on purpose. The elephants seem to be doing this on their own. In fact, that’s why scientists are interested in this: there is a ton of anecdotal evidence that elephants go on drunken rampages after drinking booze or eating fermented fruit. As recently as this past March, a story made the rounds online about elephants getting drunk on corn wine and passing out in a garden, though that might have been fake. But there are other stories much older than that. In the 1830s, a French naturalist recounted tales from his Zulu guides in South Africa about male elephants acting aggressively after eating fermented marula fruits.
However, many scientists have dismissed these stories as unlikely for several reasons. For one, biologists say elephants steer clear of fruit that’s rotten enough to ferment. While it’s possible the fresh fruit ferments later in their digestive tract, there’s a second problem: Elephants are massive. Just like, if you think Game of Thrones, it would take more drinks to get the Mountain drunk than it would for Tyrion Lannister, intoxicating an animal the size of an elephant should require way more alcohol than for a human. That means eating more than a thousand fermented marula fruits in a sitting, which is just unrealistic. So, for a long time, scientists considered the legend to be debunked.
But new research has revisited this myth. A team of geneticists at the University of Calgary examined a gene responsible for alcohol metabolism and found out that this gene varies widely across species. They found that primates have a version of the gene that allows them to process alcohol really efficiently, meaning they can drink a lot of alcohol before getting drunk. But here’s the thing: this mutation seems to be exclusive to primates. Other animals, — such as elephants — have versions of the gene that make them very sensitive to alcohol and unable to metabolize it easily. So it might not take as much alcohol to get an elephant drunk as primates like us would think.
So while it’s debatable whether drunk elephants are common in nature, research suggests that it is, in fact, possible to get an elephant drunk.
We’re releasing this episode of Curiosity Daily on Memorial Day here in the United States. It’s a federal holiday for honoring and remembering those who have died in service to our country. We thought we’d help you celebrate by doing something a little different, with a story to memorialize an unlikely non-human species that was a real lifesaver during the first and second World War: Pigeons.
Yes, pigeons. Did you know the domesticated pigeon is older than the domesticated cat? Pigeons have been worshipped as fertility goddesses, served every major superpower since ancient Egypt, and delivered the results of the first Olympics. Throughout it all, they’ve demonstrated the uncanny ability to find their way back home from almost any distance. And how? Well, there have been theories about them using everything from the sun to the Earth’s magnetic field. But the strongest evidence suggests they rely on a combination of smells and good old fashioned landmarks.
The fact that a pigeon will return to home base from virtually anywhere made them really valuable during wartime. Not to mention: they don’t eat much, they’re easy to transport, and they can travel at highway speeds over hundreds of miles. Unlike dogs or horses, they don’t need a handler, and they’re not easily distracted or spooked. They also faced fewer dangers than animals on land.
So pigeons found homes in every branch of service. Pilots could drop them from planes to update leaders on enemy trench activity. In fact, during World War II, bra manufacturer Maidenform created custom vests that let paratroopers strap on pigeons for their jumps.
One of the most famous tales of a war pigeon happened during World War I. In the fall of 1918, a group of soldiers that would soon be known as The Lost Battalion were trapped behind enemy lines, barraged by Germans for five days. To save them, American forces began dropping artillery shells — but without knowing the battalion’s exact location, they dropped some shells on their own troops. The batallion had to send word of their position, and a pigeon known as Cher Ami [SHARE ah-MEE] was their last hope. Cher Ami flew through heavy gunfire, and by the time she reached her loft 25 miles away, she was gravely injured. But the message was received and 200 lives were saved. Army medics nursed her back to health and crafted a wooden leg for her. The French even awarded her the Croix de Guerre [KWA duh GARE] for her valor. This heroic homing pigeon’s final home is the Smithsonian Institute; her stuffed body is on display in the National Museum of American History’s “Price of Freedom” exhibit.
So this Memorial Day, take a moment to remember Cher Ami and the rest of these winged war heroes.
Are you a morning person or a night person? Odds are you fall somewhere in between: about 60 percent of people do. The time you like to go to sleep and wake up reflects what scientists call your chronotype, and a new study has found a relationship between a person’s chronotype and how they deal with their emotions, reflect on their own thoughts, and assert themselves to others. And [fellow] night owls, it’s not good news.
Spanish researchers had more than 2200 people fill out four surveys. The first one assessed their chronotype, which ended up being a pretty typical split. 23 percent were morning people, 28 percent were night owls, and the rest fell in between.
The second survey explored the strategies they used to handle stress. They found that people closer to the morning end of the spectrum tended to reframe emotionally difficult situations, using a beneficial strategy psychologists call cognitive reappraisal. Like, if you lost your job, cognitive reappraisal might mean thinking about all the new opportunities you can pursue. Night owls, on the other hand, were more likely to suppress their emotions. That’s a habit that’s associated with depression and other psychological problems.
The third survey looked at something called metacognition, or how the participants thought about their own thoughts and feelings. Just like with the stress regulation, morning people tended to use healthier psychological strategies while night owls were more likely to engage in self-sabotaging thought patterns. For example, they were more likely to believe that worrying is a useful strategy for avoiding problems and to be preoccupied with controlling their own thoughts.
The fourth survey measured assertiveness and found, to no one’s surprise, that morning people were more likely to stand up for themselves.
So what’s going on with night owls? Scientists are still working to fit the whole puzzle together, but they do know a few things. Chronotypes are part of a person’s biology. A night owl can make themselves wake up early, but they don’t perform as well at that hour as someone with a morning chronotype. And if a night owl lives in a society that makes them get up early and be active in the morning, as many of [them/us] do, that becomes a big problem. That conflict between biology and culture leads to what psychologists call social jetlag, and they think that’s the problem these surveys exposed.
It’s one more reason that experts recommend later school start times and flexible work hours. The world is built for morning people, and that’s taking a toll on everyone else.
Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Starting with
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Cameron Duke, Steffie Drucker, and Grant Currin, 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!