Learn about the world’s first all-female expedition to the North Pole; where humans rank on the food chain; and why you should take a science-backed quiz to help you measure your meaning in life. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: SKILLSHARE: Two months of unlimited access to more than 20 thousand classes for just 99 cents The World's First All-Female Expedition to the North Pole Has Returned This Is Where Humans Rank on the Food Chain (Spoiler: We're Not on Top) This Science-Backed Quiz Will Measure Your Meaning in Life Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! Learn about these topics and more onCuriosity.com, and download our5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable ourAlexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about the world’s first all-female expedition to the North Pole; where humans rank on the food chain; and why you should take a science-backed quiz to help you measure your meaning in life.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/first-all-female-north-pole-expedition-humans-on-the-food-chain-and-how-to-measure-your-meaning-in-life
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got some stories about humanity from curiositydotcom to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about the world's first all-female expedition to the North Pole, where humans rank on the food chain, and a science-backed quiz to help you measure your meaning in life.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: The world's first all-female expedition to the North Pole has safely returned to solid ground. And they've got tons of data never collected before. And this trip wasn't just to prove a point about female scientists. Although, that was certainly a perk. It was to collect long overdue data about human physiology and psychology in extreme environments.
CODY GOUGH: There's actually some really cool science with this.
ASHLEY HAMER: Very cool, yeah.
CODY GOUGH: It's not like they just like-- we're like, oh, we're going to go to the North Pole for no reason.
ASHLEY HAMER: Real world North Pole.
CODY GOUGH: Wait, they didn't run into Santa?
ASHLEY HAMER: That would have been amazing.
CODY GOUGH: We're going to have a conversation after this podcast.
ASHLEY HAMER: Felicity Aston has been leading polar expeditions for decades. She led the first British women's crossing of Greenland and the largest and most international team of women ever to ski to the South Pole. And in 2012, she entered the Guinness book of world records as the first woman in the world to ski across Antarctica alone. That's more than 1,000 miles in 59 days.
You could certainly find a worse pick for someone to lead the expedition. There are very few scientific studies looking into the effects of polar environments on the human body. And most of the ones we have carried out used outdated methods and included zero women. So for this trip, Felicity Aston led 11 participants, 50 miles on skis to collect data for two studies.
One physiological and the other one psychological. For the physiological part, the team tracked body temperature, heart rate, metabolism, and other biometrics. They also brought bottles of lab-created water with unique isotopes, which allowed researchers to see how much energy the explorers were spending by analyzing their urine.
Then there was the psychological study. Researchers measured cortisol levels in the participants' saliva to track their stress levels during the expedition. They also looked at how the women's personal views and values changed over the course of their adventure. And they had a really diverse data set for this.
The Euro-Arabian North Pole expedition was made up of women from all over-- Saudi Arabia, the UK, Kuwait, Slovenia, Russia, Sweden, Qatar, and others. Believe it or not, the team came from a Facebook post. Physical fitness was, obviously, an important criterion for being chosen. But what was more important was enthusiasm and a proven ability to complete challenging tasks.
And with everyone back safe and sound, the mission was a resounding success for a lot of reasons-- both scientific and cultural.
CODY GOUGH: Have you ever wondered where humans rank on the food chain? Well, we have-- and it turns out we are not at the top. Whops.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wait, everybody says they are at the top of the food chain. That's just like a thing people say.
CODY GOUGH: We're at the top of the world?
ASHLEY HAMER: I mean, when you're on the North Pole, you are.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: I see what you did there.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wait. So explain this to me.
CODY GOUGH: All right. So first, how does the food chain even work? Ecologists rank animals based on their trophic level. They put organisms in order based on which other organisms they eat and which ones they're eaten by. For example, a minnow is lower on the scale than a shark, obviously. The number of steps an organism is from the start is a measure of its trophic level. There are five trophic levels and they look like this.
Level 1 is producers. That's plant analogy that make their own food. Level 2 is primary consumers. That's herbivores that eat plants. Level 3 is secondary consumers. Those are carnivores that eat herbivores. Level 4 is tertiary consumers. Those are carnivores that eat other carnivores. And level 5 is apex predators. They have no predators and they're at the top of the food chain.
In 2013, a French organization combines ecological theory, demography, and socioeconomics to calculate a human trophic level to figure out where humans fall on the food chain. And based on our diet, humans have a trophic level of about 2.21. That's on a scale of 1 to 5.
ASHLEY HAMER: What?
CODY GOUGH: That means we're ranked in the company of anchovies and pigs. Yikes. Our trophic level did vary slightly between regions. According to the data they used from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Burundi has the lowest score at 2.04, thanks to a diet that was 96.7% plant-based. Iceland had the highest country score at 2.54 since their diet consists of slightly more meats than plants.
As a whole, humans have slightly climbed up the food chain over time with our human trophic level increasing from about 2.15 in the '60s to 2.21 in 2013. But we're still middle of the road at best. That goes to show that you don't have to be at the top of the food chain to feel important. Now I feel like a good steak.
Today's episode is sponsored by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning platform with more than 20,000 classes in business, marketing design, technology, and more, including some food-related classes, I believe Ashley used recently.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I mean, Cody, you know I meal prep. And by meal prep I mean I've been eating the exact same chicken, broccoli, and rice concoction for lunch for years. I like how cheap and healthy bringing my own lunch can be, but it would be nice to not eat the same thing every day. Though the idea of making a bunch of different things for the week is daunting. That's why I polished up my meal prep skills with Skillshare. They've got a course on the basics of meal prep from an acclaimed health coach and food journalist.
And it helped me plan a more diverse weekly menu and gave me a ton of new ideas to try for lunch. And breakfast and dinner too. I want to warn you Cody, I might bring a southwest Mason jar salad tomorrow. Just don't be alarmed.
CODY GOUGH: Alarmed? I might ask for some. And you listener can take classes for everything you're curious about or want to get better at like cooking, photography, video editing, mobile development, DIY arts and crafts, social media marketing, and more. Remember, Skillshare offers more than 20,000 classes.
ASHLEY HAMER: And now, you can join the millions of students like Cody and me who are already learning on Skillshare. And a special offer for listeners like you, get two months of Skillshare for just $0.99. To sign up, visit skillshare.com/curious.
CODY GOUGH: Again, that skillshare.com/curious for two months of unlimited access to more than 20,000 classes all taught by professional experts or public motivational speakers for just $0.99. Lifelong learning is important and that's why you love curiosity, right? So start your two-month trial of Skillshare to learn even more.
Ashley Hamer: One more time, that skillshare.com/curious. Scientists have come up with a way to measure just how much meaning you have in your life and how hard you're looking for it. This story's a doozy. When I started it, I did an informal poll of the whole office because I don't feel like I have a purpose in life. And so I was like, do you guys?
CODY GOUGH: Picture this. I'm sitting at my desk, Ashley looks around and says, "Hey, can I ask everyone a kind of personal question but it's for work?" So of course, that gets everyone's attention. And she's like, "Do you feel like you have a purpose in life?" I'm like, "That is not what I expected to come out of your mouth."
[LAUGHTER]
I hadn't really thought about it, to be honest, especially, in those terms. Like, what do I mean a purpose? My purpose personally, my purpose-- I serve a purpose in society. So I didn't know where to go with it. So I'm glad that you wrote about this whole meaning in life. Not meaning of life. That's a little above our pay grade. But the meaning in life and this cool science behind it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. Me too. I actually learned a lot from this article. So you might think that meaning in life is a hard concept to pin down since it can mean so many different things to so many different people. But there's actually plenty of research into the topic. From the benefits of having a sense of purpose to the best ways to help you find one. Studies show that having meaning in your life helps you deal with stressful life events.
Having a sense of purpose helps you make sense of your circumstances. And that can give you a feeling of control when you might, otherwise, feel helpless. It's also good for you physically. People with a strong sense of purpose in life also go to the doctor more, they spend less time in the hospital, and they recover faster after surgery. They also exercise more. Last year, researchers from Northwestern University found that people who reported more meaning in their lives also reported getting better sleep.
In 2006, scientists developed the meaning and life questionnaire to actually measure people's meaning in life. Is a 10-item questionnaire designed to measure the presence of meaning in a person's life and the degree to which they're searching for meaning. You can find a link to it in our full write up on curiositydotcom and on our free Curiosity app for android and iOS and we'll also put a link in this episode's show notes.
Like any online quiz, take the results with a grain of salt and consider consulting a professional therapist if you're feeling distressed by your answers. But with a little knowledge about how your sense of meaning stacks up, you might be able to better assess where you want to go from here. We hope you find your life's meaning, whatever that means to you.
CODY GOUGH: Join us again tomorrow for the Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Stay curious.
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SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.