Today, you’ll learn about a newly discovered genetic link between high voices and high blood pressure, a mysterious new discovery behind some ancient Egyptian art, and about freshwater lying underneath the ocean floor.
Today, you’ll learn about a newly discovered genetic link between high voices and high blood pressure, a mysterious new discovery behind some ancient Egyptian art, and about freshwater lying underneath the ocean floor.
Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/high-voice-gene-egyptian-art-x-ray-finding-fresh-water
High Voice Gene
Egyptian Art X-Ray
Finding Fresh Water
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[SFX: INTRO MUSIC/WHOOSH]
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today, you’ll learn about a newly discovered genetic link between high voices and high blood pressure, a mysterious new discovery behind some ancient Egyptian art, and about freshwater lying underneath the ocean floor.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: LA-LA-LA-LA-LA…Ahem…LA-LA-LA…
NATE: Uhhh…everything okay there, Calli?
CALLI: Just testing my blood pressure.
NATE: Uh huh.. that because I was thinking you were choking to death or something.
CALLI: Very funny.
NATE: Kidding. You have a lovely voice. But really…what’s going on? How are you testing your blood pressure by singing?
CALLI: Okay - I might be exaggerating just a little bit. But check this out. A team of researchers looked at voice recordings and genetic data from almost 13,000 people in Iceland and identified mutations in a gene called ABCC9 that influences how high or low a person’s voice is.
NATE: That’s like the world’s biggest Icelandic playlist. But what does that have to do with blood pressure?
CALLI: I was hoping you’d ask that. So by combing through all that data, they were able to zero in on common variants of ABCC9 that correlated with people having higher pitched voices. But here’s the twist: those same variants were also linked to higher blood pressure, which, as we all know, is a risk factor for heart issues.
NATE: That’s crazy. A higher-pitched voice could signal higher blood pressure? What’s the connection?
CALLI: The researchers think it has to do with the gene's role in producing proteins called collagen and elastin. These proteins help make tissues stretchy and flexible throughout the body, including in our vocal cords and heart.
NATE: Ok. I think I see that connection. But maybe walk me through how that works?
CALLI: So the variants cause too much collagen and elastin, which makes vocal cords vibrate at higher frequencies for that squeaky…LA-LA-LA-LA-LA
NATE: Mmhmm…that, ahem… lovely voice…
CALLI: …but it also makes heart tissue stiffen up and malfunction.
NATE: That’s a connection I never would have made, but it does make sense.
CALLI: So that isn’t actually proven, but it’s the hypothesis from lead researcher Rosa Gisladottir. She said this is the first solid evidence that a genetic variant truly affects voice pitch across a whole population. Past studies were tiny and only looked at a few families.
NATE: So genetics shapes the way we sound. But what about the way we speak?
CALLI: You mean, like, the way we say words?
NATE: Right? Could genetics have anything to do with our, like, accents?
CALLI: Maybe. The team also investigated the genetics behind vowel sounds like "ah" and "ee." We know those sounds are shaped by culture and language - like, just because I’m part Danish, that doesn’t mean I’m going to speak in a Danish accent. But there are some underlying genetics behind the shape of our vocal tract, which would absolutely influence the way words sound when they come out of our mouths.
NATE: So Bjork’s beautiful tones are both nature AND nurture!
CALLI: And also MY beautiful tones…right?
NATE: Oh…uh…sure.
CALLI: Annnnyway…the team said these genetic insights could help us better understand the entire vocal system and the disorders that affect it.
NATE: And the genetic link between high vocal pitch and high blood pressure is really interesting. Is there a way to use that link as a diagnostic tool for blood pressure?
CALLI: Not currently. Their main focus was really on the genetics of the vocal system. Finding the connection between the higher pitch and blood pressure was just a happy accident. So happy it makes me want to sing!
NATE: That’s really not necessary. Later?
CALLI: Fine.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Imagine a current day archaeologist trudging through the desert, heavy gear packed tightly. Up ahead…the Theban Necropolis. It’s a sacred Ancient Egyptian burial site containing hundreds of tombs - including King Tutankhamun’s resting spot, the majority of which we know is now in a museum.
CALLI: Ooh ok, King Tut, I’m excited about this story now.
NATE: The inside of the Necropolis is covered in paintings, and our Archaeologist sets up her gear to get behind one of the most famous well-known paintings - a portrait of Rameses II, Egyptian ruler from 1279 to 1213 BCE.
CALLI: Get behind it?! She’s going to crack open a three-thousand year old painting?!
NATE: Did I mention that all that gear she’s carrying is x-ray machines?
CALLI: You failed to mention that.
NATE: Yes! There’s a revolution happening in Ancient Egyptian art and modern archaeology, and it’s happening right there in the Necropolis where researchers are scanning the ancient paintings to see what’s underneath. And what they’ve found has utterly stunned them.
CALLI: Uh huh, what was it?
NATE: More paintings.
CALLI: Wait. What?
NATE: Yeah. So researchers have always believed that these paintings were kinda like wallpaper. There are just so many of them, that they assumed they were painted on in a kind of assembly-line kinda style. Pre-planned. Very precise. Methodical. But these high-tech x-ray images show that actually, whoever painted these walls often went back to revise their work. In other words…
CALLI: …they made mistakes…
NATE: …not only that, but they were meticulous. They had opinions about what they’d done. For whatever reason, they often found the need to change it up, make a new draft, go back to the ol’ drawing board. They said it was like looking at the ghosts of the artists in the room before them.
CALLI: That does sound like a revolution. Technology can change everything we thought we knew in one fell swoop.
NATE: Totally. And that’s maybe the bigger picture here…no pun intended. Researchers have been using x-rays like this for a long time, but only for small antiquities and art that can be taken to the x-ray machine. This is one of the first times that they’ve managed to take the x-ray machine to the art itself. And that could have pretty profound effects on our ability to study ancient - and not so ancient art.
CALLI: And you don’t have to ruin the art to study it. You can just…x-ray it.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Have you ever wondered what’s beneath the ocean? Like underneath the ocean floor?
NATE: Well, according to my elementary school geography class it should be the oceanic crust, then the upper mantle then so on and so forth.
CALLI: Yes, technically but researchers also found something very different: they found water.
NATE: Do you need a snack or something, because I’m very confused. Did you say water is underneath the ocean?
CALLI: Okay. Let me explain. So back in the 1960s, the U.S. Geological Survey was drilling about 40 miles off the coast of New Jersey and - to their surprise - they struck freshwater.
NATE: Ok. That’s super weird.
CALLI: Right? So fast forward several years. They go back and do some more drilling, but this time they test the water and they find that it’s a mix of recent rainwater and seawater. So the mystery is - how did fresh rainwater make its way underneath the ocean 40 miles off the coast of New Jersey?
NATE: I know fresh water is a little lighter than seawater, so if anything rain would float to the surface. So…how’d it get there?
CALLI: That’s a great question, and scientists are trying to figure it out. Rob Evans is a geophysicist and a senior scientist at the Woods Hole, Oceanographic Institution, in Massachusetts, and he’s been studying these mysterious pools of fresh water since the ‘90s. He believes there are probably a few different ways the water gets there. But to really understand it, it’s important to remember that a continent doesn’t actually end on the beach where the ocean meets the shore.
NATE: Aha! Right - the continental plates extend out under the ocean. And that must mean that groundwater from aquifers that are inland can just kinda sloosh out under the ocean.
CALLI: Exactly. It’s also possible it got trapped there by glaciers during the last ice age. Some of it could even be millions of years old. But however it got there, according to some estimates, there’s about 34 million cubic kilometers of groundwater on Earth. That’s enough to cover all the land on the planet with about 600 feet of water. And these new findings could add another million cubic kilometers to that total.
NATE: That’s a lot of water!
CALLI: Ya think?! So these underwater freshwater deposits add a new twist to our understanding of groundwater. The more they learn about their source - how that water got there - the more questions they have. Evans and other researchers have started scanning the ocean floors and have found more off our East Coast, around Australia, and South Africa, and he thinks these deposits could be just about anywhere and everywhere. And the thing is…these deposits could actually really come in handy in a very thirsty world.
NATE: Right - I know there are some concerns about access to water for some populations, especially in the future.
CALLI: According to the U.N., some 5 billion of us will face water shortages by 2050. And if you’re keeping track - that’s not so far in the future.
NATE: So the discovery of these fresh water deposits should be a game changer, right?
CALLI: It’s too soon to tell. There are a ton of things to consider before slurping up this H2O. First of all, not all of it is totally fresh. Some of it is just slightly brackish, which means you can use it, but you have to remove the salt first - and that’s super expensive and takes lots of energy. And once you drill into it, you actually risk having ocean water seep in, which could actually turn the entire deposit salty.
NATE: And if that aquifer is connected to one that we already use inland…that would be a disaster.
CALLI: Of epic proportions. There’s also a chance emptying out all that water could cause the ground to collapse.
NATE: Okay. So there’s a lot to consider.
CALLI: Exactly. But these new findings are changing how we understand the entire water cycle. And if they find a way to tap into it safely, it could change the lives of billions of people.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up.
CALLI: A new study has found a genetic link between having a high-pitched voice and the potential for high blood pressure. The study is shedding new light on our understanding of the human vocal system.
NATE: Researchers in the ancient Egyptian Theban Necropolis have used x-ray machines to get a glimpse behind the paintings in these ancient tombs - the first glimpse anyone has had in over 3,000 years. They found that the artists who painted these ancient works made lots of revisions, retouches, and changes, which surprised archaeologists. Using x-ray tech in situations like these could uncover a whole host of new discoveries.
CALLI: Researchers scanning the ocean floor have found several massive freshwater deposits underneath the ocean floor. They think deposits like this could exist all over the world, and could potentially be a new source of freshwater for a very thirsty world - that is, if they can pump it out safely.