Learn about why people can’t help but “shoot the messenger;” how neurons in your gut influence neurons in your brain thanks to the gut-brain axis; and why we still use the QWERTY keyboard.
Learn about why people can’t help but “shoot the messenger;” how neurons in your gut influence neurons in your brain thanks to the gut-brain axis; and why we still use the QWERTY keyboard, along with information on Dvorak and Colemak layouts.
People can't help but "shoot the messenger" by Kelsey Donk
Neurons in your gut influence neurons in your brain by Andrea Michelson
Here's Why We Still Use the QWERTY Keyboard by Trevor English
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/gut-neurons-influence-brain-neurons-why-we-still-use-the-qwerty-keyboard-and-why-you-shoot-the-messenger
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 people can’t help but “shoot the messenger;” how neurons in your gut influence neurons in your brain; and why we still use the QWERTY keyboard.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
When you’re delivering bad news but you don’t want people to get mad at you for it, you probably say, “hey, don’t shoot the messenger.” After all, you didn’t create the bad news; you’re just delivering it! Well, good luck with that. Because according to research, we all shoot the messenger.
And we know this because of a study published last year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Harvard researchers conducted 11 experiments looking at a wide variety of situations and found that across the board, people tend to dislike people who give them bad news.
In fact, the researchers say there’s a sort of “double whammy” that happens for those who have to deliver or receive bad news — and that’s all of us at some point. First of all, people who have the unfortunate task of breaking bad news are already in a stressful situation — and the fact that they’re disliked as a result makes it even worse. And second, earlier research has already shown that people have a hard time accepting advice from people they dislike. And when the person who’s giving someone bad news is a boss, a doctor, or a parent, that puts the person at a disadvantage. After all, those types of figures are usually valuable resources for advice.
Like, imagine that a doctor has to give a bad diagnosis to a patient. This research shows that instead of relying on the doctor for their guidance on what to do next, patients are more likely to dislike the doctor and turn away from them. In fact, this experiment revealed that when patients receive bad news, they assume their doctors have hostile motives. In other words, the patients imagine the doctor was looking forward to delivering the bad diagnosis.
Researchers say that when people receive bad news, they have a desire to “sense-make,” or rationalize. People with that urge to sense-make usually decide that the bearers of bad news must be unlikeable people.
One of the experiments even found that we tend to consider the bearers of bad news as less competent than those who bring good news. This gets even worse when bad news is unexpected, because people have even more of a need to make sense of what they can’t see coming.
So how do we stop this from happening? Well, the researchers have one good tip. They found that when people preface bad news with a statement about their good motives, they seem more likable. A phrase like “I’m really hoping for the best for you” can make all the difference.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that your brain communicates with your gut. But what you may not know is that your gut talks back. As in: neurons in your gut can actually influence neurons in your brain.
The system I’m talking about is known as the gut-brain axis. And it links the digestive system with the thinking and emotion centers of the brain. Its biggest role is to monitor and control what goes on in the gut. But recent research has shown that it has an effect on what happens in the brain, too. After all, the gut has about 100 million neurons all to itself, which mostly do the work of sensing nutrients and moving food along the alimentary canal. The gut also uses a lot of the same neurotransmitters the brain does, like serotonin and dopamine. And evidence suggests that about 90 percent of the fibers in the nervous-system superhighway known as the vagus nerve carry information from the gut to the brain — not the other way around.
A research team at the University of Illinois recently mapped the connections between the brain and the gut to find out just how far this communication network goes. They injected rats with special neuron-invading viruses that traced the paths that a signal would take through the nervous system. Starting in the small intestine, the viruses traveled along the spinal and vagus nerves all the way up to the brainstem. That part was no surprise, since the brainstem controls digestion.
But the path didn’t stop there. The viruses made it all the way to the higher brain, where thoughts and emotions are processed. Now that scientists know that signaling from the gut might influence these advanced processes in the brain, they’ve uncovered a whole world of neuronal connections to research further.
This connection could explain why so many people who have digestive disorders also suffer from anxiety or depression. In the past, we thought that mental health disorders exacerbate bowel problems, but it’s possible that the gut-brain axis is working in the opposite direction — trouble in your gut might actually trigger a shift in your emotions. Some doctors will even prescribe antidepressants to treat gastrointestinal symptoms because they can act on neurons in the gut.
Looking closer at this map of gut-brain connections could also solve other gastro-emotional mysteries, like why we keep eating after we’re full or why we get hangry if we skip lunch. I’d say there’s a good chance we’ll find out. I’ve got a gut feeling about it.
If you're listening to this podcast, you’ve probably used a keyboard of some form in the last several minutes. But have you ever wondered why the letters are laid out that way? I mean, it doesn’t seem particularly intuitive or even logical. And it turns out it may not even be the best design. Here’s the story of how the modern keyboard came to be — and it involves Morse code, marketing, and a little bit of quirkiness.
The first patented typewriter in 1867 had the letters laid out alphabetically. But, while this design seems logical, users had trouble finding the keys. So, its designer spent 11 years working on it, before finally coming up with the layout we know today. It’s called QWERTY for the first six letters in the top row. Popular legend suggests it made it easier to type common letter sequences quickly without the keys jamming the typewriter.
But that may not be entirely true. Researchers at Kyoto University think that it was actually influenced by requirements for American Morse code. That’s because the letters seem to be grouped by similar Morse code signals. Like, Z, S, and E are close together because their signals were easy to mix up: Z is “dot dot dot dot” and SE is “dot dot dot...dot.” You could hear those first three “dots” and get your fingers ready for the final “dot.”
Historians still aren’t sure, but in any case, we know the QWERTY keyboard went into a production deal with the gun-maker Remington and became a major success. The public didn’t necessarily adopt the design because it was the best — it was just what was being sold. It helped that Remington was the first company to offer training and certification for typists. Then in 1893, QWERTY’s fate was sealed: all of the major typewriter manufacturers merged and adopted the keyboard as standard.
So the design stuck, even though its own designer continued to develop layouts for the rest of his life. I should mention, though, that there ARE alternatives. Two popular keyboard layouts are known as the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, which was patented in 1936, and the Colemak layout, created in 2006. The idea behind these keyboards is that they’re more efficient; for example, the Dvorak layout places the most commonly used letters, including all 5 vowels, in the home row, where they’re easy to reach. It looks a LOT different than the QWERTY keyboard, especially compared to the Colemak layout, which only has 17 changes from the QWERTY layout.
But It’s controversial whether these designs are actually more efficient than the QWERTY layout. The research is limited. Still, if you want to try them out, you can buy a new keyboard or just change your current keyboard to the new layout — you can actually find them included in most major modern operating systems, including Windows and iOS — you just have to change your keyboard preferences. You can also buy physical keyboards with keys printed using Dvorak and Colemak designs. Just remember that it’ll take months or years to get used to your new layout, and when you use a friend’s computer or mobile device switch devices, you’ll probably have to go back to your old QWERTY days anyway. Oh well — can’t say they didn’t try!
But It’s controversial whether these designs are actually more efficient than the QWERTY layout. Still, if you want to try them out, you can buy a new keyboard or just change your current keyboard to the new layout — you can actually find them included in most major modern operating systems. Just remember that it’ll take months or years to get used to your new layout, and when you switch devices, you’ll probably have to go back to your old QWERTY days anyway. Oh well — can’t say they didn’t try!
Let’s do a quick recap of what we learned today
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Kelsey Donk, Andrea Michelson, and Trevor English, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Curiosity Daily is 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!